A Report on Performance Properties of an All-Season Soybean Oil-Based Rail Curve Grease

摘要

Two soybean oil-based greases have been approved by a Class I railroad and they are currently in use by a number of other railroads in the U.S. These two greases are patterned after conventional petroleum counterparts. One version is grease for summer and for geographically temperate climates. The other version is grease for winter months and cold climates. This paper highlights the efforts of the University of Northern Iowa's Ag-Based Industrial Lubricants (UNI-ABEL) Research Program in developing rail curve grease that would provide year-around performance. Vegetable oils due to their superior Viscosity Index (e.g. 200 for soybean oil vs. 95 for neutral 100) have the potential to maintain consistency at higher temperatures. By addressing the cold temperature performance, an all-season grease has been developed that performs at temperatures of 0℉ (-18°C) to 120℉ (49°C). Laboratory testing has been completed and the grease is currently being tested in the field. It is concluded that vegetable oil-based grease could be formulated to present performance at much wider temperature variances than some conventional petroleum greases.