Abstract
INVESTIGATION OF TRIBOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF VEGETABLE OIL BLENDS
Olawale Kazeem Babalola*, Bello Gambo Bichi and Basheer Garba Fagge
ABSTRACT
Lubricants are commonly used to reduce friction and wear from the sliding and metal contact surfaces, so as to allow the smooth movement of parts in each other, the calls for green ecology and legislations to protect environment and replace the mineral oil with bio-lubricant oils necessitated for this study. It is essential to find out alternative oil for the replacement of mineral oil based lubricants and vegetable oil already meets the requirements. Vegetable oils based bio- lubricants are non-toxic, biodegradable, and renewable and have a good lubricating performance than mineral oil based lubricant. The present study evaluates the tribological properties of Castor (C) and Neem (N) oil and their blends and this was compared to the conventional mineral oil. The friction and wear characteristics of the formulated oils were investigated by using four ball tribo tester according to ASTM D4172 method. 60N+40C showed higher viscosity and viscosity index compared to other formulated lubricants and it is better for boundary lubrication. Physico-chemical analysis showed that 100N oil exhibited high saponification value of (194.69MgKOH/g) which confirms its good quality for lubricant production, as compared to 100C oil of 179.23MgKOH/g. In thermal stability analysis, it was found that 60N+40C remains thermally stable than other formulated oils and 60N+40C showed a lower amount of coefficient of friction and wear scar diameter compared to other formulated oils and conventional mineral oil. Therefore the 60N+40C formulated oil from Castor and Neem oil has the potential of replacing the conventional mineral oil for industrial applications.
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