White Paper Industrial Lubricants（白皮书工业润滑油）.pdfVIP

White Paper LE WHITE PAPER Putting the Simple Back into Viscosity Putting the Simple Back into Viscosity Written by John Sander Vice President of Technology Lubrication Engineers, Inc. © 2011 Lubrication Engineers, Inc. 1 The Lubrication Reliability Source™ 800-537-7683 LE WHITE PAPER Putting the Simple Back into Viscosity Abstract: Simply stated, viscosity is defined as the internal resistance of a fluid to flow. That doesn’t sound too difficult, does it? Unfortunately, new temperature, speed and pressure demands on lubricating fluids have changed over the years, resulting in several different measurements and classifications being created to describe lubricant viscosity. Some examples are SUS, cSt, cP, ISO, SAE engine, SAE gear and AGMA; it’s enough to make a person’s head start to spin. This paper will summarize some of the more commonly used viscosity standards, describe the tests used to measure viscosity, and eliminate some of the confusion all of these standards may create for the end user. Introduction In recent years, some large lubricant marketers have run advertisements on TV that highlight the importance of viscosity breakdown. These advertisements make it seem like viscosity is a complex chemical property of the fluid, when in fact it is a measurement of a physical property. Simply stated, viscosity is a measure of a fluid’s internal resistance to flow. A good example of this was provided in one of the TV ads, which showed two oils being cooled until one continued to flow out of the bottle readily, while the second dropped out in blobs. The resistance to flow, or