Feasibility of Detecting Antifreeze Leakage in Diesel Engine Oils

Un-dispersed antifreeze can cause detrimental changes in diesel engine oils. The oil condition sensor invented at Delphi Corporation can detect un-dispersed antifreeze in diesel and gasoline engine oils. Un-dispersed antifreeze appears as a separate phase and settles at the bottom of oil pans. In order to detect un-dispersed antifreeze, the sensor has to be mounted at the bottom of oil pans. A new technique, which analyzes the minor changes of gasoline engine oil resistance, was developed earlier to detect antifreeze leakage in gasoline engine oil before the phase separation. With this add-on feature, the oil condition sensors no longer have to be mounted at the bottom of gasoline oil pans. In this work, we extend this technique and verify its feasibility in diesel engine oils. At 35°C, the detection limits for this technique vary from 0.13 to 0.25% of antifreeze in diesel engine oils.