A new Test Rig for oil evaluation in Textile Spindles

This paper describes the development of a Textile Spindle oil Test Rig (TESTER) for the measurement of frictional force in high speed textile spindles used in a modem textile spinning mill. The test rig uses an actual bolster of a textile spindle supported on an air bearing and a one-eighth inch steel ball. An improvised air turbine runs the spindle at about 15,000 rpm. The resulting friction in the test setup with test oil is measured with the help of a high precision load cell. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no such rig has been cited anywhere in the literature. The TESTER has been used successfully to study the effect of viscosity and different types of friction modifiers on the tribological behavior of lubricants for this application. The laboratory screening of energy efficient textile spindle oils using the TESTER showed a good correlation with field trials where three-to-six percent energy savings was observed. The paper briefly describes the TESTER and correlation obtained between laboratory tests using it and the actual field trial in a textile spinning mill.