Tips on selecting synthetic gear oil.

Selecting synthetic gear oil can produce significant savings, but before making a decision it’s important to gain a better understanding of the critical points.

Synthetic gear oils are usually chosen when mineral gear oils can not meet the application requirements; by way of example, extreme temperatures, high loadingss, extreme ambient conditions, or special requirements such as flame retardant requirements.
While additives can improve mineral oils, it is not always possible to influence their performance as required. This applies particularly to physical properties such as:

• Temperature resistance 
• Low temperature performance 
• Flash point 
• Evaporation losses

Selecting synthetic gear oil has several advantages.

Synthetic oils provide a number of advantages over regular gear oils. The advantages of synthetic lubricating oils (depending on the base oil) include:

• improved thermal and oxidation resistance 
• improved viscosity-temperature behavior, high viscosity index (in most cases)
• improved low temperature properties 
• lower evaporation losses 
• reduced flammability (in some cases) 
• improved lubricity (in some cases) 
• lower tendency to form residues 
• improved resistance to ambient media 

Application-related advantages often prevail, increasing the use of synthetic lubricants as gear lubricants, especially under critical operating conditions. The most common synthetic types used include synthetic hydrocarbon oils (SHC), polyglycols (PAG) and ester oils (E).

Strengths when selecting synthetic gear oil.

The main advantage when selecting synthetic gear oil is the excellent low temperature behavior. It is possible to manufacture food-grade lubricants for the food processing and pharmaceutical industries with SHC base oils using special additives.

Polyglycols ensure especially low friction coefficients, which makes them suitable for gears with a high sliding percentage (worm and hypoid gears) when selecting synthetic gear oil. With the appropriate additives, they provide excellent antiwear protection in steel/bronze worm gears, and have a good extreme pressure performance. In gear systems, higher polarity polyglycols allow greater interaction on the metal gear surface. This gives polyglycols mild extreme pressure performance even without additives.

Selecting synthetic gear oil Based On Ester Oils.

There are many types of esters, all of them have an impact on the chemical and physical properties of lubricants. In the past, these lubricating oils were mainly used in aviation technology when selecting synthetic gear oil for the lubrication of aircraft engines and gas turbines as well as gear systems in pumps, starters, etc.

Ester oils have a high thermal resistance and excellent low temperature behavior. In industrial applications, rapidly biodegradable ester oils will gain importance because it seems possible to achieve the same efficiency as with polyglycol oils by selecting an appropriate ester base oil.

Application-Related Advantages when selecting synthetic gear oil.

The following application-related advantages result from the improved properties when selecting synthetic gear oil as compared to mineral oils:

• improved efficiency due to reduced tooth-related friction losses 
• lower gearing losses due to reduced friction, requiring less energy 
• extending gear life three to five times longer than mineral oils operating at the same temperature
• reduced operating temperatures under full load, increasing component life; cooling systems may not be required. 

It’s clear there are several advantages to selecting synthetic gear oil, but it’s important to remember that not all synthetic oils are the same so it’s important to choose a reputable supplier such as Habot oils, who produce high quality synthetic lubricants.