Kinetics approach to modeling of polymer additive degradation in lubricants

A kinetics problem for a degrading polymer additive dissolved in a base stock is studied. The polymer degradation may be caused by the combination of such lubricant flow parameters as pressure, elongational strain rate, and temperature as well as lubricant viscosity and the polymer characteristics (dissociation energy, bead radius, bond length, etc.). A fundamental approach to the problem of modeling mechanically induced polymer degradation is proposed. The polymer degradation is modeled on the basis of a kinetic equation for the density of the statistical distribution of polymer molecules as a function of their molecular weight. The integrodifferential kinetic equation for polymer degradation is solved numerically. The effects of pressure, elongational strain rate, temperature, and lubricant viscosity on the process of lubricant degradation are considered. The increase of pressure promotes fast degradation while the increase of temperature delays degradation. A comparison of a numerically calculated molecular weight distribution with an experimental one obtained in bench tests showed that they are in excellent agreement with each other.