新型自动变速箱对润滑油的额外要求

The New Atuomatic Transmission Additional Demands on Lubricants

减少二氧化碳排放是防止地球大气层受到对气候有影响的微量气体之影响的一种努力。所有的消费市场都必须增加效率和最经济地使用化石能源。为了尽可能利用所有的节油措施,同时继续提供对竞争重要的安全和舒适性标准,汽车工业早已不对发动机消耗抱有希望。他们的努力集中在改善整车效率上。新变速器采用智能化的电控系统以优化发动机和变速器的相互作用,它能显著改善排放。常规的有级自动变速器现正被新型的无级自动变速器(CVT)所替代。CVT给出了几乎理想的动力传动并明显优于有级变速器。这为发动机设计提供了一种可能性,即发动机几乎在任何工况下都工作在最佳燃油经济区也就是最佳排放区。这里需要高质量的有全新目的的润滑油用于这些新型或改进的变速器。这些润滑油的性能必须适应变速器的设计。全寿命润滑是需要的,所有的性能特别是抗老化稳定性和摩擦特性必须在全寿命内有效。为达到所需的性能和质量,发展合适添加剂和高质量基础油及两者的正确组成需要花费巨大的研究及开发费用和需要特殊的制造技能。新型无级自动变速器用润滑油须具有超越常规无级变速器用油的附加要求。除了现代分析方法以外,还需要特殊的部件台架试验用于开发质量远胜于过去的无级自动变速器用的润滑油。

A reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in one of the key elements of endeavours to protect the earth's atmosphere from trace gases which affect the climate. All sectors of the consumer market must contribute to this by increasing efficiency and using fossil energies as economically as possible. In order to utilize all fuel saving opportunities and, at the same time, remain able to offer the standards of safety and comfort that are important for competitiveness, the car industry ceased long ago to restrict itself to optimising engine consumption. Its efforts have focused increasingly on improving overall vehicle efficiency. Intelligent electronic management systems which use new transmission designs to optimise the interaction of engine and transmission can make a significant contribution to this. The conventional, stepped automatic transmissions are now being replaced by innovative, Continuously Variable Automatic Transmissions (CVTs), which provide almost ideal power transmission and thus have considerable advantages over stepped versions. These offer the possibility of designing engines which operate within the optimum range of performance characteristics for consumption and thus also pollutants,under almost all operating conditions. High quality lubricants with completely new properties are required for the operation of these new, or improved, transmission systems. The performance characteristics of these lubricants must be specially adapted to the design of the transmission. As lifetime lubrication is required, all functional properties, in particular ageing stability and friction characteristics, must be available at all times. To achieve the required level of performance and quality, a great deal of research and development expenditure and specific product expertise are required to develop the correct combination of suitable additives and high quality base oils. The new continuously variable automatic transmissions require lubricants with additional properties to cover the special requirements of the continuously variable transmission components. In addition to the current analytical methods, special component test benches are needed to develop and produce automatic transmission fluids to a far higher level of quality than ever before. Suitably equipped and adapted friction coefficient test benches used to define and ensure the frictional properties vital for the transmissions are becoming the definitive measuring device. The transmission manufacture is necessarily dependent on the characteristics and tolerances for power transmission lubricants established jointly with the ATF producers. Quality control is thus becoming a major criterion for the commercial use of the product. The lubricant manufacture can only achieve the required level of quality by concrete and consistent control and a high level of effort and expenditure on technical testing.