SECTOR FOCUS: RAILWAY LUBRICANTS
Eco-friendly lubricants:
Choose the best formulation for railway applications Benjamin PLÉE, R&D Project Manager, CONDAT S.A., France
INTRODUCTION In Europe, the railway sector is a part of our daily lives. In France, more than 3.8 Billion passengers use the almost 30 000 km of railway network each day (the second largest railway network in Europe after Germany). All the infrastructure and rolling materials need lubrication. Due to the increase of Eco-citizen concerns, we aim to provide more and more Eco-friendly and heavy-duty lubricants.
Raw material selection is the key to offering the most appropriate lubricants for the railway industry. Prior laboratory work guarantees suitable biodegradable products for various applications such as: Switch- plates, Wheel flanges, Curve tracks and Buffers.
METHODOLOGY & EXPERIMENTS FORMULATION PLAN The base oil choice for railway greases is essential to fulfil the necessary application specifications. It is the reason why several esters used in the manufacture of greases have been screened and studied in terms of: • Resistance to oxidation • Resistance to UV • Wear reduction
Figure 2. Greases characteristics and compositions.
AGEING TEMPERATURE The resistance to oxidation was tested using the Rapid Small Scale Oxidation Test (RSSOT, see Figure 3). The test parameters such as the initial pressure have been defined for this study and are the same for all the trials.
The main characteristics of these raw materials and greases are summarised in Figure 1 (above) and Figure 2 (below). Three types of Biobased oil, with similar viscosity, are selected and thickened by organophilic clay.
According to their operational results, two greases for railway market are formulated.
Figure 1. Thickened Biobased A, B & C characteristics and compositions.
Figure 3. Rapid Small Scale Oxidation test.
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LUBE MAGAZINE NO.150 APRIL 2019
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