Comparison between Sunflower Oil and Soybean Oil as Gear Lubricant

Abstract

Advanced research on vegetable oils as gear lubricants became a topic of interest in green technology where natural resources could be appliedin transportation and industry. The main objectives are to meet demand and monitor the impact of human involvement. Many researches have suggested that vegetable oil has the potential as an alternative lubricant for many engineering process although it has some disadvantages such as oxidative instability and poor properties at low temperature. The use of vegetable oils as a helical gear lubricant has not been studied before. This study is to experimentally analyse the performance of sunflower oil and soybean oil as gear lubricants. An oil test data was taken periodically from the gear test rig within 80 consecutive hours. The performance of sunflower and soybean oils were analysed based on lubricant properties such as kinematic viscosity and viscosity index. The experimental data was compared to the ideal performance of a synthetic gear lubricant. The findings show that sunflower oil has better lubricant properties compared to soybean oil. Sunflower oil shows appreciable high temperature properties as synthetic gear lubricant.