Shear Thinning Effects by VII Added Lubricant with In-Situ Optical Viscometer

Viscosity index improver (VII) is one of the major additives to the modern multigrade lubricants for the viscosity stability against temperature rise. However, it causes shear thinning effects which make the film thickness lessened very delicately at high shear rate $(over\;10^5\;s^{-1})$ of general EHL contact regime. In order to exactly verify the VII's performance of viscosity stability at such high shear rate, it is necessary to make the measurement of EHL film thickness down to $\~100nm$ with fine resolution for the preliminary study of viscosity control. In this work, EHL film thickness of VII added lubricant is measured with the resolution of $\~5nm$, which will give very informative design tool for the synthesis of lubricants regarding the matter of load carrying capacity at high shear rate condition.