Synthetics Meet Today’s Lubricant Challenges

Formulations at High Performance Lubricants (HPL) are mixed in this 3,000-gal.-capacity tank, based on formulations stored in the database. Once mixed, samples are tested in the laboratory before shipping. Photos: Gary L. Parr

As machine designs evolve and energy efficiency remains a priority, synthetic lubricants are providing reliability professionals with an improved return on investment.

By Grant Gerke, Contributing Editor

Synthetic lubricants are quietly finding new footing in manufacturing. Maintenance teams and reliability programs are learning more about how polyalphaolefins, glycols, and esters achieve better viscosity at higher temperatures. They can also provide excellent friction coefficients for machines that operate at high temperatures and loads.

“A lot of companies out there don’t understand what lubrication is all about,” said Ken Bannister, principal asset-management consultant at EngTech Industries, Innerkip, Ontario, and Maintenance Technology contributing editor. “Manufacturers don’t treat the lubricant as a component of the machine, such as a pump or a motor. They just treat it as a consumable.”

Most original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs) provide general types of oil guidelines for their customers that fall into these categories: resistance and oxidation (R&O), anti-wear (AW), extreme pressure (EP), compounded, and motor oil. While providing general guidelines, OEMs place the onus on manufacturers to specify the right lubricant.

“Synthetic lubricants are ideal for use in newer machine designs with smaller components that operate at higher temperatures and/or greater rotational speeds,” stated Les Rudnick, consultant at Designed Materials Group, Scottsdale, AZ. “Synthetic fluids perform very well in more extreme conditions, both at high temperatures and under lower ambient conditions. Longer drain intervals and energy efficiency are also benefits of many synthetic formulated oils.”

All base oils for industrial and retail lubricants, including mineral oils from a refinery, are split into five different categories, according to the American Petroleum Institute, Washington. Synthetic oils comprise Groups III through V, with the latter two categories originating from a chemical plant. Mineral-based oils fall into the first three categories. Group IV includes polyalphaolefins (PAO) and Group V is silicones, esters, and glycols.

For worm-gear applications, Hermann Siebert, head of marketing & application engineering at Kluber Lubrication, East Europe, recently conducted synthetic base testing on how lower friction can improve efficiency. Higher-end glycol-based synthetics show “significant friction reduction for worm gears and produce lower energy consumption at constant output power.” Additionally, the testing indicated that, “when polyglycol oils are used in heavily loaded worm gears, temperature reductions by more than 40 C and energy savings of 30% are realistic.”

For Group IV synthetics, such as PAOs, Siebert noted “that these types could be recommended for old gears in food processing and pharmaceutical machinery where compatibility with paints and seals of unknown origin are a particular priority.”

Synthetic-lubricant performance has shown dramatic step-change improvements with viscosity and other performance characteristics, but additives are the other part of the equation. “Synthetic base oil doesn’t deplete, but the additives can decompose and rigorous lab analysis needs to be done by machinery OEMs or third parties,” said Bannister. He added, “If a manufacturer continually runs equipment at 105% or 110% over its design capacity, machines will fail, usually because of a bearing issue due to a lubricant failure.”

Synthetic lubricants work well in machines with small components that operate at high temperatures or high rotations.

Innovation through flexibility

Manteno, IL-based High Performance Lubricants LLC (HPL), is a producer of synthetic oils for industrial and retail customers, with an emphasis on new formula iterations. The company formulates synthetic greases and lubricants from base oils—in API’s Groups III through V—and chemically processed additives. The synthetic additives can include corrosion inhibitors, viscosity index improvers, and anti-wear and extreme-pressure additives.

“We were in lubrication distribution before we ever decided to make our own product,” said David Ward, principal at HPL. “We wanted flexibility to be responsive to a customer’s needs. One big advantage is being able to produce multiple samples of an oil or grease in days, instead of months.” 

HPL differs from large lubricant producers by providing smaller (1,000 to 3,000 gal.) blends to customers. The company also offers solutions to partners with limited knowledge and bandwidth for lubrication.

HPL’s business model includes white-labeling synthetic lubricants in the retail and industrial industries, and developing custom formulations for National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) race teams. The company also formulates synthetics for several NHRA teams and teams at other levels of motor-sport racing.

“We recommend that customers judge our performance via oil analysis and field data,” said Ward. For manufacturing, HPL hires third-party oil analysts to perform lubricant tests for customers, providing essential feedback for synthetic formulations.

The three-year old Manteno formulation facility encompasses approximately 45,000 sq. ft. and houses a blending area, warehouse, quality-control lab, and offices. One of the first things you notice upon entering the company’s lubricant plant is its cleanliness. 

“We’re climate controlled, so everything is contained in the building and nothing is susceptible to moisture,” said Ward. “Everything that’s in the building is clean, pure, and dry.” When oil and additives are delivered to the building, the raw materials are immediately tested for cleanliness and how closely they match the manufacturer’s sample specifications.

The company invested $600,000 in a state-of-the-art testing laboratory for quality-control procedures and rapid formulations. “We make blends quickly and very accurately,” said Ward.  “We also blend by weight here, instead of volume.” For example, HPL can blend with a 1,000-gal. tank and have an accuracy be within 0.1 lb.

“Our blend controllers are made by Mettler Toledo, and we have the ability to transmit the formula from the lab to our blend tanks,” he stated. “The system has the capability of recording every ingredient that goes into a batch and storing it in a database. If a customer calls, we can enter the batch number and, in 30 seconds, we can have a full screen of information about that formulation and product’s quality-control data.” 

High-performing synthetics from HPL have helped a government fleet of 14,000 vehicles realize savings from increasing a 3,000-mile oil change average to approximately 15,000 to 20,000 miles. For this fleet, the company created an engine lubricant from a blend of Group III, IV, and V base oils. The fleet customer now uses a third of the amount of oil it used in the previous three years.

“If you formulate for quality with better base oils and additives, then you can actually save money based on performance,” explained Ward.

A climate-controlled and ultra-clean facility help assure High Performance Lubricant customers that their formulations will perform as designed.

Slicing the competition

Urschel Laboratories Inc., Chesterton, IN, produces several types of food machinery. The 105-yr.-old company is known for its slicing, dicing, and grinding food machines. “All of our machines have rotating gears, knives, or blades,” said Mike Jacko, vice president of engineering. “These simple-to-use machines are easy to take apart, change cut sizes, reassemble, and keep sanitary.”

Urschel values continuous improvement and research and design for its machines as the food industry rapidly changes. Early in the company’s history, most of its machines used an open-sleeve bearing design, with shafts leading through to spindles that had knives attached to them.

About 20 years ago, Urschel’s designers adopted an internal spindle design based on an enclosure that eliminated sanitary issues. This design isolated internal moving parts from food. In doing so, the design required new thinking on spindle lubricants.

“One of my projects included an all-purpose dicer that could slice and dice anything from 0.28 to 0.70 in.,” said Jacko. “The spindle had articulated knives with little cams and would rotate at 12,000 rpm, and you had to pump grease basically every hour to keep that spindle live.”

Stopping a machine on a food-plant floor every hour to grease a spindle isn’t an option for its customers. So, Urschel’s engineering team began testing different food-grade greases, from higher-end synthetics to non-PAO greases that contained clay. After two months of exhaustive spindle testing that included simulated food-plant conditions, including water-contact applications, the company chose the first synthetic lubricant in its history.    

“During testing, the machine’s spindle ran for 30 to 40 hours with the synthetic grease and did it under the worst conditions—water and heat,” stated Jacko. “Going forward, Urschel instructed clients that re-greasing could take place every eight hours with the new synthetic product.”

Urschel has been sourcing Group IV synthetic grease lubricants from HPL and, in the process, now offers food producers private-label lubricants with considerable benchmarked, performance data behind them. “There’s a big confidence level when people talk about Urschel and our lubricants,” said Jacko.

His company’s equipment needs are just one example of the demands that today’s manufacturing machinery places on lubricants. The ability to protect bearings and gears at ever-increasing speeds, often in harsh (heat, corrosion, moisture) conditions, and the desire to extend maintenance cycles have been—and will continue to be—the major hurdles lubricants must clear. In most applications, industries have reached a point where conventional mineral lubricants can no longer measure up. Synthetic lubricants are rapidly filling the void and, in many cases, meeting and exceeding performance requirements. MT

Grant Gerke is a business writer with more than 15 years covering manufacturing and enterprise software, automation platforms, packaging applications, and energy infrastructure.

The NHRA Vance and Hines race team turned to HPL lubricants to help reduce its pro stock Suzuki elapsed times. Photo: Vance and Hines

Racing and Testing

When you see hot rods and motorcycles racing past spectators in a matter of seconds, durability isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. However, the legendary National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Vance and Hines race team turned to High Performance Lubricants (HPL), Manteno, IL, in a quest to reduce its pro stock Suzuki elapsed times. 

“When we started with Vance and Hines, we improved upon their previous oil for their diamond-like coatings for their cam followers but didn’t improve it to the level they wanted to see,” said HPL’s David Ward. “That’s racing; multiple iterations until you get it right. We had to develop four formulations to reach what the team was looking for.”

Small changes to fully synthetic oils for the various engine components can result in small increases in horsepower, which can be the difference between winning and losing. Ward noted that some specialized, traditional racing oils have inherent limitations when it comes to higher heat, such as 120 to 130 F. Racing power and vacuum can fall dramatically if vehicles exceed that temperature range.

“Based on our success with the race engines, Vance and Hines is about to release a synthetic engine oil for street vehicles that will be available in retail stores,” added Ward.

Racing is a valuable development tool for HPL: “It’s a catalyst for the company, said Ward, “we see results very quickly in racing and it allows us to implement lessons learned in racing to our industrial product line as a whole.”

For more information about lubricants, visit the following URLs:

• American Petroleum Institute
• STLE
• What’s in a Lubricant Series: Synthetic Base Oils