The use of vegetable oil as the base fluid for environmentally responsible lubricants has gained popularity over the past three decades, first in Europe during the 1980's due to various laws placed on petroleum products, then during the 1990's as many American companies began to develop seed oil based lubricants as well. Beyond environmental advantages, vegetable-based hydraulic fluids have several advantages that should be considered for industrial lubricant performance and usage. They have excellent lubricity, over and above petroleum oil. A literature search shows bio-hydraulic fluids offer enhanced lubricity versus petro-hydraulic fluids. Using ASTM D2670-Falex Pin & Vee Block Test to measure wear, then using prescribed formulary for converting wear data into coefficients of friction, our own experimental measurements showed a 20 to 70% reduction in the coefficient of friction (average of 57%) for canola-based vegetable oils, which correlates to better lubricity protection when the selected bio-hydraulic fluids were compared to the selected conventional petro-hydraulic fluids.
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