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Prediction of Pressure-Viscosity Coefficient of Environmentaly Friendly

Vegetable Oils from Adiabatic Bulk Modulus Based on Sound Velocity under
Atmospheric Pressure

Conference Paper · February 2014

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Prediction of Pressure-Viscosity Coefficient of Environmentaly
Friendly Vegetable Oils from Adiabatic Bulk Modulus Based on
Sound Velocity under Atmospheric Pressure
Nobuyoshi Ohno1, Hirohito Mori1, Toshifumi Mawatari1, Bo Zhang1, Bunji Ono1, Sobahan Mia 2
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Saga University, Saga, JAPAN
2
Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, Khulna, BANGLADESH
Corresponding author, E-mail address: ohno@me.saga-u.ac.jp (N. Ohno)

Abstract
At first, authors measured the high-pressure viscosity up to 0.4 GPa and temperatures from 20C to
80C of six vegetable oil (castor oil, olive oil, rapeseed oil, coconut oil, mustard oil and camellia oil).
Next, the sound velocity of vegetable oil is mesaured by the sing-around method. Also, the adiabatic
bulk modulus is calculated by Wood equation using the sound velocity. Finally, we tried to find out the
relations between the adiabatic bulk modulus and pressure-viscosity coefficient of vegetable oils. It
can be concluded that the pressure-viscosity coefficient α of vegetable oils can be predicted from the
adiabatic bulk modulus based on sound velocity under atmospheric pressure.
Keywords:vegetable oil, rheology, adiabatic bulk modulus, sound velocity, pressure-viscosity
coefficient

1. INTRODUCTION
So far, a number of studies of vegetable oil have been developed with respect to environment friendly
lubricants and the raw materials of biofuels [Bartz, 1998]. The main component of vegetable oils has
glyceride of fatty acids, they have a superior to the performance for boundary lubrication. However,
the limitations of vegetable oils are their high cost, and their thermal and oxidation instability.
Environment friendly lubricant and BDF (biodiesel fuel) is the key demand in 21 st century for the issue
of global climate change. Vegetable oils as base oil for lubricants and BDF are environmentally
preferable to petroleum. Vegetable oils have a good elastohydrodynamic traction properties [Biresaw
et al, 2010] but their high-pressure behavior is not investigated yet properly. It is well known that the
pressure-viscosity coefficient α is an important parameter in EHL tribology as the load parameter αp
(p:mean Hertzian contact pressure) for the traction control and the lubricant parameter αη (η: viscosity
under atmospheric pressure) for the prevention of surface failure under EHL. The pressure-viscosity
coefficient α is an important parameter in tribology. There are many correlations to the predicted α
using the physical properties at the atmospheric pressure [Wu et al, 1989]. But, most of them suffer
disadvamtage due to their containing complex equation forms, requiring data and providing low
accuracy. The authors previously pointed out that the pressure-viscosity coefficient can be predicted
from adiabatic bulk modulus [Mia et al, 2009]. As a result, two equation was proposed, one for the
traction oil and another for the paraffinic mineral oil and polyalphaolefin oil. This study investigated the
environmentally friendly vegetable oils.

2. EXPERIMENTAL
2.1 Sample Oil
Castor oil, olive oil, rapeseed oil, coconut oil, mustard oil and camellia oil were tested. All samples
were obtained from commercial sources and used as supplied without further purification. The list of
tested oils and their physical properties are given in Table 1, where saturated fatty acid wt % is the
total of lauric acid, myristic acid, palmitic acid and stearic acid in vegetable oil triglycerides.

Table 1 Physical properties of vegetable oils

Density Viscosity Saturated
Oil name ρ[g/cm3] ν[mm2/s] fatty acid
15C 40C 100C wt %
Castor oil 0.965 262 19.8 2.1
Olive oil 0.917 38.7 8.28 13.1
Rapeseed oil 0.922 35.1 8.03 5.7
Coconut oil 0.926 27.6 5.89 77.0
Mustard oil 0.920 44.1 9.41 5.1
Camellia oil 0.919 40.1 8.50 10.3
2.2 Sound Velocity Measurement
Sound velocity was measured by the Sing around UVM-2 apparatus. Apparatus consists of an oil
container with 2 ultrasonic transducers. The Sing around device combines with the ultrasonic
transducer and measures the supersonic wave spread time in a sample liquid. The basic principle of
this device is the ultrasonic wave pulse launched from the transmission oscillator propagates in the
sample and is received to the reception oscillator. It is converted into mono pulse after auto gain
control amplified, the delay circuit passes and the trigger does the transmission circuit to the received
supersonic wave pulse again. Sing around device displayed total propagation time of the cycle
including delay time. It also displayed only delay time of the circuit. The propagation time of the
sample inside can be measure from the difference of the above mentioned times of the cycle when
propagation will be steady. Sound velocity was calculated from the propagation time and sample
length. Figure 1 shown the circuit used to measure the sound velocity using Sing around method.

Fig. 1 Sing around circuit [Mia et al, 2009]

2.3 High-Pressure Viscosity measurement

Viscosity of test oils at high pressure was measured by the falling ball viscometer [Mawatari et al,
2013]. The principle is that a solid body, having a higher density than the liquid to be tested, slowly
falls through a liquid filled tube. The density difference and the gap between the falling body and the
tube wall determine the viscosity of the falling body. Experiment was done at the oil temperature of
20C to 80C in the range of viscosity  <103 Pas and the pressure up to 0.4 GPa. The actual
measurement value of the high-pressure viscosity of coconut oil and mastard oils at different
temperature has shown in Figure 2 [Mawatari et al, 2013]. From the Barus’s equation, it can be written
that ln(/) = p; and from this relation it can be calculated the pressure-viscosity coefficient
experimentally by measuring viscosities at different high-pressure.
103 103
Mustard oil
102
Coconut oil 102
crystallization
pwax=0.07GPa pwax=0.33GPa
10 1 101
η,Pa・s

crystallization
η,Pa・s

pwax=0.22GPa pwax=0.21GPa
100 100 0℃

10-1 10-1
100℃ 20℃
100℃ 40℃
10-2 60℃ 10-2 40℃
60℃
80℃ 80℃
10-3 10-3
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
p,GPa p,GPa
Fig. 2 Pressure-viscosity-temperature relation of coconut oil and mastard oil

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results of sound velocity measurement of each oil show in Table 1. Sound velocity U in oils is
measured at different temperature. Sound velocity decreases proportionaly with the temperatures
since the molecular bonding is loosened due to increase in temperature. Adiabatic bulk modulus from
sound velocity was determined from Wood equation [Wood, 1964]:

1 K (1)
U 
 

where U is the sound velocity in m/s,  is compressibility in GPa-1 which is reverse of adiabatic bulk
modulus K in GPa and  is the measured density in kg/m3.
 Table 2 Comparison of experimental and caluculated results for pressure-viscosity coefficient.
T: temperature, U: sound velocity, K: adiabatic bulk modulus, exp:experimental pressure-
viscosity coefficient, cal: predicted pressure-viscosity coefficient

T U K αexp αcal error

Oil -1 -1
°C m/s GPa GPa GPa %
20 1537 2.27 14.8 14.6 1.52
40 1473 2.04 12.4 12.5 -0.46 30
Castor Castor
60 1385 1.77 9.5 10.4 -9.04 Olive
80 1296 1.52 8.4 8.7 -3.97 Rapeseed
20 Coconut

α [GPa -1]
Olive 40 1397 1.75 10 10.2 -2.19
20 1437 1.9 11 11.3 -2.92 Mustard
Rapeseed Camellia
40 1374 1.7 9.5 9.9 -3.95
40 1378 1.73 13.6 10.1 25.88 10
Coconut
60 1314 1.55 9.5 8.9 6.17
20 1490 2.03 13.2 12.4 6.27
Mustard 40 1426 1.84 9.2 10.9 -18.11 0
0 1 2 3
60 1362 1.65 9.4 9.5 -1.53 K [GPa]
Camellia 40 1370 1.69 9.4 9.8 -4.34
Fig. 3 Relationship between pressure-viscosity coefficient 
and adiabatic bulk modulus K.

Cacuculated adiabatic bulk moduls K of each oil show in Table 2. The viscosity is a function of the
presssure and temperature as shown in Fig. 2. Barus pressure-viscosity coefficient  was derived
using the least squres method. The pressure-viscosity coefficient  [GPa-1] are given in Table 2.
The pressure-viscosity coefficient  and adiabatic bulk modulus K are plotted in Fig. 3 to demonstrate
the relationship between them. It is shown that the pressure-viscosity coefficient  increases
exponentially with adiabatic bulk modulus K, and it is found that the pressure-viscosity coefficient of
vegetable oil follows an excellent relationship, which is mentioned in equation (2).

  3.093e 0.6829K (2)

The composition of vegetable oil are different greatly as shown in Table 1. However, it is triglycerides
of fatty acid basically. This enabled the constraction of prediction equation in all oil type and all
measured temperature. For a given vegetable oil, it only requires the accurate adiabatic bulk modulus
based on sound velocity measurement in the atmospheric pressure at the temperature of interest of
vgetable oil.

4. CONCLUSION
The relationship between the pressure-viscosity coefficient and the adiabatic bulk modulus is
investigated in this study, being compared with castor oil, olive oil, rapeseed oil, coconut oil, mustard
oil and camellia oil. The following conclusion can be drawn from the study:
From the study, it is found that pressure-viscosity coefficient increases exponentially with the adiabatic
bulk modulus. Hence, the relationship demonstrates that the pressure-viscosity coefficient can be
predicted from the adiabatic bulk modulus.

References
1. Bartz, W.J., 1998,: Lubricants and the environment. Tribl. Int. 31, 35-47.
2. Biresaw, G., Bantchev, G.B., 2010,:Elastohydrodynamic (EHD) traction properties of seed oils,
STLE Tribol. Trans, 53, 573-583.
3. Mawatari, T., Fukuda, R., Mori, H., Mia, S., Ohno, N., 2013,: High Pressure Rheology of Environ-
Mentally Friendly Vegetable Oils, Tribol. Lett., 51, 273-280.
4. Mia, S., Ohno, N., 2009,: Prediction of pressure-viscosity coefficient of lubricating oils based on
sound velocity, Lubrication Science, 21, 343-354.
rd
5. Wood, A.B., 1964,: A Text Book of Sound (3 edn.) Bell & Sons, London.
6. Wu, C.S., Klaus, E.E., Duda, J.L., 1989,: Development of a method for a prediction of pressure-
viscosity coefficients of lubricating oils based on free volume theory, ASME Journal of Tribology,
111, 121-128.

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