Lubricant Screening for HFC-134a Car Air Conditioning Compressor Reliability

Certain important factors must be considered when the current refrigerant for automotive air conditioning systems, (A/C), is changed from CFC12 to the ozone safe HFC134a. This paper will focus on lubricant compatibility by presenting a screening process which will cover:

• a screening table of essential physical properties
• general information on types of available lubricants
• tests of chemical stability
• lubricity
• compatibility with elastomers
• methods for testing compressor durability
• service engineering