MODERN TECHNIQUES IN LUBRICATION RESEARCH

This paper provides a few examples of techniques that are being used at the Thornton Research Centre of “Shell” Research Limited in the development of lubricants. No attempt has been made to provide a detailed description of how the techniques were developed or how they are used. For some of them detailed information is already available in published articles or papers, and references are provided; others are still in the development stage and more information will probably be published at some later date. It will be obvious that to attempt to cover any one of these developments in detail would require much more time than is either at your disposal or mine, and I have therefore given only sufficient detail to perhaps whet your appetites for more. Typical of the sorts of information required for lubricant development are the following :— 1. Accurate temperature measurements of the moving and/or contacting and rubbing surfaces of the mechanism to be lubricated. 2. A qualitative or quantitative assessment of surface damage of contacting or rubbing parts. 3. An accurate measurement of wear rate. 4. An accurate measurement of the chemical change occurring on the surface of rubbing components in the presence of E.P. additives. This list could be extended almost indefinitely but it provides a fair cross‐section of the type of information likely to be required for the development of a lubricant. This sort of information must often be obtained from simulated mechanisms specially instrumented and designed, but we are designing lubricants for actual mechanism, gear trains, transmissions, bearings, clutch plates, etc., where it is extremely rare to find provision or access for the qualitative and/or quantitative examination so desired. As a result very elaborate and complicated methods have sometimes to be employed to obtain the necessary information. The following techniques represent only a few of those that have been used or are being used, but I hope they will demonstrate how some of our difficulties ware overcome.