Experimental Study of Castor Oil Based Lubricant for Automotive Applications

ABSTRACT Vegetable oils due to their better natural propertiescan be used as an alternative to reduce the dependency on the conventional lubricants. With the depletion of conventional resources at faster pace, need of hour is to approach the safer alternatives for ensuring the availability of such resources for longer periods with lesser harm to the mankind and sorroundings.This workevaluates the prospects of Castor oil based lubricant for automotive applications in contrast to the available commercial servo gear oil. Experimentation has been performed on four ball tester set up.Material used is carbon steel balls. Refined castor and mahua oils are blended in fixed ratios and subjected to friction and wear tests. Experimentation reveals that castor mahua oil blend possess immense potential in contrast to servo gear oil due to good wear reducing traits apart from environmental benefits