Determination of the Corrosiveness of a Lubricating Oil by a Corrosion Sensor Available to Purchase

The degree of acidification is considered a crucial property of lubricating oils for some applications, e.g. gas engines, as corrosive wear of machine components may be caused by acidic contaminations. For this reason, a sensor concept using the effect of material loss of a thin metal film due to corrosion is proposed. The corrosion of these films prepared from lead has been monitored electrically. In laboratory tests, the sensors were immersed in a series of oils characterized by different types and amounts of acidic components. The usefulness of the proposed sensor concept is also illustrated by corrosion tests with used oil samples taken from engines. The experiments clearly showed a correlation of corrosion rate with acidification expressed as TAN.