High Temperature Lubrication

High Temperature Lubrication is based on a study of lubrication at high temperatures, the need for which was highlighted by a survey of engineers in industry.

One of the first difficulties in discussing high temperature lubrication is the problem of defining what is a high temperature. In the context of grease lubrication, high temperature problems can arise at any temperature over 130?C; for the lubrication of vehicle engines, sump temperatures over 150?C are probably too high; solid lubrication of ceramics can be successful up to 100?C. It follows, then, that for the engineers and technologist for whom this book is written, a working definition for 'high temperature' can be taken to mean any temperature high enough to cause problems which would not arise at lower temperatures.

The aim of this book is to provide, in a simple form which can be easily understood by non-specialists, information which is of value to engineers faced with problems of lubrication at high temperatures, whether those temperatures are less than 140?C or greater than 1000?C. The various topics have been described in sufficient detail to enable an engineer to understand the factors involved in solving a high temperature lubrication problem without unnecessary complication.

Dr A. R. Lansdown trained originally as a chemist, and received his first degree at University College, Cardiff, and his doctorate at Cambridge. From Cambridge he went to Canada as a National Research Council Post-Doctorate Fellow.

In Canada he became interested in the petroleum industry and in 1956 joined the Production Research and Technical Service Laboratory of Imperial Oil Limited in Calgary. Here he became involved for the first time in the application of chemistry to various aspects of engineering, especially the flow of fluids through the rock formations of petroleum reservoirs.

In 1961 he returned to Britain to join the Ministry of Aviation, with responsibilities for aircraft lubricants as well as hydraulic fluids and fuels. In this work he was able to combine his technical experience with his life-long interest in aviation. Like many other lubricant technologists at that time, he soon realised that the purely chemical aspects of lubricant formulation and behaviour could not be divorced from the engineering aspects of lubrication, the realisation which was soon afterwards to lead to the concept of tribology as a unifying discipline.

His period in the Ministry of Aviation coincided with the intensive search for high-temperature lubricants and other products for use in supersonic aircraft, and he became particularly interested in synthetic and solid lubricants.

In 1968 he was appointed Manger, and subsequently Director, of the newly-formed Swansea Tribology Centre, and retained this post until his retirement in 1988. In addition to the management of the centre, he also carried out a wide  variety of consultancy projects, including a number of plant failure investigations, and thee further involved him in analysing the engineering aspects of the  failures.

He took an active part in the activities of the Institute of Petroleum and the Tribology Group of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He was a member of the council of the Institute of Petroleum from 1984 to 1990. He was awar5ded the Tribology Silver Medal in 1986 and was appointed a Fellow of Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1993. Since his retirement from the Swansea Tribology Centre he has continued to wok as an independent consultant.