The tribological characteristic of the blends of RBD palm olein with mineral oil using four-ball tribotester

Abstract

Vegetable oils are sustainable fluids which have been promoted to replace petroleum-based oils due to its environment friendly characteristics; it is being a very important supply of biolubricant. The excellent advantage of vegetable oil is the fact it is really which can be used environment friendly supplier. In addition, vegetable oil based lubricant clearly show the possibility to minimize carbon monoxide also hydrocarbon emissions when used in IC engines. There are basically two different ways to using vegetable oil to be a bio-lubricant, either one by directly use the pure vegetable oil with additives or use certain blending ratio of vegetable oil with mineral lubricant. In this paper, the influences of the blending ratio of mineral oil with RBD palm olein on the tribological characteristics were investigated and compared with commercial lubricant oil by using the four ball tribotester. The blending ratio was varied from neat with interval of 20% by volume. All experimental works were conforming to ASTM D4172. The results exhibited that the blend of RBD palm olein with commercial lubricant 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 with commercial lubricant oil has better performance compared to commercial lubricant oil or pure RBD palm olein.