1.0 Introduction
Oil is viscous combustible, water — immiscible liquids that are soluble in certain organic solvent as ether and naphtha; may be of an animal, vegetable, mineral or synthetic origin. We have various types such as fixed oils, volatile or essential oils and mineral oils.
Motor oil belongs to the class of fixed oils, which derive its source from crude oil, or petroleum. It is used as either lubricant to reduce friction between two surfaces in contact, to prevent corrosion and also to power some automatic engines.
Crude oil, or petroleum which is the origin of motor oil, is the most valuable and the most versatile of earths buried treasures. Oil provides us with a number of different fuels, each of which is essential to modern civilization. Petrol, aviation fuel, diesel fuel and heating oil are all refined from crude oil. During the last 100 years, the search for oil has spread to ever more remote and difficult areas: hot deserts, offshore water and polar wastes.
More recently, natural gas has also emerged as an important fuel, and in many parts of the word it is piped directly into houses for domestic heating an0d cooking. Oil and gas are frequently found together. By weight, oil and gas consist almost entirely of the elements carbon and hydrogen. Chemically, these two elements are combined into thousand of different compounds known as hydrocarbons. Oil and gas occur in natural underground reservoirs that may lie thousands of metre below the surface.
Both oil and gas have been known since ancient times, but they were very little used before the 1860s. The first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania, USA, 1859. Within a few decades, oil had also been discovered in other countries. The most recently — developed oil field are in the polar regions of Alaska and Siberia.
Oil has become the world's most important fuel, which, when refined, is used for domestic and industrial heating and for powering the engines of our machines. Natural gas was once considered a waste product, but is now widely exploited as a heating fuel.
There are various other useful by-product obtained from crude oil, or petroleum, such as petrochemical used as raw material for many industries, and organic solvent like Methane, Hexane etc.
Motor oil is highly viscous and soapy in nature to the touch. It has a high density and high boiling point of 800kgm-3 and 4000C respectively. Motor oil is a selected fraction of refined petroleum with or without additives used to modify frictional effects between moving parts. There are varieties of motor branded and unbranded grades.
However, in the course of this project emphasis will be laged on the branded motor oil. A good numbers of the branded oil will be examined by identifying and analyzing the characteristic qualities of the various brands. Motor oil in this sense refers to the engine oils.
Designing lubricates or motor oil to perform function of friction and wear reduction, heat removal and contaminate suspension in different systems are a complex tusk, involving a careful balance of properties both in the lube base struck and the performance enhancing additives. It is known that between five and ten thousand different lubricants, lubrication formulations are necessary to satisfy more than 90% of all lubricant applications.
1.1 Scope and Objectives
The objectives of this project is to study and analyse the characteristics of lubricating oil of various brands and their formulations. The characteristic properties of all the lubricating oils and their classification.
This project provide an overview of all the characteristics of lubricating oil especially those of the branded types, and factors affecting proper lubricant performance.
Also, investigated in this piece are lubrication theory, base stock characteristics, additives and its functions.
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