Lincoln Ventmeter Provides Invaluable Information in Addition to Aiding Lubrication System Design

摘要

Application engineers designing automatic grease lubrication systems have to answer questions such as: What is the maximum length of the pipe line for the system? What is the size of the pipe? Is a change of different NLGI grade grease necessary for the coming winter season? To answer these questions, engineers have to know flow properties of greases, namely, yield stress and apparent viscosity. Laboratory instruments used to find such flow properties are sophisticated and expensive. Furthermore, after obtaining these results, complicated calculations are needed in order to apply the result to the lubrication system design. For decades the Lincoln Ventmeter has been used by application engineers to directly answer these questions that help them in the design process. The Lincoln Ventmeter looks deceptively simple. However, this tool provides utilitarian information to application engineers for lubrication system design. The utility and robustness of this tool lie in the facile scientific principle on which the test method is based. This paper attempts to demonstrate the multifaceted uses of the Lincoln Ventmeter test technique.