400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001 U.S.A. Tel: (724) 776-4841 Fax: (724) 776-5760 SAE TECHNICAL PAPER SERIES 2001-01-1992 The Impact of Evolving Automatic Transmission Fluid Specifications on Base Oil Selection R. F. Watts, J. R. Noles, N. Pujara and T. R. Trautman Infineum USA LP International Spring Fuels & Lubricants Meeting & Exhibition Orlando, Florida May 7-9, 2001Downloaded from SAE International by University of British Columbia, Thursday, August 02, 2018The appearance of this ISSN code at the bottom of this page indicates SAE’s consent that copies of the paper may be made for personal or internal use of specific clients. This consent is given on the condition, however, that the copier pay a $7.00 per article copy fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. Operations Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 for copying beyond that permitted by Sec- tions 107 or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law. This consent does not extend to other kinds of copying such as copying for general distribution, for advertising or promotional purposes, for creating new collective works, or for resale. SAE routinely stocks printed papers for a period of three years following date of publication. Direct your orders to SAE Customer Sales and Satisfaction Department. Quantity reprint rates can be obtained from the Customer Sales and Satisfaction Department. To request permission to reprint a technical paper or permission to use copyrighted SAE publications in other works, contact the SAE Publications Group. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, in an electronic retrieval system or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISSN 0148-7191 Copyright 2001 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc. Positions and opinions advanced in this paper are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SAE. The author is solely responsible for the content of the paper. A process is available by which discussions will be printed with the paper if it is published in SAE Transactions. For permission to publish this paper in full or in part, contact the SAE Publications Group. Persons wishing to submit papers to be considered for presentation or publication through SAE should send the manuscript or a 300 word abstract of a proposed manuscript to: Secretary, Engineering Meetings Board, SAE. Printed in USAAll SAE papers, standards, and selected books are abstracted and indexed in the Global Mobility DatabaseDownloaded from SAE International by University of British Columbia, Thursday, August 02, 20182001-01-1992 The Impact of Evolving Automatic Transmission Fluid Specifications on Base Oil Selection R. F. Watts, J. R. Noles, N. Pujara and T. R. Trautman Infineum USA LP Copyright © 2001 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc. ABSTRACT Automatic transmission fluid (ATF) performance is determined by the choice of lubricant basestocks andadditives used to formulate the fluid. The lubricantbasestocks employed set the fundamental lowtemperature capabilities and resistance to oxidation ofthe fluid. Over the last decade, ATF specificationsissued by the major North American transmissionbuilders have required significant improvements in lowtemperature fluidity and oxidation stability. Theserequired improvements have begun to limit the numberof basestocks capable of producing suitable fluids. Thepractical impact of this evolution is that API Group Ibasestocks are rapidly becoming incapable of producingthe new generation of ATFs. Recently issued, andproposed, specifications will clearly continue this trend.Future ATF formulations may well be forced to move toAPI Group II, Group III and/or synthetic base fluids tomeet these increasing performance requirements. INTRODUCTION Automatic transmission fluid performance is continuallybeing improved in response to the need for longer drainintervals, better fuel economy and expanded operatingtemperature ranges. In North America, automatictransmission fluid (ATF) qu