Parker Hannifin (United Kingdom)

Water enters engine oil in different ways and moves in the lubrication system causing an increase in wear, oil degradation and additives depletion. It has been proposed that water in the lubricants can transfer from dissolved to free phase leading to additives depletion in the oil. Different additives in the lubricants can easily latch to water molecules forming reverse micelles. The separation of reverse micelles from the oil causes additives depletion. This experimental and analytical study aims to investigate how the separation of free water above the saturation level can diminish the efficiency of additives in engine oils. The effect of varied levels of water on oil performance and its additives was investigated in this study. A new saturation method was used to determine the water saturation level in engine oil at different temperatures. The results reveal a decrease in additive concentration with increased separation of free water from the oil. Free water separation from engine oil is expected to reclaim the tribological performance, however, the results demonstrate that tribological performance after the separation of free water from the oil has been affected. The study showed not only does the removal of free water diminish the efficiency of additives due to additives depletion (≈ 10 wt%), but also the remaining dissolved water which is ≈ 2600 ppm can also affect wear and tribofilm chemistry. The results prove that two main mechanisms influence oil performance expressed as additives depletion by free water and remaining dissolved water.

We demonstrate thermal classification of sequentially written fiber Bragg gratings. This Letter presents a process to determine the type of fiber Bragg grating written in SMF28 and GF4A by introducing the gratings to thermal treatment. This technique can be applied to several approaches based on sequential writing, including the small spot direct ultraviolet writing technique. Four different types of gratings have been identified, which are dependent on the fiber type and fluence used during the writing process.

<div>In modern diesel fuel a proportion of biodiesel is blended with petro-diesel to reduce environmental impacts. However, it can adversely affect the operation of nonwoven coalescing filter media when separating emulsified water from diesel fuel. This can be due to factors such as increasing water content in the fuel, a reduction in interfacial tension (IFT) between the water and diesel, the formation of more stable emulsions, and the generation of smaller water droplets. Standard water/diesel separation test methods such as SAE J1488 and ISO 16332 use monoolein, a universal surface-active agent, to simulate the effects of biodiesel on the fuel properties as part of water separation efficiency studies. However, the extent to which diesel/monoolein and diesel/biodiesel blends are comparable needs to be elucidated if the underlying mechanisms affecting coalescence of very small water droplets in diesel fuel with a low IFT are to be understood.</div> <div>To address this challenge, test fuels composed of reference diesel (REF diesel)/biodiesel and REF diesel/monoolein were experimentally studied to determine fuel properties such as IFT, water content, and dynamic viscosity, as well as online droplet size distributions with reference to IFT. It was found that biodiesel and monoolein do not influence the IFT of water in fuel in a comparable manner and resulting water droplet size distributions are substantially different. Fuels blended with biodiesel exhibited higher viscosity and water content than fuel freshly blended with monoolein. Online measurement of water droplet sizes revealed substantially smaller water droplets in biodiesel blends compared to monoolein blends at the same IFT measured using offline tensiometry. These results may be instructive for the development of standard test methods that simulate the effect of biodiesel blends in fuel-water separation, as well as for improving the design of fuel-water separation systems.</div>