Nye Lubeletter - July 2010

Ultraclean Lubricants: A Specialized Process for Critical Applications

There is often a fine line between success and failure. In many specialized lubricant applications the difference between success or failure could be a particle size of a grain of sand or a molecular haze from an additive. Unfortunately, many design engineers do not pay enough attention to the cleanliness of the lubricants they specify for an application. They typically select lubricants for temperature, viscosity, wear protection, corrosion inhibition, and other functional properties. It is not until there is a high percentage of unexplained rejects or, worse, failures in the field that the spotlight turns to the lubricant. For over 35 years, Nye Lubricants has been involved in developing innovative procedures, test methods and equipment to provide ultraclean lubricants to the Aerospace, Semiconductor, and Photonic Industries. 

New Method for Evaluating the Scuffing Load Capacity of Gear Oils

The transmission of power through gearing systems is at the heart of many Automotive and Industrial applications. With the critical nature of gears to an application’s function, it is important that they be designed with long life and endurance in mind. At higher speeds of operation in a gearing system adhesive wear scuffing will start to occur. It is at this stage where the surface film strength of the oil as well as the additive package will show their true importance. Nye has developed a new method for testing scuffing wear that utilizes a SRV4 Linear Reciprocating Tribometer to simulate similar performances to the more expensive FZG Scuffing Wear test.