The Tribological Characteristics of RBD Palm Olein with Jatropha Oil Blend Using Four-Ball Tribotester with Different Normal Loads

Abstract

Vegetable oils are bio-fluids that could replace petroleum-based products due to its environment friendly characteristics and becoming an important source of bio-lubricants. The great advantage of vegetable oils is that they are widely available, renewable source of bio-lubricants. Moreover, vegetable oil based lubricant have shown the potential to reduce carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon emissions when operated in engines. There are two ways to use vegetable oil as a bio-lubricant, either use directly the neat vegetable oil without any additives or use with certain blending ratio of the vegetable oil with mineral lubricant. In this paper, the influences of the normal load on the tribological characteristics for the blending of two types of vegetable oils were investigated and compared with commercial lubricant oil by the use of the four ball tribotester. The vegetable blends are RBD palm olein and Jatropha oil ratio of RBD40/J60. All experimental works were conforming to ASTM D4172. The results exhibited that the both blending of RBD palm olein and Jatropha oil has lower the wear scar of ball bearings and coefficient of friction compared to commercial lubricant oil. As a conclusion, the blending of RBD palm olein and Jatropha oil has better performance compared to commercial lubricant oil or neat RBD palm olein.