BORPower additive?

[freebeard]

What is the physical structure of these lubricant[ candidate]s? I rather imagine platelets sliding across each other. Do any of them approximate little ball bearings? Because B40 does.



I am struggling to model this in Blender. The seven-sided faces are not planar. Maybe there is a way to describe it with Procedural Nodes.

[y2kbug]

My 99 corolla smoked a ton when we first got it. Roughly 312,000 miles. We ran it a while and it smoked up the whole neighborhood at idle and didnt stop. I thought it was too worn out to save and required a rebuild or replacement but we dumped seafoam and transmission fluid in the oil. A whole bottle of seafoam in the oil a whole quart of trans fluid went in too. (Way too much in my opinion but what have we got to lose. The engines already bad) I think we may have put a bottle of seafoam in the fueltank as well.

It smoked an insane amount and we idled it for days after dumping seafoam, trans fluid and what ever else we could find into the engine. It finally loosened up and quit smoking as much. I drove it down to florida...

https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...ead-41650.html

It quit smoking at idle and became a usable engine after we did that. It still smokes some at full throttle and coasting down long hills when torque converter is engaged but thats nothing compared to what it was. I daily it and its at 382,000 miles currently.

I used to use transfluid in my 1998 corollas engine. It was tired and old. It seemed to help. It burnt a lot of oil. When i had the valve cover open its pretty clean. I havent used any of that in my dakota's engine and its kinda dirty and sludgy. I may try that next.

[Logic]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Since everyone ignored #176, I took it upon myself to ask DDG:

duckduckgo.com/?q=B40+Boron+allotrope+as+lubricant&ia=web

The first link 404'd but then there is this:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com: Article
Lubrication potential of boron compounds: An overview
R. B. Choudhary, P. P. Pande
First published: 07 March 2006 Citations: 34

Since I don't care as much as all y'all, I didn't get any further than the Abstract


But wait! First link under images:
www.slideshare.net/slideshow: Manufacture and characterization of Boron Oxide solid lubricant
Jan 20, 2017 -- Jose Gaviria


For the visually stimulated:


www.slideserve.com:
The Functional Attributes and Utilization of Borates in Lubrication Nanotechnology

Now this has my attention. Can you see why I'm fascinated by this figure? It's not the rare Snub Truncated Octahedron because it has seven-sided openings:


https://external-content.duckduckgo....df3&ipo=images

I can find all that and I don't even know what a pin test is.

Thx freebeard

The complete 1st paper is here:
https://sci-hub.ru/https://onlinelib.../ls.3010140208

This, to me, looks to be a rabbit hole that will take some time...

As for your second link:
Yes I see why you like it from the pics! but not looked further yet.

[freebeard]

Yes I see why you like it from the pics!

I have a search term now, but no result: Snub Septahedron

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by freebeard

What is the physical structure of these lubricant[ candidate]s? I rather imagine platelets sliding across each other. Do any of them approximate little ball bearings? Because B40 does.



I am struggling to model this in Blender. The seven-sided faces are not planar. Maybe there is a way to describe it with Procedural Nodes.

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They're shown to be similar to our blood corpuscles ( lenticular ).
Boric acid/ hydrogen orthoborate crystal lattice structure of molecular boric acid + oxygen + water, in a covalent, ionic, & hydrogen bond with the Metallic Boroxide ( boric oxide ) solid boundary layer, plated out on the metallic 'rubbing ' surfaces.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by y2kbug

My 99 corolla smoked a ton when we first got it. Roughly 312,000 miles. We ran it a while and it smoked up the whole neighborhood at idle and didnt stop. I thought it was too worn out to save and required a rebuild or replacement but we dumped seafoam and transmission fluid in the oil. A whole bottle of seafoam in the oil a whole quart of trans fluid went in too. (Way too much in my opinion but what have we got to lose. The engines already bad) I think we may have put a bottle of seafoam in the fueltank as well.


https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...ead-41650.html

It quit smoking at idle and became a usable engine after we did that. It still smokes some at full throttle and coasting down long hills when torque converter is engaged but thats nothing compared to what it was. I daily it and its at 382,000 miles currently.

I used to use transfluid in my 1998 corollas engine. It was tired and old. It seemed to help. It burnt a lot of oil. When i had the valve cover open its pretty clean. I havent used any of that in my dakota's engine and its kinda dirty and sludgy. I may try that next.

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That's the likely scenario.
The former owner may have used 'non-premium' motor oil, or failed to change it within the prescribed 'time' or 'distance' constraints, and the piston rings got stuck.
Your 'detergent' shock freed the rings, they sprung back 'out', resuming the oil control function, reducing the blue smoke.
They're not as good as 'new', but way out ahead of where they were.
During deceleration and engine braking, the combustion chamber is exposed to low manifold pressure, sucking oil, probably-mostly through the valve guide seals.
When you got 'back on the throttle' you'd see a puff of smoke, then it'd clear back up as long as the throttle remained open. ( early 80s Mitsubishi engines were famous for this ).
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What's instructive from your observation is:
* The first thing 'MotorSilk' recommends for their customers is, to run their proprietary 'Step One' Motor Flush ( MSSO ) through the engine, per directions, and then drain the crankcase before adding their 'Engine Treatment,' ( MSET ) and new oil.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Logic

Do pistons change direction at TDC and BDC?
If yes:
How do they accomplish that without slowing into mixed and stopping into boundary lubrication.

What about cam followers and valves that move on every 4th stroke of a piston?

Why is there always some metal on magnetic sump plugs, visible as a sheen if looked at in the sun.
Why did engine manufacturers put a magnet in the sump plug in the 1st place!?

NO-ONE capable of a technical thought, besides you, considers engines to only be subject to Hydrodynamic lubrication.
I can quote numerous research proving as much. With Links!


As to hydrodynamic lubrication:
Why is there a tread on your tires??
Could it be a way of reducing hydroplaning?
If so;
could it be because smooth surfaces hydroplane better than rough ones?

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* 'The presence of a 'lubricant' between the sliding surfaces drastically reduces 'friction', it's function is to 'separate' the two surfaces and reduce both mechanical and molecular attractions, by filling the depressions in the metal, and by 'plating' all the ridges with a 'monolayer' of oil molecules, often provided by additives. This is the true 'boundary lubrication region' Professor Obert ( Howard Hughes' emergency landing of his H-1 race plane onto a beet field ).
* 'Roughened or porous surfaces can support heavier loads than geometrically perfect surfaces since the minute cavities serve as pockets for oil storage.' Professor Obert.
* 'Porosity or dimpling also provides better cooling of the oil.' Professor Obert.
* ' In engineering practice, boundary lubrication may be obtained :
- at the instant of cold-start
- as a hot machine comes to rest
- in reciprocating motions
- in rocking motions
- reciprocating motions
- with rapid fluctuation in speed
- with rapid fluctuation in load
- when viscosity is too low
- when viscosity is reduced to low value by overheating
- when the oil supply is inadequate Obert

* 'Boundary lubrication can occur in the combustion engine when the pistons and piston rings are at the beginning and end of the stroke.' Professor Obert.
* Reynolds Number effects moves the 'boundary region into the 'mixed-film region, and ultimately into the ' full hydrodynamic region.' It's all a matter of 'relative velocity' between the adjoining surfaces.
* The oil 'monolayer' is always present, there is no 'metal-to-metal' contact as long as the 'surface finish' and oil 'viscosity' remain unmolested, and the engine isn't 'abused.'
* The 'region' of lubrication is dependent upon Reynolds number.
* Oil is perfectly capable of handling tangential mechanical friction associated with:
- Adhesion
- Interlocking asperities
- Chemical and surface reactions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Same goes for cam lobes and valve lifters. There is always a monolayer of oil present between the two surfaces.
At low ( Reynolds number ) RPM, you'll have 'laminar' flow.
As 'transition' surface velocity is reached, viscous shearing and churning move the boundary flow into ' transitional ' mixed laminar - eddy / turbulent flow.
At greater surface velocity ( high Reynolds number ), full turbulent hydrodynamic viscous friction dominates ( viscosity-dependent ).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As to an engine having 'hyrodynamic lubrication' or not:
If you're MotorSilk, and hire Southwest Research Institute to dyno test your 'Engine Treatment' as to the ASTM D8114 Sequence VIE test protocol, never running the engine beyond 2,000 RPM ( in a 6500-RPM engine ), never exceed a load factor of 18% (instead of 100% ), never exceeding surface velocities of 5.13 meters/second ( in an engine of 18.4 m/s ), at a maximum power setting of 21.99-kW ( in an engine of 326-kW ), etc., then 'YES', you might talk in terms of ' boundary & mixed film ' region lubrication.
Personally, I'm not prepared to spend the rest of my driving career held to a maximum speed of 33-mph, waiting 2,000-miles for the boron to take affect, required to change the oil every 4,971-miles, all a requirement for experiencing the benefits of boric oxide.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ferrous metal debris in the engine can be simply an artifact of the original manufacturing process and break-in according to some reporters.
If it's below 1-micron in size, and if it hasn't settled into a oil-flow 'dead-zone' where it can precipitate out, it may circulate indefinitely, without causing any ill-effects.
My most 'recent' engine is from 1994. It did not come with a drain plug magnet.

[Logic]

Originally Posted by aerohead

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 'The presence of a 'lubricant' between the sliding surfaces drastically reduces 'friction', it's function is to 'separate' the two surfaces and reduce both mechanical and molecular attractions, by filling the depressions in the metal, and by 'plating' all the ridges with a 'monolayer' of oil molecules, often provided by additives. This is the true 'boundary lubrication region' Professor Obert ( Howard Hughes' emergency landing of his H-1 race plane onto a beet field ).
* 'Roughened or porous surfaces can support heavier loads than geometrically perfect surfaces since the minute cavities serve as pockets for oil storage.' Professor Obert.
* 'Porosity or dimpling also provides better cooling of the oil.' Professor Obert.
* ' In engineering practice, boundary lubrication may be obtained :
- at the instant of cold-start
- as a hot machine comes to rest
- in reciprocating motions
- in rocking motions
- reciprocating motions
- with rapid fluctuation in speed
- with rapid fluctuation in load
- when viscosity is too low
- when viscosity is reduced to low value by overheating
- when the oil supply is inadequate Obert

So... the highlighted conditions above don't occur in engines..?
That would explain why engines NEVER wear out... Or do they..?
How does that happen!?
How does oil pressure decrease with engine age if the rotating bearings never have high points that touch through the oil layer, like a water ski hitting a stone that protrudes from the water.

Originally Posted by aerohead

* 'Boundary lubrication can occur in the combustion engine when the pistons and piston rings are at the beginning and end of the stroke.' Professor Obert.
* Reynolds Number effects moves the 'boundary region into the 'mixed-film region, and ultimately into the ' full hydrodynamic region.' It's all a matter of 'relative velocity' between the adjoining surfaces.
* The oil 'monolayer' is always present, there is no 'metal-to-metal' contact as long as the 'surface finish' and oil 'viscosity' remain unmolested, and the engine isn't 'abused.'
* The 'region' of lubrication is dependent upon Reynolds number.
* Oil is perfectly capable of handling tangential mechanical friction associated with:
- Adhesion
- Interlocking asperities
- Chemical and surface reactions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Same goes for cam lobes and valve lifters. There is always a monolayer of oil present between the two surfaces.
At low ( Reynolds number ) RPM, you'll have 'laminar' flow.
As 'transition' surface velocity is reached, viscous shearing and churning move the boundary flow into ' transitional ' mixed laminar - eddy / turbulent flow.
At greater surface velocity ( high Reynolds number ), full turbulent hydrodynamic viscous friction dominates ( viscosity-dependent ).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As to an engine having 'hyrodynamic lubrication' or not:
If you're MotorSilk, and hire Southwest Research Institute to dyno test your 'Engine Treatment' as to the ASTM D8114 Sequence VIE test protocol, never running the engine beyond 2,000 RPM ( in a 6500-RPM engine ), never exceed a load factor of 18% (instead of 100% ), never exceeding surface velocities of 5.13 meters/second ( in an engine of 18.4 m/s ), at a maximum power setting of 21.99-kW ( in an engine of 326-kW ), etc., then 'YES', you might talk in terms of ' boundary & mixed film ' region lubrication.
Personally, I'm not prepared to spend the rest of my driving career held to a maximum speed of 33-mph, waiting 2,000-miles for the boron to take affect, required to change the oil every 4,971-miles, all a requirement for experiencing the benefits of boric oxide.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ferrous metal debris in the engine can be simply an artifact of the original manufacturing process and break-in according to some reporters.
If it's below 1-micron in size, and if it hasn't settled into a oil-flow 'dead-zone' where it can precipitate out, it may circulate indefinitely, without causing any ill-effects.
My most 'recent' engine is from 1994. It did not come with a drain plug magnet.

1st;
Lets pretend we are back in the early 19 hundreds before the various additives ubiquitous in the oils of today.
ie: Back when all additives were considered "Mouse Milk".

How did these additives end up in engine oil???

Everyone:
I expect this question to be ignored as usual.
The reason it is ignored is because it is obvious that these additives were tested in labs and then in field tests before being included in the oils we all use.

Avoiding the 'trap' of having to admit that such testing has to have happened for the additives found in today's oils, does not change the fact that they did.

Therefore: Any new additive would have to undergo the the same tests in labs and in field tests. (= real working engines overseen by said labs...)

So far there have been both for oils containing Boric Acid, both in internationally recognized labs and in the engines of early adopters.

It would seem that the anecdotal evidence linked here by me is being... 'mistaken' for posts by me. i would say that that points to my posts not being read properly, but it may also be a purposeful misdirection..?

One of the 1st lab tests that is done for a new additive is a pin on disk test.
One of the ASTM certifications being insisted upon (with 'no testing allowed') is in fact this 'useless' pin on disk test.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics...disk-wear-test

Boundary, mixed and hydrodynamic lubrication:

Everybody knows engines wear out.
Cylinders become oval .
There's a step in the cylinder where the top ring stops.
etc.

When a cylinder is examined for wear, the step in the cylinder at the point where the top piston ring changes direction is the 1st place any and every mechanic looks.


So physical evidence of increased wear due to mixed and boundary lubrication is self evident, well known and obvious.
Yet an insistence that all bearing surfaces experience only hydrodynamic wear.


However; here is some peer reviewed published research to ignore:

Automobile engine tribology — approaching the surface
School of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Leeds

...The piston ring is perhaps the most complicated tribological component in the internal combustion engine.
It is subjected to large, rapid variations of load, speed, temperature and lubricant availability.
In one single stroke of the piston, the piston ring may experience boundary, mixed
and full fluid film lubrication 9 as illustrated in Fig. 1.
Elastohydrodynamic lubrication of piston rings is also possible in both gasoline and diesel engines on the highly loaded expansion stroke after firing 10 .
The historical development of piston ring analysis emphasises the theme of this paper most succinctly.

...In 1959, Furuhama 11 developed a dynamic hydrodynamic analysis of piston ring lubrication for a piston ring profile consisting of a flat central land bounded by two half parabolas, which incorporated the effect of the cyclic variation of both load and sliding speed.
This pioneering effort correctly identified the importance of squeeze film
action in maintaining hydrodynamic load capacity but the likelihood of surface contact was not considered...

A key research effort in the experimental field was that of Hamilton and Moore 12 in the 1970s who developed miniature capacitance film thickness transducers mounted flush in the cylinder wall to measure piston ring film thickness.
They complemented their experiments on a motored engine with a theoretical analysis 13 , which yielded predicted film thickness values up to eight times greater than those measured.
Brown and Hamilton 14 later accounted for this discrepancy by considering the effect of lubricant starvation on predicted film thickness.
Further theoretical analyses subsequently emerged with increasing degrees of sophistication and fewer limiting assumptions e.g. Refs. 15,16 .
One major criticism of these analyses is that they assume the rings operate in either a full fluid film lubrication regime or in an extremely simplified boundary lubrication regime.
No consideration is given to the transitional mixed lubrication regime, where surface roughness can influence hydrodynamic performance or to the nature of the contact occurring between the surfaces in the mixed and boundary regimes...

The wear factor in the boundary lubrication regimn... is determined from bench test rig experiments using actual components and lubricant at operating conditions of load, speed and temperature indicative of boundary lubrication.
This empirical input to the model clearly exposes our lack of fundamental understanding of the wear processes taking place in such tribological interfaces...

...it has been convincingly demonstrated that lubrication of a ‘hydrodynamic’ nature does have a role to play, the modern cam and follower has traditionally been associated with the
boundary lubrication regime where the role of chemical
actions in thin surface films is vital.
This is linked to the additive package of the lubricant and in particular to
extreme pressure additives, of which forms of zinc dialkyldithophosphate ZDDP are the most common.
This serves to emphasise that, at least for parts of the cam and follower cycle, surface interaction takes place.

Note that data for the mid-stroke region has been presented where least wear of
the liner is encountered and where many traditional analyses of piston ring lubrication predict full fluid films and thus no wear.
https://sci-hub.ru/https://www.scien...43164800003756

NB that the touching of solid lubricants as used in extreme pressure additives can NOT be considered Hydrodynamic.
Hydrodynamic lift, like aerodynamic lift, is all about a solid object 'floating' in a liquid due to speed differences between them.
Think of a water skier in shallow water:
If the boat stops he will sink down until the ski touches the bottom...

NB That the replacement of said solid lubricants with a superior solid lubricant film is what BA is all about.

You might also ask yourself:
Why is it that all additives were 'banned' and the companies sued by the FTC,
yet Boric Acid metal surface treatments that are applied via the lubrication system got 'the nod'.
Why the DOE who holds patents on them and why the only additive still being sold as advertised are ones based on BA like MotorSilk CLS bond, etc.. ???

After reading some old threads I have come to realize that all this nonsense is actually about keeping me chasing my own tail rather than doing anything constructive with the knowledge that BA works better than anything else so far added to oils that work in moist, water containing, environments like ambient air.
I now understand the lack of comments. and why.

Silly me! My apologies.

[freebeard]

When a cylinder is examined for wear, the step in the cylinder at the point where the top piston ring changes direction is the 1st place any and every mechanic looks.

Except for me when I was a teenager rebuilding my first flathead Ford. The top rings broke as soon as I fired it up.

I now understand the lack of comments. and why.

No need to apologize. It was entertaining to watch you expose a resident troll.

[Logic]

Heres a good paper that's actually quite an easy read and contains lots of graphs on WHY a BA fuel additive works so unbelievably well!?

I NB that it seems as if the boric acid? layer only formed on the piston, rings and sleeve, leaving the door open for further improvements in the engine, mainly in the valve-gear.
I will apdate with pictures and graphs if time allows if so requested by those you have trouble clicking on links!


New insights into lubricated tribological contacts
Uppsala university Sweden

...Out of the engine friction
losses, which stand for about 11% in total, 45% are related to losses in the
piston assembly...

The fuel additive studied in this thesis work is a commercial product from the
Swedish company Triboron International AB (in this thesis called Triboron).
It contains boric acid (<5.5 wt%) dissolved in mainly ethanol, and should be
blended into the fuel (gasoline, diesel, ethanol, etc.) for combustion engines,
in a ratio of 1:1000 according to the supplier. When blended according to this
recommendation, the boric acid concentration in the fuel is about 60 ppm
(based on weight). In field tests of passenger cars performed by an
independent consultancy company, the additive reduced the fuel consumption
with an average of 6% in gasoline and diesel cars and 10% in diesel generators
[86,87]. The tests were commissioned by Triboron and the field test details
are presented in Paper I. Reductions of more than 10% were reported when a
transport and logistics company evaluated the additive in light trucks [88]. Of
course, the test results are related to large uncertainties, but the remarkably
large fuel savings call for attention...

the reference
tests show a classical Stribeck-curve shape, while for the fuel additive, the
friction is low already at the lowest speeds. The friction-velocity curves for
the fuel additive and reference tests are very similar at high speeds, hence the
boric acid film no longer has an effect (Figure 5.4b). This indicates that a
hydrodynamic full film is separating the sliding surfaces. The shape of the
friction-velocity curve indicates full-film lubricating behaviour for the tests
including boric acid already from the lowest tested speeds. The mechanisms
behind the friction-reducing effect are not fully understood, but the low
friction at low speeds could be associated to formation of a thin more viscous
film close to the surface. This could enable an increased hydrodynamic lift at
low velocities...

The reduction in friction level obtained
with the fuel additive at mid-stroke at the two lowest speeds is 86% using 5 N
and 89% in the 10 N tests (Figure 5.4d). The largest friction reduction over
the full stroke is 76% and is observed for the 10 N test at relatively low
frequencies... [as is the case for hyper-milers]

The two lowest velocities were therefore assumed to represent boundary
lubrication (BL) conditions and the remaining data points represent mixed
lubrication (ML) conditions. The fuel additive reduces the friction with 86%
in the BL regime (average of the two lowest speeds) and 30% in the ML
regime (average of the remaining speeds)...

. Friction losses in the engine correspond to
11.5% of the total fuel energy. The friction losses in the piston assembly
account for 45% of the total engine losses and are thereby the largest
contributor...

boric acid is believed to form friction-reducing
films on the engine surfaces, such as the piston rings and the cylinder wall.
Such surface films are primarily active in the BL regime, i.e., close to the
piston turning points. As described in Chapter 3, the contact conditions of the
piston/cylinder contact are complex and change during each piston stroke and
during each combustion cycle. It is therefore difficult to estimate the
distribution of energy losses and the distribution between varying lubrication
mechanisms. Holmberg et al. [36] divided the contact in the piston assembly
to 40% HD lubrication, 40% sliding elastohydrodynamic (EHD) lubrication,
also called EHDS, 10% ML and 10% BL...

Several assumptions were made to assess if the fuel consumption reduction in
field tests of passenger cars of the fuel additive (4–7.5%) can be explained by
friction reduction in the piston assembly. The first assumption (assumption
A), is that the energy breakdown in Ref. [36] is valid also for the cars in the
field tests. When applying the friction reduction numbers from the lab tests
(86% in BL and 30% in ML), the resulting fuel consumption reduction is
1.6%,..

However, a fuel saving of 1.6% is less than the
observed savings in the field tests...

The fuel consumption may be reduced by
other mechanisms than only friction reductions in the piston/cylinder contact.
For instance, boric acid may end up in the engine oil and if this is the case, it
can lubricate other parts than the piston/cylinder contact. One example is the
valve train, which is operating in the ML regime...

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get...FULLTEXT01.pdf