Program to Compare Deuterated Lubricant with Synthetic Hydrocarbon Lubricant

摘要

A program was conducted under subcontract to Geo-Centers Inc., Newton Upper Falls, MA (subcontract No. 80-7001) to evaluate, by direct comparison, the performance of a synthetic hydrocarbon lubricant with a modified version in which the hydrogen has been replaced by deuterium. The program was conducted in two tasks as follows: Operating Bearing Evaluation; and Controlled Slip Evaluation. It was found in Task I that at each test temperature the deuterated grease performed better, that is, ran for a longer time before the bearing torque doubled, than the hydrogenerated grease. In the controlled slip evaluation a qualitative difference in degradation rates between the hydrogenated and deuterated oils was observed for the flooded, high slip, low pressure ball-to-ball contacts in these tests. The deuterated oil showed lower degradation rates. No difference could be shown for the high pressure, low slip ball-to-race contacts. (Author)