In today’s industrial landscape, consistent lubricant performance under real-world conditions is crucial for operational reliability and equipment longevity. Field trials are invaluable, validating lubricants beyond lab metrics and testing them against real-world stresses, such as those in passenger vehicle engines.
Why Field Trials?
Lab tests, while foundational, can fall short on assessing durability when real-world conditions introduce variable factors like temperature changes, load shifts, and environmental contaminants. Field trials bridge the gap, providing a true gauge of lubricant effectiveness outside of controlled environments.
These trials often involve several monitoring techniques:
- Lubrication Management Systems (LMS): Tracking all lubrication tasks—including maintenance, failure modes, and work types—LMS data refines practices to align with maintenance objectives, enhancing equipment uptime.
- Oil Condition Monitoring (OCM): By regularly analysing oil samples, OCM identifies trends in lubricant degradation and issues like oxidation or contamination, helping prevent failures and extend lubricant life in line with operational goals.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): KPIs balance both proactive and historical insights. Leading indicators, like OCM trends, help forecast failures, while lagging indicators, like oil analysis reports, track past performance, providing a full picture of lubricant health and reliability.
Challenges in Field Trials: Contamination Control and Driver Variability
Managing contaminants that can degrade lubricant quality is a major challenge in field trials. Factors like water ingress, dust, and temperature changes affect performance, and field trials identify areas needing modifications to enhance robustness.
Driver variability presents another challenge in passenger car trials. Each driver’s unique style—whether aggressive acceleration or smooth braking—affects wear and thermal stress on lubricants. This variability complicates benchmarks but also provides essential data on resilience across driving styles, requiring rigorous analysis to ensure formulations can withstand the range of real-world driving behaviours.
Valorem’s Commitment
At Valorem Chemicals, we work closely with supply partners who rigorously validate the efficacy of additive packages and components through field trials. These trials are critical for understanding how each additive—from anti-wear agents to dispersants—performs under demanding, real-world conditions. By partnering with suppliers committed to high standards of testing, we ensure every additive package in our lubricants delivers proven reliability, durability, and efficiency.