Testing grease consistency

Abstract

Because of the influential role of consistency in selecting a grease for a given application, accurate and meaningful methodologies for its measurements are vitally important. A new method, recently introduced, uses a rheometer to compress a grease sample to evaluate a relative consistency between a fresh and degraded grease; however, the results of this approach compared to a standard penetrometer and other methods of assessing consistency have not been studied. This paper takes a closer look at the relevant parameters involved in the rheometer penetration test and establishes a recommended procedure for its use. The consistency of various greases is then tested using this method and compared to results obtained from yield stress, crossover stress, and cone penetration tests. The results indicate that rheometer penetration may be used to assess the change in consistency for a given grease but should not be used to compare different greases. For this purpose, the crossover stress method is recommended, which is shown to correlate very well with cone penetration while using a simple procedure and allowing the use of a substantially smaller sample. A strong power law correlation between crossover stress and cone penetration was found for all greases tested and is presented in Figure 12.