The Thermogravimetric Noack Test: A Precise, Safe and Fast Method for Measuring Lubricant Volatility

A new engine oil volatility method has been developed which has all the advantages of present gas chromatography (GC) methods, duplicates the results of the classic Noack methods, and is faster than both This method could end the ongoing debate between those who favor the safety and efficiency of the GC methods and those who favor the more “real” life conditions of the Noack techniques

The method, called the TG Noack because it uses a Thermogravimetric Analyzer (TGA), was developed with the same ASTM round robin oils used to establish the precision of the Noack and GC methods This paper describes how test conditions were derived and how critical control parameters were identified and optimized It presents results demonstrating that the TG Noack Test is a fast (10 minutes/sample), safe (no Woods Metal, no handling of hot crucibles or oil), and repeatable (Repeatability = 3 1%) version of the classic Noack Test (1 1 correlation with R² = 0 99) Finally, the paper provides some guidelines for adapting the procedure to TGA instruments that are different from that used in the development of the method (Seiko RTG220)