Shipbuilding & Equipment | Propulsion & Manoeuvring Technology
Low sulphur diesel can lead
to extensive wear
FUEL LUBRICITY  The phenomenon of abnormal and high pump wear rates caused by the loss
of lubricity in low sulphur diesel fuels are not only well documented, but have been studied
extensively in Europe and North America. Lubricity improvers act to restore the natural lubricity
and reduces the risk of extensive wear.
Ian Crutchley
I
n recent years, international
and regional legislation on
emissions from shipping has
driven the maximum permissi-
ble sulphur content of marine
fuel down. In the near future
these limits will become even
more stringent.
From January 1 2010 the maxi-
mum allowable sulphur con-
tent of fuel oil used by ships
“at berth” in EU ports, other
than those in the outermost
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14  Ship & Offshore | 2010 | No 4
regions, is 0.10% (1,000ppm)
by mass. Further to this it must
be noted that another regula-
tion is now in place on the
Californian coast, that dictates
that all vessels within 24 nau-
tical miles must use fuel with a
maximum sulphur content of
0.1% by mass. This of course
requires the changeover of the
main propulsion engine.
In addition from January 1
2015 to sulphur limit inside
ECA’s (emission control areas)
will also reduce to 0.1% by
mass. It should be noted that
emission control areas are set
to expand, with the Mediter-
ranean Sea and Coastal USA
expected to follow in the com-
ing years.
For the time being the use of
heavy fuel oil is acceptable
providing the sulphur content
is at the level required for the
particular region where the
vessel is sailing. Ultimately
though, except where abate-
ment technology such as ex-
haust gas scrubbers have been
employed, these limits could
force a gradual industry change
to distillate fuels, from the tra-
ditional use of heavy fuel oil.
In any case, there are many im-
plications of using low sulphur
fuels that any vessel operator
must consider. One such im-
plication is the effect sulphur
removal has on the lubricating
properties of the fuel.
It is also important to note that
the International Standards
Organisation has introduced
a new version of ISO 8217 –
Specification for Marine Fuel.
In the new version of the
standard, released in July 2010,
distillate fuels with a sulphur
content of less than 500ppm
(0.05%) must be subjected to
the lubricity testing to ensure
sufficient protection. Also, the
new places a stability limit on
all distillate fuel grades.
Implications of poor lubricity
The introduction of low sul-
phur diesel fuel in automotive
application the early 1990’s
had catastrophic effects on
vehicle fuel injection equip-
ment. In the marine industry,
lubricity has never been a fuel
characteristic, which need be
considered, until now.
The definition of lubricity is
“The intrinsic ability of a fluid
to prevent wear on contacting
metal surfaces”. It is a common
misconception that lubricity
properties can be improved
simply by increasing viscosity.
There are two distinct regimes
of lubrication to consider
when discussing fuel pump
lubrication – hydrodynamic
lubrication and boundary lu-
brication.
Hydrodynamic lubrication
relates to the oil film created
between the moving compo-
nents. This area of lubrication
is directly dependant on the
viscosity of the fuel and is one
of the reasons the OEM’s are
recommending a minimum
viscosity of 2  cSt when oper-
ating on distillate fuel. If the
viscosity is too low the oil film
can become insufficient and
seizure can occur. The other
reason for this is that with a
viscosity of less than 2 cSt, ex-
cessive fuel leakage occurs past
the fuel pump plunger and in
the nozzle needle valve. This
can lead to problems when
starting engines and when op-
erating at both high and low
loads. Such problems on a ma-
rine vessel have serious safety
implications.
Lubricity however relates to
the boundary lubrication, and
to a huge extent the fuel injec-
tion equipment relies on the
characteristics of the fuel for
lubrication. Where boundary
lubrication really plays a part
is within fuel pumps where the
Fig. 2: Diesel pump rig test
clearance between the plunger
and body is extremely small
and can decrease further when
the components reach opera-
tional temperature. Boundary
lubrication dictates that to a
certain extent the substance
penetrates the surface of the
moving components creating
a mono molecular layer. This
reduces the friction between
the contacting metal surfaces
and prevents excessive wear.
Therefore boundary lubrica-
tion is just as, if not more im-
portant than hydro dynamic
lubrication in the case of fuel
pumps.
With insufficient boundary lu-
brication within fuel injection
equipment excessive and ac-
celerated wear can be expected
and premature failures there-
after. The areas most affected
by this are fuel pumps without
external lubrication sources.
Typically this applies to indi-
vidual cylinder reciprocating
fuel pumps or common rail
pumps. Failures such as this
would be extremely costly, not
only in financial terms, but
also in terms of safety and lost
time.
Another common miscon-
ception is that the sulphur in
the fuel provides the lubric-
ity characteristics. This is not
strictly correct and the sulphur
content itself is not the main
cause of poor lubricity. In fact
it is the processing used in a
refinery for removing sulphur,
commonly termed hydro-
processing which impacts fuel
lubricity. Hydro-processing’s
Fig. 3: Condition of components relative to pump wear rating
primary function is to reduce ing this experience directly to a fuels to be assessed for lubric-
fuel sulphur content, and is marine engine, illustrates that ity behaviour. This necessitat-
an essential refinery process in the supply of one bunker of ed the need for a rapid labo-
order to produce the low sul- poor lubricity fuel could po- ratory bench test which could
phur content fuels the specifi- tentially result in the failure of discriminate between fuels of
cations demand. However, the fuel injection equipment. good and poor lubricity.
processing not only removes The experience in automotive
the sulphur, it also removes the application led the industry to Test for lubricity
naturally occurring polar com- investigate diesel lubricity in The standard way to measure
ponents which give a fuel in- detail and provide means for lubricity of a fuel is the 
herent lubricity. Therefore sul-
phur content is not necessarily
a direct correlation with re-
spect to fuel lubricity although
there is a strong likelihood that
a low sulphur fuel or one of its
blend components has been
hydro-processed. Equally fuels
of a higher sulphur content,
i.e. > 500 ppm can potentially
exhibit poor lubricity depend-
ing on the crude oil source and
the processing which the fuel
has undergone.
Lubricity was little understood
or appreciated until the early
1990’s when low sulphur die-
sels (< 500 ppm) appeared in
the market for automotive use.
Very quickly thereafter vehicles
using such fuels experienced �1�0�0
problems, with excessive wear
and failure of the rotary fuel �9�5
injection pumps. Across all
manufacturers it is estimated �7�5
up to 65 million pumps were
affected by this. Failures oc-
curred quickly and it was re-
ported that fuel pump failure �2�5
was occurring after only 5,000
– 10,000 kilometres, which at �5
an average speed of 50 km/hr
equates to 100 – 200 hours of �0
operation. In terms of a ma-
rine engine this is a very short
operating period and translat-
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Ship & Offshore | 2010 | No 4   15
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Shipbuilding & Equipment | Propulsion & Manoeuvring Technology
HFRR (High Frequency Reciprocating Rig)
test as per IP450 / ASTM D6079 / CEC F-
06-A-96. In the HFRR test a sample of the
fluid under test is placed in a test reser-
voir which is maintained at the specified
test temperature. A fixed steel ball is held
in a vertically mounted chuck and forced
Fig 4: Correlation between pump wear rating and HFRR 
Fig. 5: Working mechanism of OctamarTM lubricity improver
Fig. 6: Sulphur content Vs HFRR wear scar Vs OctamarTM lubricity improver treat rate
16  Ship & Offshore | 2010 | No 4
against a horizontally mounted station-
ary steel plate with an applied load. The
test ball is oscillated at a fixed frequency
and stroke length while the interface with
the plate is fully immersed in the fluid
reservoir. The metallurgies of the ball and
plate, temperature, load frequency and
Source: Robert Bosch GmbH
stroke length are specified. The ambient
conditions are used to correct the size of
the wear scar generated on the test ball to
a standard set of ambient conditions. The
corrected wear scar diameter (WSD) is a
measure of the fluid lubricity.
The HFRR test has been adopted in many
fuel specifications as the standard method
to evaluate lubricity. During its develop-
ment correlation with the more time con-
suming diesel pump rig test, conducted
using a Bosch pump known to have expe-
rienced problems in the field was estab-
lished.
This test consists of a Bosch pump driven
by an electric motor at varying specific
speeds. Forty litres of fuel is continuously
cycled through the pump for 100 hours,
at which time the fuel is replaced with
a further 40 litres of fresh fuel. This test
is repeated with the same components
10 times, making a total of 1,000 hours
testing using 400 litres of fuel. Upon
dismantling of the rig the critical wear
components are rated between 1 and 10,
using a visual rating system developed by
Bosch. An overall rating below 3.5 was
deemed a pass and demonstrated life-
time performance (100%). A rating of 4
– 6 indicated a reduced lifetime (20%)
and a rating of 7 – 10 was a fatal break-
down (1%).
Figure 3 illustrates the condition of com-
ponents relative to the pump wear rating
and HFRR. Figure 4 shows the results of
the above described tests and the clear
correlation between the two methods.
Limits for lubricity
For the automotive industry, the correla-
tion chart in figure 4 demonstrates the
correlation between a pump wear rating
limit of 3.5 and a typical HFRR limit of
460μm included in many automotive fuel
specifications. It is important to note that
in terms of test precision, the repeatability
of this test is +/- 60μm.
European specification for automotive
diesel fuel EN590 specifies the maximum
at 460μm. The American ASTM standard
states a maximum of 520μm Fuel injec-
tion manufacturers recommend a maxi-
mum of 400μm. The new version of ISO
8217 (Specification for Marine Fuels)
states a maximum of 520μm.
The ISO committee has clearly recog-
nised that lubricity is a characteristic
which must be considered when dealing
with low sulphur marine distillate fuels.
However there is still debate around the
proposal in this standard. The ISO has
adopted the ASTM limit of 520μm but it
is possible that this limit may be unsatis-
factory in order to protect fuel systems. It
can be argued that the conditions inside a
marine engine fuel pump are much more
 matically reducing the WSD. Bearing
in mind that the proposed ISO 8217
indicates that the lubricity limit is not
required for fuels with above 500  ppm
(0.05%) it is important to note that this
diagram clearly indicates that fuels with
500 ppm sulphur (0.05%) can measure
above this limit.

The author:
Ian Crutchley, Technical Coordinator
Marine, Innospec Specialty Chemi-
cals, Ellesmere Port, UK
Left: Unaged base fuel
Middle: Aged base fuel
Right: Aged fuel containing
Innospec FOA Additive

severe than those within an automotive

engine, and therefore perhaps the pro-
posed limit should be lower. In addition
the proposal states that only fuels with
less than 500 ppm require testing, which
is clearly suggesting that fuels above this
level are safe, and that lubricity and sul- Precision
phur content correlate. This is not the case
and to reinforce this point Innospec has
tested fuels with sulphur contents above is our
500 ppm which have failed the proposed
limit of 520μm (see figure 6).
It is interesting to note that the addition strength
of the requirement for HFRR lubricity
testing, and the other additional test re-
quirements of the proposed ISO 8217, HEINZMANN Common Rail Solutions are
will require additional investment by ma-
rine fuel testing laboratories. This in turn the best choice for your engine application
could result in the price and time required
for ISO 8217 fuel testing to increase dra-
matically. ODYSSEUS Common Rail
Lubricity improvers Solutions
Innospec has been supplying lubricity im-
 System pressure up to 2000 bar
provers for use in transport fuel globally
for almost 20 years and has unparalleled  Various sizes of injectors and pumps
knowledge on the subject of lubricity. This
proven technology has now been redevel-  Applicable for different diesel fuel
oped to be suitable for low sulphur ma- qualities, including heavy fuel oil
rine fuel and has been integrated into the
Innospec OctamarTM product range.  All components from one supplier:
OctamarTM lubricity improvers act to Complete package of common rail
restore the natural lubricity of middle fuel injection equipment, EFI control
distillate fuels with low intrinsic lubric-
units, application software and
ity, or in fuels that have been affected by
sulphur removal processes at the refinery. spare parts
This works by addressing the boundary  Long term experience in EFI
lubrication regime, re-forming the mono-
technology and in EFI engine
molecular layer which is absorbed on the
surface of the components. commissioning Heinzmann GmbH & Co. KG
Am Haselbach 1
Figure 6 illustrates the HFRR response D-79677 Schönau/Germany
of various sulphur content marine dis- Phone: +49 7673 8208 - 0
tillate fuels, at increasing dosage rates Fax: +49 7673 8208 - 188
Email: info@heinzmann.de
of OctamarTM lubricity improver. In all
See us at Booth No. 411 in Hall A3 www.heinzmann.com
cases, ranging from 500 ppm to 10 ppm
the HFRR response is excellent, dra-

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