ASTM F2161-10
Standard Guide for Instrument and Precision Bearing Lubricants-Part 1 Oils
- Standard No.
- ASTM F2161-10
- Release Date
- 2010
- Published By
- American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)
- Status
- Replace By
- ASTM F2161-21
- Latest
- ASTM F2161-21
- Scope
The purpose of this guide is to report on the testing of, to discuss and compare the properties of, and to provide guidelines for the choice of lubricants for precision rolling element bearings (PREB). The PREB are, for the purposes of this guide, meant to include bearings of ABEC 5 quality and above. This guide limits its scope to oils used in PREB and is to be followed by a similar document to encompass greases used in PREB.
The number of lubricants, both oils and greases, used in PREB increased dramatically from the early 1940s to the mid 1990s. In the beginning of this period, petroleum products were the only widely available base stocks. Later, synthetic lubricants became available including synthetic hydrocarbons, esters, silicones, and fluorinated materials, including perfluorinated ethers and the fluorosilicones. This broad spectrum of lubricant choices has led to the use of a large number of different lubricants in PREB applications. The U.S. Department of Defense, as a user of many PREB, has seen a significant increase in the logistics effort required to support the procurement and distribution of these items. In addition, as time has passed some of the lubricants used in certain PREB are no longer available. The SRG Series, LSO-26, and Teresso V-78 are examples of such lubricants. This implies that replacement lubricants must be found as, in this era of extending the lifetime of DoD assets, stockpiles of replacement parts become depleted.
One of the primary goals of this study was to take a broad spectrum of the lubricants used in PREB and do a comprehensive series of tests on them in order that their properties could be compared and, if necessary, potential replacement lubricants identified. This study is also meant to be a design guide for choosing lubricants for PREB applications. This guide represents a collective effort of many members of this community who span the spectrum from bearing manufacturers, original equipment manufactures (OEMs), lubricant manufacturers and suppliers, procurement specialists, and quality assurance representatives (QARs) from DoD and end users both inside and outside DoD.
1.1 This guide is a tool to aid in the choice of an oil for precision rolling element bearing applications. There are two areas where this guide should have the greatest impact: (1) when a lubricant is being chosen for a new bearing application and (2) when a lubricant for a bearing has to be replaced because the original lubricant specified for the bearing can no longer be obtained. The Report (Section 5) contains a series of tests performed by the same laboratory on a wide variety of oils commonly used in bearing applications to allow comparisons of those properties of the oil that the committee thought to be most important when making a choice of lubricant. This guide contains a listing of the properties of oils by chemical type, that is, ester, silicone, and so forth. This organization is necessary since the operational requirements in a particular bearing application may limit the choice of lubricant to a particular chemical type due to its temperature stability, viscosity index or temperature-vapor pressure characteristics, and so forth. The Report includes the results of tests on the oils included in this study. The Report recommends replacement lubricants for those oils tested that are no longer available. The Report also includes a glossary of terms used in describing/discussing the lubrication of precision and instrument bearings. The Report presents a discussion of elastohydrodynamic lubrication as applied to rolling element bearings.
1.2 Although other compendia of lubricant properties have been published, for example, the Barden Product Standard, Lubricants and the NASA Lubricant Handbook for the Space Industry , none have centered their attention on lubric......
ASTM F2161-10 Referenced Document
- ASTM D1331 Standard Test Methods for Surface and Interfacial Tension of Solutions of Surface-Active Agents
- ASTM D2270 Standard Practice for Calculating Viscosity Index From Kinematic Viscosity at 40 and 100176C
- ASTM D4172 Standard Test Method for Wear Preventive Characteristics of Lubricating Fluid (Four-Ball Method)
- ASTM D445 Standard Test Method for Kinematic Viscosity of Transparent and Opaque Liquids (the Calculation of Dynamic Viscosity)
- ASTM D92 Standard Test Method for Flash and Fire Points by Cleveland Open Cup
- ASTM D97 Standard Test Method for Pour Point of Petroleum Products
- ASTM D972 Standard Test Method for Evaporation Loss of Lubricating Greases and Oils
- ASTM D974 Standard Test Method for Acid and Base Number by Color-Indicator Titration
ASTM F2161-10 history
- 2021 ASTM F2161-21 Standard Guide for Instrument and Precision Bearing Lubricants—Part 1 Oils
- 2010 ASTM F2161-10 Standard Guide for Instrument and Precision Bearing Lubricants-Part 1 Oils
- 2001 ASTM F2161-01 Standard Guide for Instrument and Precision Bearing Lubricants-Part 1 Oils
