Assessment of non-destructive test and hypothesis techniques in monitoring lubricant's condition

Nowadays, the pollution of environment caused by used engine oil became one of the current global issues. One quart of oil can create a two-acre sized oil slick, and a gallon of oil can pollute a million gallons of fresh water. Some studies said that oil pollution caused 20 years for the environment to recover to its original condition [1]. This paper proposes a study on the quality of engine oil where the aim is to find the exact time to change the engine oil. The sample of used engine oil was taken from motorbike where the number of motorbike on the road was increased rapidly in town. The study was focused on the spectroscopy approaches where percentage of reflectance intensity was measured using MCS600 ZEISS Spectrometer. The data was summed up by a line graph and was verified using statistic approach called Student t-Test. The result shows that the more mileage of engine running will reduce reflectance intensity

I. INTRODUCTION

Engine oil operates as lubricant for various internal moving parts in combustion engines. It also helps to clean, reduce corrosion, improves sealing and cools up the engine [2]. Although the engine oil is so important in maintaining the performance of the engine, it has a finite life where it needs to be change in order to maintain engine protection. The finite life time of engine oil is caused by the changes in physical and chemical properties such as viscosity, Total Acid Number (TAN), Total acid Number (TBN), water content and oxidation [2] which will be degraded during running condition. The quality of the engine oil is a measurement of the engine oil's performance to perform the above functions.