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Since the base oil component of engine oils, driveline fluids and industrial lubricants typically exceeds 80 wt. % of the formulation, the complex chemical composition of base oils is a critical parameter in defining the ultimate performance of the finished products into which they are blended. Using both statistical and Neural Network methods, we have correlated the relative distribution of molecular types such as aromatics, naphthenes, paraffins and certain sulfur-containing species to lubricant performance in the ASTM Sequence IIIE and VE gasoline engine tests as well as the ASTM D-943 test which measures the long-term oxidative stability of industrial oils. For all cases, the “modeling” procedures enable approximately 20 input variables (compositional parameters, VI, aniline point) to be used to predict the output ratings of the respective test procedures.

An investigation of the clean-up effects of a Combustion Chamber Deposit (CCD) detergent additive package on tailpipe exhaust emissions was conducted using (6) 1992 2.3L vehicles. Part one of this program was a deposit build-up phase for all cars and part two included two phases where, in the first phase, one-half of the cars were operated with the CCD detergent package and the other half were run as a control on the build-up fuel. In the final phase, the fuels were switched between the sets of vehicles to compensate for any vehicle to vehicle differences. A gasoline containing a detergent package which provided port fuel injector (PFI) and intake valve deposit (IVD) cleanliness performance in accordance with California Air Resources Board (CARB) requirements was used as the deposit build-up fuel for part one and as the control in part two. This fuel is typical of many gasolines that are in the market place today.

In 1993, a Presidential Executive Order was issued requiring that federal agencies purchase lubricants containing at least 25% re-refined base oil. In light of this initiative, we have undertaken a program to characterize the chemical composition of re-refined base stocks, provided by a number of manufacturers, using column chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry techniques. The hydrocarbon-type distribution observed for the re-refined oils provides an index of their relative quality when benchmarked against conventionally processed “virgin” and certain non-conventional, high viscosity index (VI) base oils.

An initial investigation into the effects of combustion chamber deposits (CCD) on tailpipe exhaust emissions has been completed. Four different model vehicles were evaluated for tailpipe emissions at four different deposit conditions. The deposit levels included a baseline clean level, a condition after deposit accumulation, a condition after CCD removal and finally a reevaluation after disassembly and mechanical clean up of the entire intake system. A special rig was developed using a walnut shell blasting device to allow cleaning of CCD without disturbing other engine deposits and without disassembly of the engine. This approach was taken to eliminate numerous time related variables and focus on the effects of CCD removal. The results of this investigation confirm that directionally HC, CO, and Nox all increased after the deposit accumulation period and decreased with the removal of CCD. However, statistically only Nox emissions increased significantly at the 90% confidence level.