400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001 U.S.A. Tel: (724) 776-4841 Fax: (724) 776-5760 Web: www.sae.org SAE TECHNICAL PAPER SERIES 2003-01-3252 Development of Revised DEXRON®-III Elastomers Test Chris Morgan and James L. Linden General Motors Res earch and Development Thomas L. Johnson Allison Transm ission Division Nancy X. Zeng General Motors Powertrain Reprinted From: Lubri cants, Rheology and Tribolog y, and Driveline Fluids (SP–1810) Powertrain & Fluid Systems Conference & Exhibition Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA October 27-30, 2003Downloaded from SAE International by University of British Columbia, Sunday, July 29, 2018All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,without the prior written permission of SAE. For permission and licensing requests contact: SAE Permissions 400 Commonwealth DriveWarrendale, PA 15096-0001-USAEmail: [email protected]: 724-772-4891Tel: 724-772-4028 For multiple print copies contact: SAE Customer ServiceTel: 877-606-7323 (inside USA and Canada)Tel: 724-776-4970 (outside USA)Fax: 724-776-1615Email: Customer [email protected] ISSN 0148-7191Copyright © 2003 SAE InternationalPositions 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 pap er if it is publishe d in SAE Transactions. Persons wishing to submit papers to be considered for presentation or publication by SAE should send themanuscript or a 300 word abstract of a proposed manuscript to: Secretary, Engineering Meetings Board, SAE. Printed in USADownloaded from SAE International by University of British Columbia, Sunday, July 29, 20182003-01-3252 Development of Revised DEXRON®-III Elastomers Test Chris Morgan and James L. Linden General Motors Research and Development Thomas L. Johnson Allison Transmission Division Nancy X. Zeng General Motors Powertrain Copyright © 2003 SAE International ABSTRACT General Motors (GM) currently uses about 1000 different seals for manufacturing all of its automatic transmissions worldwide. In order to assure that these seals function correctly in service, a method of measuring seal performance with service fill automatic transmission fluids (ATFs) has to be specified. Along with this measure, a pass/fail criterion for the evaluation of seal performance is implemented. Due to the large number of seals that are utilized, it would be impractical to test each one with every fluid that is submitted for GM DEXRON ®-III and/or Allison C4 certification. It is also very difficult to use production seals in testing, due to the irregular shapes and material combinations, which make measurement of the seal material properties difficult. Therefore, a revised test will be included in the DEXRON ®-III and Allison C4 service fill specifications to evaluate the compatibility of service fill ATFs with a representative sample of seal materials used in production. This work describes how a group of ten representative materials was selected and referenced in order to define the GM service fill elastomers test for current and future DEXRON ® and C4 specifications. INTRODUCTION At present, the two independent test laboratories that test automatic transmission fluids (ATFs) for DEXRON®-III qualification are finding it impossible to obtain the seal material slabs for the Elastomers Test, as currently specified in the DEXRON ®-III and Allison C4 specifications.[1] As well, many of the materials specified in the test are no longer in use by General Motors (GM) for automatic transmission seals. For these reasons, it was determined by the GM ATF Committee that a revised DEXRON ®-III Elastomers Test should be developed. The test would include seal materials i