Measurement of Viscosity and Elasticity of Lubricants at High Pressures

Abstract

The oscillating quartz crystal viscometer has been used to investigate possible viscoelastic behavior in synthetic lubricating fluids and to obtain viscosity-pressure-temperature data for these fluids at temperatures to 300 F and pressures to 40,000 psig. The effect of pressure and temperature on the density of the test fluids was measured concurrently with the viscosity measurements. Viscoelastic behavior of one fluid, di-(2-ethylhexyl) seba-cale, was observed over a range of pressures. These data were used to compute the reduced shear elastic (storage) modulus and reduced loss modulus for this fluid at atmospheric pressure and 100 F as functions of reduced frequency.