Hydraulic oils are used in hydraulics also for lubrication, however the wear and tear on the components are still a major problem which affects the life of the parts. The invention of MoS2 nanotubes with beneficial tribolobical properties have shown the possibility of being very useful as additives to hydraulic oil. In order to test whether or not the additives are truly useful in hydraulic systems, we designed and built two identical miniature hydraulic test rigs so we could compare the results in which one was using regular mineral oil and the other using mineral oil with added nanotubes. The test rigs contained a gear pump with a drive motor, a safety valve, a spool valve, a differential hydraulic valve, a filter and a tank. The test was conducted for six days at a switching frequency of 2 Hz. During the test, we measured the pressure on the P line of the pump and on the A line of the spool valve. We also measured the temperature of the components with an infrared camera.
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