Correlation Between Pressure-viscosity Coefficient and Traction Coefficient of the Base Stocks in Traction Lubricants: A Molecular Dynamic Approach

The lubricants for traction-continuously variable transmissions (t-CVT) could generate high traction under a high pressure, which requires the design of a special class of base stock molecules. This paper reports the development of a model, based on non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations, for estimating traction coefficients to facilitate the design of base stock molecules prior to their synthesis. The pressure-viscosity coefficients (α) of a number of base stocks in traction lubricants are calculated and the results are correlated with the corresponding traction coefficient τ. A linear α – τ correlation is obtained with a coefficient of determination of as high as 0.85.