Tribological studies of metal v-belt cvt lubricants for automotive application

Abstract

Increase in awareness on the global climate issues forces the automotive industry players to focus more on new technologies that are efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly. In line with this, a research has been carried out on the development of an environmentally friendly lubricant for Electro Mechanical Dual Acting Pulley (EMDAP) continuously variable transmission (CVT). This research consists of two parts. In the first part, three standard based lubricants, namely HONDA Continuously Variable Transmission Fluid (CVTF), PROTON Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF) and Refined, Bleached and Deodorized (RBD) Palm Olein, were tested and analyzed in terms of wear/tear, friction and pressure properties based on ASTM D4172 Test B and ASTM D2873 methods. The results show that RBD Palm Olein has the best performance in wear/tear and friction properties as compared to HONDA CVTF and PROTON ATF. However, RBD Palm Olein is less effective in terms of pressure properties as compared to PROTON ATF, although it has the same performance as the benchmarked HONDA CVTF in this area. In the second part of this research, the effects of blending the RBD Palm Olein with HONDA CVTF and PROTON ATF were analyzed. The results of this analysis show that the blending of 20 percent RBD Palm Olein into PROTON ATF increases its performance in terms of wear/tear and also friction properties as compared to the standard PROTON ATF. On the contrary, the blending of RBD Palm Olein with HONDA CVTF leads to no contribution to the wear protection and friction coefficient. It can be concluded from this research that RBD Palm Olein has the potential to be used as a base lubricant for CVT in automotive applications.