Influence of lubricant properties on elastohydrodynamic lubrication

In hard EHL, encountered in, e.g., gears, rolling element bearings etc. the properties of the lubricant play a significant role in the forming of a lubricating film and reducing friction between the contacting surfaces. The influence of pressure and temperature on viscosity, limiting shear stress and density, has to be taken into account when creating lubricant models to be used in numerical calculations of film thickness and friction. This paper describes some experimental methods to determine these properties of a number of different lubricating oils, both from mineral, vegetable and synthetic origin. The results show that, apart from 5P4E, naphthenic mineral oil has the highest values of pressure–viscosity as well as limiting shear stress–pressure coefficients. It also exhibits the highest density increase with pressure. Rapeseed oil has a rather high pressure–viscosity coefficient but a low limiting shear stress–pressure coefficient as well as a low density increase with pressure. Thus, rapeseed oil is a strong alternative to naphthenic (and also paraffinic) oil since it has the ability to form a relatively thick oil film and at the same time give a low coefficient of friction. Ester, polyglycol and polyalphaolefin oils also exhibit low values of friction but are not equally good as rapeseed oil to form a lubricant film as a result of their lower pressure–viscosity coefficients.