Tribological evaluation of vegetable oil based biolubricant blends enhanced with Al2O3 nano particles

Abstract

newlineThe plant-based resources are not only renewable in nature, but also contributes to the betterment of livelihood. This investigation is based on bridging the gap between the rapidly depleting fossil fuel-based lubricants with the emerging vegetable oils based biolubricant blends. This research work examines the ability of vegetable oil-based lubricant additives with the commercially used engine lubricant. The methyl esters of Neem, Pongamia and Tamanu oils were formulated by transesterification process and the same were blended with SAE20W40 oil with 10%, 20% and 30% of its volume to prepare the biolubricant blends. First set of tests were carried out with pin on disc tribotester under ASTM G99 standard and to associate the test results with real-time applications, the engine piston material LM13 Aluminium alloy was chosen for wear pin material. A similar experiment with the same material and tribotester was performed at elevated temperature of 120 degrees Celsius to study the ability of lubricants at higher temperatures. Experimental outcomes established that the biolubricant blends are capable of reducing wear and friction between surfaces. Especially the blends like N10, P10, P20, N20 are capable of reducing wear by about 77%, 52%, 92%, 81% respectively and the frictional coefficients of N10, P20 and T30 were found to be appreciable. Further, the wear resistance ability of vegetable oil-based lubricants was investigated by Four ball tester with ASTM D4172B standard which is a dedicated standard for evaluating the anti-wear characteristics of lubricants. In line with the pin on disc test, the results of four ball tester also proved that samples N10, P20 and T30 performed well in comparison.