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U.S. military vehicles and equipment can be exposed to poor lubricity fuels. Lubricity-improving additives (LIA) are utilized to remedy fuel lubricity to satisfactory levels. The military is interested in developing an affordable and fast bench-top lubricity evaluator capable of measuring fuel lubricity and improvements provided by LIA in order to replace the expensive and time consuming Military Rotary Fuel Injection Pump Test Rig. Previous tests have shown that certain bench-top lubricity evaluators are sensitive to LIA and correlate well with the pump test rig but lack precision. In an effort to improve the viability of bench-top evaluators for measuring fluid lubricity, a parameter study was conducted to determine if modifications to the bench-top lubricity methodology, apparatus, and operating conditions would improve the sensitivity and precision.

Clean, very low sulfur fuels produced from domestic resources are of interest to the U.S. Military to enhance supply security and reliability versus continuing to rely on the supply of fuels that are either manufactured from an increasing percentage of imported oil or imported in increasing amounts as finished products. [1]* Synthetic Fischer-Tropsch (FT) fuel is one type of fuel that can be produced from domestic resources. FT fuels can be produced from a variety of non-petroleum feed stocks, such as natural gas, coal, petroleum coke, or even biomass and various wastes. Starting with reforming or gasification processes, the FT technology first produces synthesis gas (syngas) which is subsequently processed to high-boiling hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons are then hydrocracked, hydroisomerized, and/or hydroprocessed to produce the desired liquid fuels. The military has a Single Battlefield Fuel Policy which mandates use of the JP-8/JP-5/Jet A-1 aviation turbine fuels.