Experimental Investigation of Tribo-Corrosive Nature of Biodiesel and its Effect on Lubricating System

Abstract

The population of the world is growing very rapidly, which results in the increasing demand of energy in the transportation sector and a precipitous diminution in the reserve of fossil fuel. The lack of alternatives for fossil fuel and the vulnerabilities of the environment encouraged many researchers to investigate biodiesel as the most promising fuel. Biodiesel diminishes the major environmental concerns and also it will fulfil the demand energy conservation and fuel. The present investigation has been carried out to study the effect of multiple parameters governing the tribo-corrosion behaviour of aluminium in the presence of biodiesel. Experiments were conducted with three types of oil, taking bio-oil as a composition to find out the effect of corrosion in the aluminium faces. A test rig was fabricated taking ASTM standard to perform morphological analysis of the sample, and a pin-on-disc test rig is used to execute standard wear testing of it. Localised melting was observed during the experiment for the last 30 s when a load was of 20 N at a speed of 4.2 m/s in the absence of any lubrication. But in the presence of lubrication, no such melting was observed due to lesser friction and whatever frictional heat generated was taken away by the contacting fluid. Further, the experimental study concludes that the corrosion rate was found much more in vapours as compared to the condition where samples are entirely immersed in biodiesel. Hence synergism of wear, friction, and corrosion related to this experimental study plays a vital role in the performance of biodiesel.