The Lubrizol Corp.
Enabling Greater Flexibility and Performance for Industrial Gear Box Fluids
By Jared Cornett, Industrial Oils Product Manager at The Lubrizol Corporation | TLT CMF Plus November 2024
Today’s industrial gear oils must deliver heightened performance under increasingly demanding conditions, all amidst a complex OEM specification landscape. Find out how the right additive solutions can enable broad coverage and formulation flexibility to satisfy a range of today’s needs.
In many ways, industrial gearboxes help make the modern world go round. They are found in a wide variety of critical applications, including wind turbines, mining and quarry equipment, steel mills, sugar mills, indoor and outdoor mixing, steel rolling mills, extruders, and more.
There is a lot that goes into their successful and reliable operation, and like most machinery in today’s modern world, these applications are only growing more and more demanding. Machine efficiency is a top priority across industries, both in an effort to drive greater sustainability in these critical applications, and to maximize operators’ bottom lines. Industrial gearboxes are responsible for the transfer and distribution of higher and higher amounts of power, and that means there are some major implications for today’s industrial gearbox fluids.
As major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) throughout the off-highway space continue to modify their designs in pursuit of greater efficiency, industrial gear oils (IGOs) must likewise evolve to deliver the necessary performance that enables new equipment to meet its full potential. But because no two OEMs are evolving their equipment in quite the same way, there is some significant complexity inherent to the IGO market that the lubricants and fluids manufacturers must account for within their product portfolio.
It is a challenge, but it is one that can be overcome with the right additive chemistry for IGOs. In this article, we’ll explore the complex OEM specification landscape and its performance requirements, how end-user preference is driving demand for a single IGO solution for multiple applications, and how lubricant and fluid marketers can deliver with the right science and technology at their fingertips.
Examining the Specification Landscape
To best understand the complexity of the IGO landscape, it’s helpful to first examine a few key industrial gear OEMs and their specific performance requirements:
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Flender manufactures heavy-duty (HD) gears used in marine, power generation, cement, construction, metals, mining, paper and pulp, and manufacturing applications. Compared with other OEMS in this space, Flender’s specified IGOs focus on seal protection and materials compatibility.
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ZF Industrial is a manufacturer with a market presence in travel gears used in mining, planetary gears used in construction, marine, offshore, industrial machinery, and rope-based transport system applications. Often excavators on jobsites will require a ZF-approved IGO. ZF specifications for those fluids focus on elevated levels of bearing protection compared to other OEM specifications.
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SEW-EURODRIVE is a source of gear motors used in manufacturing, automotive, transportation, mining and construction applications. The performance differentiator of SEW’s specifications is a requirement for extended seal life and grease compatibility, which is evaluated via a test that simulates grease leaking from the bearings and “infecting” the entire system. Specialized additives are typically required to comply.
Next, imagine a typical mining jobsite, where you may commonly find equipment from all three of these major manufacturers. An excavator will deliver material to a main crusher, which then delivers the material to a large conveyor. An excavator will typically incorporate travel gears, swivel gears, and pump distribution gears, assisting what may be up to a 700-ton piece of machinery in maneuvering around the jobsite. This is extreme service, requiring the highest levels of wear protection from the IGO. A crusher is another severe application, incorporating planetary gears and helical gearboxes. Finally, the conveyor’s helical gear boxes will commonly experience shock loading when heavy loads are delivered to the belt.
This is a simplified example; a real-world, major mining site in the United States may have upward of 120 different assets on-site that require regular service with high-performance IGOs. But because different OEMs have different performance requirements, mining site operators must typically stock three (or potentially more) distinct IGOs. Here, misapplication and cross contamination among different machines is a real concern. It’s not uncommon for mining sites to implement a color-coding system for specific IGOs and their intended use, but it is far from a foolproof method to avoid misapplication.
Consider the consequences here. One of the most expensive forms of downtime for major mining operations stems from conveyors and material transfer equipment; when these machines go down, the entire operation can grind to a halt. The misapplication of gear oils in one or more of these applications can result in expensive downtime, and it’s in the interest of mining operators to avoid such a situation at all costs.
So, it stands to reason that there is demand for a simplified solution. However, for fluid formulators, developing a single IGO that satisfies all major OEMs’ specifications is a bigger formulation challenge than it may seem.
High-Performance Demands of OEMs
A quick look at the respective testing requirements of the Flender, ZF Industrial, and SEW-EURODRIVE specifications demonstrates the complexity involved in formulating a single fluid that may satisfy all needs.
There are a few tests common to each specification, including those to evaluate micropitting performance, bearing wear performance, and foam performance. But beyond those commonalities, each specification diverges. For example, all three OEMs include static and dynamic seal tests, but each is unique to that OEM; testing parameters and acceptable limits vary across each specification. Also, some OEMs are unique in the fact that they test for slow speed wear and wet break compatibility where others do not.
This is a simplified breakdown, but the competing performance needs among each OEM creates a very narrow formulating window. Formulators must deliver robust
tribological performance, i.e., the IGO’s ability to provide robust boundary layers to protect bearings and gears across operating regimes. They must simultaneously deliver
materials compatibility, enabling the IGO to interact with elastomers, seals and paints without causing damage or decay to those materials. Achieving both tribological performance and materials compatibility is not easy, as the same chemistries that are typically utilized to enable top-tier tribological performance can often be detrimental to “soft” materials like elastomers and seals.
An Additive Package to Support Broad OEM Approvals
In an effort to satisfy the demands of OEMs in the industrial gear market, Lubrizol has developed its Lubrizol® IG24MP additive solution. Delivering greater simplicity in selecting reliable IGOs to end users everywhere. For lubricant and fluid marketers, Lubrizol IG24MP delivers a broad range of benefits, including:
Wide OEM coverage. Lubrizol IG24MP maintains approvals from Flender, ZF Industrial, and SEW-EURODRIVE to provide a single fluid approach, helping fluid formulators deliver broad coverage and enabling greater simplicity for end users. The product meets a broad range of industry standard specifications, including AGMA 9005-F16, DIN51517-3, ISO 12925-1 CKSMP, US Steel 224, and more.
Advanced bearing protection. Lubrizol IG24MP offers industry-leading bearing protection, demonstrated via the industry standard DIN FE-8 test at 160 hours—double the length of standard testing requirements. Further, Lubrizol IG24MP can help stabilize bearing degradation, demonstrating resilience in a system with previously degraded bearings.
Outstanding micropitting performance. Lubrizol IG24MP helps to ensure equipment longevity with excellent micropitting protection across a wide range of operating temperatures. Micropits can lead to macropits or tooth cracking, which can then lead to equipment downtime—Lubrizol IG24MP offers peace of mind.
Leading gear protection. Best-in-class gear protection performance is at hand with Lubrizol IG24MP, maintaining optimal levels of protection over long drain intervals. The additive solution achieved the maximum possible performance rating on the industry standard FZG A/8.3/90 gear protection test.
Excellent elastomer compatibility. Lubrizol IG24MP is approved with a variety of common seal compounds under both static and dynamic conditions, helping to protect seals from common failure mechanisms and satisfying the demands of several OEMs.
For modern industrial equipment to meet its full potential, high-performing gear oils that deliver on a broad range of performance requirements will increasingly be required. Indeed, as equipment across industries continues to evolve, so too will the need for IGOs—and advanced additive solutions will be necessary for ongoing success.
At Lubrizol, we believe that advanced fluids don’t just
protect critical equipment, but
enable machines to deliver the benefits critical applications around the world depend on. This belief drove the development of Lubrizol IG24MP to meet the demands of multiple leading OEMs while lowering carrying costs, simplifying jobsites, and reducing the potential for costly application errors. End users can enjoy increased reliability, lower total cost of ownership, and enhanced field flexibility.