Abstract
With the increasing pressure to reduce emissions, friction reduction is always an up-to-date topic in the automotive industry. Among the various possibilities to reduce mechanical friction, the usage of a low-viscosity lubricant in the engine is one of the most effective and most economic options. Therefore, lubricants of continuously lower viscosity are being developed and offered on the market that promise to reduce engine friction while avoiding deleterious mixed lubrication and wear. In this work, a 1.6 L downsized Diesel engine is used on a highly accurate engine friction test-rig to determine the potential for friction reduction using low viscosity lubricants under realistic operating conditions including high engine loads. In particular, two hydrocarbon-based lubricants, 0W30 and 0W20, are investigated as well as a novel experimental lubricant, which is based on a polyalkylene glycol base stock. Total engine friction is measured for all three lubricants, which show a general 5% advantage for the 0W20 in comparison to the 0W30 lubricant. The polyalkylene glycol-based lubricant, however, shows strongly reduced friction losses, which are about 25% smaller than for the 0W20 lubricant. As the 0W20 and the polyalkylene glycol-based lubricant have the same HTHS-viscosity , the findings contradict the common understanding that the HTHS-viscosity is the dominant driver related to the friction losses.
Highlights
With increasingly strict worldwide emission legislation, the automotive industry is always on the quest to optimize the efficiency of the powertrain
It is interesting to note that the HTHS-viscosity of the 0W20 and the polyalkylene glycol-based lubricant is identical; so from a pure HTHS-viscosity point of view, the same level of engine friction might presumably be expected from the 0W20 and polyalkylene glycol-based ultra-low-viscosity lubricant (PG) lubricants
The potential for friction reduction by employing low viscosity lubricants is investigated in this study using a downsized Diesel engine on a highly accurate test-rig
Summary
With increasingly strict worldwide emission legislation, the automotive industry is always on the quest to optimize the efficiency of the powertrain. Common hydrocarbon-based lubricants have been used and investigated in the automotive sector for many decades [3,4,5,6,7,8]. Two hydrocarbon-based multi grade lubricants (0W30, 0W20) are investigated related to their potential to reduce engine friction. One of the new experimental lubricants, namely a polyalkylene glycol-based oil, is tested for comparison. For a discussion of this uncommon lubricant class, the authors refer to [11,12,16,17] These lubricants are tested on a highly accurate engine test-rig using a downsized Diesel engine under a large range of operating conditions including high load operation. The same polyalkylene glycol lubricant has been tested recently for use in an automotive engine [16]. In comparison to their work, the present work is the first to test this lubricant under an applied engine load, which generates considerably higher stresses in the lubricated contacts
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