Imagine two turbine oils that came off the same accelerated aging protocol. They used the same rig, temperature, catalysts and air flow. We then ran both through Membrane Patch Colorimetry, and the results were so close that any laboratory would call them equivalent.

One returned an MPC of 36, the other 35, and both counted as critical. As a result, any analyst would rate the deposit potential of those two samples identically.

Then we looked at the glassware.

The first vessel was clean. A black reference stripe ran across the tube. Through the glass wall, you could read that stripe as clearly as outside the glass.

The second vessel, however, had a coat of deposits. The stripe had disappeared behind an opaque film. Even after a non-polar solvent rinse, the film was still there, chemically bound to the wall.

Figure 1: Two images of glassware from the TOPP test after rinsing. Both have similar MPC values, but dramatically different deposit levels on the glass.

Same colorimetry result. Opposite deposit results.

Not an Outlier

That pair is not an outlier. Our twelve-week aging study covered 52 turbine oils. Among them, the specimens with an MPC between 25 and 40 spanned the full range of deposits.

Some vessels were spotless, while others were completely obscured. In other words, the MPC value told us almost nothing about what was on the surface.

Two Dimensions of Deposit Potential

Deposit potential therefore has two dimensions. The first is what the fluid still holds in solution, and MPC measures this well. The second is what has already left solution and bound itself to a surface.

Nothing in the standard test slate measures that second dimension at all.

This article explains how we assess it. It also shows how we turned a photograph of a test vessel into two reproducible numbers. Finally, it covers what those numbers tell you that the patch cannot.

What the Patch Actually Tells You

Membrane Patch Colorimetry came out of an ASTM subcommittee that began work in 2006. ASTM then published it as D7843 in 2012. Before that, the industry had no repeatable way to put a number on varnish potential.

Ultracentrifuge ratings depended on the operator and had no standard, and analysts read patch tests by eye. D7843 gave laboratories a three-day procedure. It also gave reliability engineers a number they could trend.

D7843 changed how the industry understands and predicts varnish.

How the MPC Test Works

First, the laboratory holds a sample of in-service oil at room temperature in the dark for 72 hours. Next, it dilutes the sample with a non-polar solvent. Then it vacuum filters the mix through a 0.45-micron nitrocellulose membrane.

Once the patch is dry, a spectrophotometer reads it in CIE L*a*b* space. The lab reports the result as ΔE, a single distance from a clean reference patch.

Reading the Patch in CIE L*a*b*

What Is CIE L*a*b*?

CIE L*a*b* is a system for describing any color with three numbers. The International Commission on Illumination (CIE, from its French name Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage) defined it in 1976. People use it wherever color has to be measured rather than judged by eye, from paint matching to food quality control. The asterisks set it apart from an older scale that used the same letters.

Each color gets three coordinates. L* is lightness, running from 0 for black to 100 for white. The a* axis runs from green (negative) to red (positive). The b* axis runs from blue (negative) to yellow (positive). The designers built the space so that equal steps anywhere in it look like roughly equal changes to the human eye.

In the MPC test, a spectrophotometer reads the L*, a* and b* values of the used patch and of a clean reference patch. ΔE (delta E) is the distance between those two points. A clean patch sits near white. As degradation products collect, the patch darkens and shifts toward yellow, orange and brown, and ΔE climbs.

Think of ΔE as the distance between two cities on a map. It tells you how far you traveled but not which direction you went. An intensely yellow patch and a muddy brown one can sit the same distance from white and report the same ΔE. Yet they point to different chemistry. Most instruments record all three coordinates, so ask your laboratory for L*, a* and b* alongside ΔE. That shows which way the oil is moving.

Why the Incubation Period Matters

The incubation period has a purpose. It lets degradation products that barely stay dissolved at operating temperature drop out as the oil cools and sits.

In short, MPC forces precipitation by cooling a static sample in a bottle. It then measures the color of what falls out.

So, in addition to the color of degradation products, MPC also measures the fluid’s solvency.

Video: How the MPC test works (Fluitec)

What Sets the Color on the Patch

Now consider everything that sets the color on that patch. Three parts of the formulation do most of the work.

Same Degradation, Different ΔE

Figure 2: Examples of several MPC patches. A ΔE of 15 and below is normal, whereas 30 and above is critical. Notice the two patches with a ΔE of 40, yet very different colors. The brown patch suggests oxidation, whereas the grey patch suggests inorganic contaminants.

The effect of antioxidant chemistry on patch color is direct. An oil with a heavy aminic package can post a high ΔE while its antioxidant system does exactly what its designers intended. Likewise, two oils at identical depletion, differing only in amine structure, return different hues at different intensities.

Higher solvency, meanwhile, is the intended design outcome and a real engineering benefit. After all, material that stays in solution is material that isn’t depositing on a bearing.

Two things follow. First, ΔE now reports solvency as much as degradation, and the two blur together in one number. Second, several of these components are themselves aromatic, so they oxidize into their own color bodies.

A solubility enhancer can therefore move the number down by holding material in solution. Alternatively, it can move it up by adding new color bodies. The patch cannot tell which happened.

Other Polar Material and the Reporting Convention

Rust inhibitors, metal deactivators and their degradation products are polar, so the membrane captures them too. Water and soft contaminants from outside the fluid also end up on the patch. None of these are varnish precursors, yet all of them move the number.

Then there is the reporting convention itself. ΔE folds lightness, red-green shift and yellow-blue shift into one distance from a reference. As a result, two patches of entirely different hue can return the same value.

None of this criticizes the method as written.

D7843 does what it claims, and it does so reproducibly. Instead, the challenge is interpretation. Labs often apply one universal condemning limit across formulations that produce color by different mechanisms, at different rates, for different reasons.

A Harder Reference Method

The Turbine Oil Performance Prediction (TOPP) test answers a different question. Rather than measuring the color of degradation products, it measures whether the oil forms deposits.

In this test, we hold the oil at 120°C for twelve weeks. Air bubbles through it the whole time, with iron and copper catalysts present. We add no water.

We then pull samples at three, six, nine and twelve weeks. Each sample goes through a full panel that includes MPC, RULER, RPVOT, viscosity, acid number and FTIR, among others.

At the end of the run, the glass vessel itself becomes the specimen.

How TOPP Differs from Dry TOST

TOPP builds on the dry Turbine Oil Stability Test (TOST) concept from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. ASTM later codified that concept as D7873. That test runs 1,000 hours at 120°C over an iron catalyst, with pure oxygen bubbling through the oil. At the end, it reports total sludge by weight.

TOPP, in contrast, roughly doubles the duration and adds copper. It also samples at intervals rather than only at the finish. Finally, it keeps the vessel so we can assess the surface.

D7873 gives you one number once the run is over. TOPP gives you a trajectory and a surface to analyze.

Why Twelve Weeks Matters

Twelve weeks is a long time for a test. However, cutting it short changes the degradation mechanisms and produces very different results.

We also tested the same fluids at 150, 180 and 195°C. At 120°C, the kinetics are close to linear. As the temperature climbs, that gives way to nonlinear runaway behavior. Both additive and base oil molecules then break down structurally.

A fast test at 195°C tells you how an oil fails at 195°C.

It does not tell you what builds up in a bearing housing over four years. That slow buildup is much closer to what happens in the field.

What the Glass Records That the Fluid Does Not

Deposit formation requires three things in sequence.

The rinse is what turns the vessel into a deposit measurement rather than another color measurement. After twelve weeks, we rinse the glassware with a non-polar solvent, so anything still soluble washes away. Whatever remains has bound to the glass.

That is a working definition of varnish.

Moreover, it is a physical fact about a surface rather than an inference about a fluid.

What the Field Evidence Shows

OEMs have compared their own oil analysis databases against TOPP outcomes for the same formulations. That comparison tests how well glassware condition tracks field deposits.

Still, the assessment is subjective, because there is no accepted way to measure the degree of deposit in an operating turbine. Every engineer weighs deposits in servo valves, filters, bearings or heat exchangers differently. Each relies on their own experience.

Even so, one consistent direction survives the subjectivity.

Oils that perform well on the TOPP glassware produce far fewer deposits in the field.

When the Patch and the Field Disagree

The reverse case teaches more than the agreement does. One widely used turbine oil has had a field reputation for varnish for years. Its MPC stays low, so conventional oil analysis makes it look like one of the better fluids in service.

The TOPP glassware, however, shows it laying down heavy deposits. In this study, it had the highest deposit yield per unit of MPC of all fluids tested. That was roughly 87 times the yield of the lowest. Here, field experience and the glassware agree with one another.

There is also an argument from perception. It isn’t scientific, but it matters in practice. When end users look at the glassware, they recognize their own machines. They have seen that film on a bearing housing and inside a servo valve. A ΔE of 33, by contrast, triggers no such recognition.

Nobody has ever pulled a reservoir cover and found a 33.

Figure 3: Various commercial turbine oils after twelve weeks in the TOPP test, showing very different deposit control results.

Making the Glassware a Measurement

A photograph of a dirty tube is persuasive, but it is not a measurement. For most of the history of this work, we ranked the vessels by eye. The ranking then depended on who was holding the glassware.

We have now developed a method to digitize the glassware assessment. In fact, the procedure is simple enough that any laboratory can reproduce it.

First, we photograph each vessel in a lightbox against a uniform background. A black reference stripe crosses the tube. Part of the stripe sits behind the glass wall, and part sits beside it.

From each photo, we extract two scores: color and opacity. Each uses a 0 to 100 scale, where 100 is worst.

Each Image Calibrates Itself

Every score is normalized against its own image.

The reference range for a photograph runs from the background to the darkest pixel of the stripe outside the glass. We then express every distance as a fraction of that range. This detail is what makes the method practical.

Because each image calibrates itself, lighting differences cancel out. We never need to photograph vessels together or compare them against one another to score them. Therefore, a tube run in 2019 and a tube run last week are directly comparable.

The Color Score

The color score is the median of 100 pixels, sampled at random through the glass wall. We exclude the stripe and express the result as its distance from the clean background. We use the median instead of the average because light streaks can sometimes enter the lightbox.

This also improves test repeatability, since it allows for different cameras, lightboxes and backgrounds.

Figure 4: To score color, we take the median of 100 randomly selected pixels and compare it to the median color of the background.

The Opacity Score

Opacity measures how much the black stripe changes when you look at it through the glass instead of beside it. Both samples come from the same horizontal band, so they are directly comparable. Clear glass leaves the stripe looking much the same either way. A deposit film, however, hides it.

Next, the raw value goes through a fourth-power curve that strongly compresses the low end. As a result, normal optical variation in clean glass cannot produce a false positive. Only a film that truly obscures the stripe registers.

Figure 5: To score opacity, we measure the black stripe through the glass and compare it to the stripe just beside the glass.

Color vs. Opacity

When you compare the two, color is the leading indicator, as Figure 6 shows.

Figure 6: Across 52 TOPP tests, color is the leading indicator, followed by opacity.

However, some samples show strong color while keeping a good opacity rating. The reverse also happens, as Figure 7 shows.

Figure 7: These two glass tubes have a similar color rating, but the first has much better opacity than the second. This suggests a deeper layer of deposits formed in the second tube.

For this reason, we report both color and opacity.

Together, they show how well an oil controls deposits in the TOPP test.

Conclusion

For most of the history of the TOPP program, the glassware was the most convincing evidence in the laboratory. Yet it was also the least useful. Everyone who looked at a glass tube agreed on what they saw, but nobody could put it in a report.

Color and opacity change that. Each score sits on a 0 to 100 scale and is normalized against the reference stripe in its own photograph. Together, these two numbers make the surface as trendable as the fluid.

You can set a vessel imaged in 2019 beside one imaged last week, in another laboratory, on another camera, and the comparison still holds.

Across 52 oils, the two scores behave differently, and both earn their place as glassware assessment values. Color moves first and gives the warning. Opacity moves later and confirms that a film has bound to the wall.

None of this replaces MPC.

MPC reports what the fluid is still carrying. The glass reports what the fluid has already given up. Deposit potential always had two dimensions. We can now measure both.

Related Reading

• Varnish: The Reliability Threat Hiding Between Samples (Part 1)
• Advanced Methods for Detecting and Measuring Soluble and Insoluble Varnish
• How Advanced Analysis Detects Varnish That Labs Overlook
• Why Turbine Oil Replacement Should Be Based on Condition, Not Time
• How to Select Turbine Oils Strategically for Improved Results Now

The post Understanding Deposit Potential Beyond MPC appeared first on Precision Lubrication.

Electric transport is changing how we design vehicles, transmissions and lubrication systems. The global electric vehicle market has grown steadily in recent years. In 2024, sales of electric cars topped 17 million units, about 25% more than in 2023. Then, in 2025, the market hit new highs again. Sales passed 20 million units, growing by around 20% year on year.

Current forecasts suggest this growth will continue over the next five years. For example, the International Energy Agency estimates that, under current policies, electric vehicles could make up more than 40% of global car sales by 2030.

Growth Will Vary by Region

Growth will not be even across regions. China will continue to lead, with electric vehicles making up close to 80% of its car sales in 2030. In Europe, the share could approach 60%. The United States, by contrast, would grow more slowly, to around 20%. Some sources, however, expect a rebound in sales of gasoline passenger vehicles.

This growth will directly affect transmission lubricants. Electric vehicle gearboxes are often simpler than transmissions in combustion-engine vehicles. Even so, they run at very high speeds under heavy thermal, electrical and tribological stress.

Because of this, it will matter more and more to test the oxidative and thermal stability of these oils. We also need to know how well they protect gears, bearings, metal surfaces and electrical parts.

Simpler gearboxes do not mean easier conditions for the oil.

Working Conditions of Oils in Electric Vehicles

Transmission oils in electric vehicles work under different conditions than lubricants in conventional vehicles. In combustion engines, fuel, condensation water and soot can contaminate the oil. So can nitrogen and sulfur compounds and other combustion products.

In an electric drivetrain, these contaminants are often absent. As a result, some degradation mechanisms and failure modes become less common.

However, electric vehicles bring other demanding conditions:

• Operating temperatures that can exceed 120°C, especially when the electric motor and transmission are integrated.
• Speeds that can reach about 20,000 rpm.
• High lubricant shear rates in gears and bearings.
• A very thin lubricating film at the contacts, close to a mixed regime with a λ between 1 and 3.
• Possible electric fields and stray (parasitic) currents.
• Closer links between lubrication, cooling and electrical insulation.
• Risk of free radicals, oxidation and deposits.

How Oil Oxidizes

Oil oxidation happens through chain reactions in three stages.

What FTIR Shows

FTIR records the wavelengths that chemical bonds absorb. Degradation products often contain carbonyl groups (C=O), such as aldehydes, ketones and carboxylic acids. When these products appear, absorption in that part of the spectrum usually rises. In other words, higher absorbance means a stronger FTIR signal from these compounds.

Labs should measure the same way each time and compare against new oil or a baseline. That way, they can track the compounds that drive further oxidation of the oil.

Table 1: Oxidation results of electric vehicle oils. Source: J. Alarcon, degradation of electric vehicle oils, 2024

Base Oil and Additives

The stability of the lubricant depends on both the base oil and the additive package. Key additives include phenolic antioxidants and anti-wear and extreme pressure additives, such as zinc dithiophosphate-type compounds.

They also include viscosity modifiers and other parts of the package that control friction, corrosion and deposits.

Comparative Accelerated Degradation

For this analysis, we studied two oils. Oil A is a synthetic oil for gearboxes under high pressure and heavy load. Its maker highlights its stable viscosity over a wide temperature range. The maker also stresses how well it protects against wear and corrosion.

Oil B, by contrast, is a synthetic oil designed for transmissions with dry electric motors and for electric and hybrid vehicles. Its maker targets high-torque transmissions and better powertrain efficiency.

Table 2: Accelerated degradation methods used in the study

ASTM D5704 includes the effect of gear-to-gear contact and oil shear. ASTM D2272, on the other hand, adds rotation, water and moving contact between oil and oxygen.

How We Measured Degradation

We measured degradation with the following analyses:

• Kinematic viscosity at 40°C and 100°C
• Total acid number (TAN)
• Pentane and toluene insolubles
• Chemical changes identified using FTIR

The results showed that the oils behave differently depending on the method. Also, the severity of the procedure clearly shapes the type and size of the degradation.

The test method decides what kind of degradation you see, and how much.

Oxidation Stability Results

In time-to-pressure-drop testing, Oil A showed higher thermo-oxidative stability than Oil B:

Table 3: RPVOT results for Oil A and Oil B

This gap confirms that Oil B oxidizes more easily under dynamic conditions. Those conditions include pressurized oxygen, water, a catalyst and rotary motion.

Viscosity Changes

In ASTM D5704, viscosity at 40°C rose by 28% in Oil A and 11% in Oil B. At the same time, viscosity at 100°C fell by 20% in Oil A and 7% in Oil B.

At first, this looks contradictory: viscosity rises at 40°C but falls at 100°C. In fact, several mechanisms working together explain it. Oxidation can favor products of higher molecular mass. Shear, however, can destroy viscosity modifiers and polymer structures. In addition, the radicals that tribological action creates can form partly polymerized or insoluble products.

A rise in viscosity may point to polymerization, insoluble products or changes in additives. A drop, on the other hand, may come from shear, broken viscosity modifiers or thermal degradation.

From an oil analysis point of view, these results show that viscosity alone does not always reveal the degradation mechanism.

Evolution of the Acid Number

Both oils showed a higher acid number after the tests. This parameter is a key sign that acidic oxidation products are forming. These include carboxylic acids and other oxygen-containing compounds.

In Oil A, the acid number rose by up to 100% (ASTM D2272). In Oil B, meanwhile, it rose by almost 200%.

FTIR Spectroscopy Results

The great strength of FTIR is that it shows changes in the chemical makeup of oils. As a result, it helps explain how the lubricant failed. Four regions of the spectrum tell the story.

In-Service Electric Car Transmission Oil Analysis

Laboratory results give us a reference for how oils behave. Still, we need to compare them with real samples from cars in service. That way, we can check the findings and explain many of the failure modes of electric car oils.

The main difference is that the in-service oil forms more carbonyls and carboxyls. This clearly shows much more advanced oxidation. In practice, operating conditions don’t just start oxidation. They also push it further, toward more oxidized end products.

Figure 1: Comparative FTIR results of electric vehicle oils. Source: J. Alarcon, degradation of electric vehicle oils, 2024

Additive Breakdown in Service

We also saw greater breakdown of the extreme pressure additives, with clear changes in their structure. However, the phenolic antioxidants broke down less than in the laboratory tests.

Table 4: FTIR results for in-service electric vehicle transmission oil

Real-world operation pushes oxidation further than the laboratory tests did.

EV Evolution and the Commercial Market

The study shows that transmission oils for electric vehicles need their own test methods. It is not enough to reuse methods built for conventional turbine oils, greases and transmission fluids. After all, the failure modes are completely different.

Labs might miss changes until too late, and that leads to failures in the transmission system, the heart of the electric car.

The Business Case for EV Oil Analysis

Oil analysis for electric vehicles has an attractive commercial future. Compared with combustion engines, though, it will be a market with a higher value per sample and less frequent sampling. The global electric vehicle fleet could pass 240–250 million units by 2030.

At first, the main opportunity will not be in private vehicles. Instead, it will be in fleets, taxis, delivery, leasing, buses and machinery. In these uses, transmissions run at high speed and temperature, which justifies predictive maintenance programs.

A Market Worth Hundreds of Millions

Suppose 10% of the EV fleet joins monitoring programs, with one to two analyses per year. In that case, the global potential by 2030 could be around 50 million samples per year.

Basic packages cost about €35–70. Advanced analysis costs €80–150, and fault diagnostics or OEM projects cost more than €150. At those prices, the market could reach several hundred million euros per year worldwide.

The most profitable areas will be recurring fleet contracts and warranty diagnostics. Others include setting specific limits for EV fluids and building digital platforms. Such platforms bring viscosity, acid number, FTIR, metals and particles together.

From Emerging Application to Major Field

If global sales keep up this pace, electric drivetrains will no longer be an emerging application. Instead, they will become a major field for research in lubrication, condition monitoring and predictive maintenance.

As the global EV fleet grows, the need for standard methods and specific alarm limits for these fluids will grow too.

Related Reading

• From Watts to Wear: Understanding Coolant Degradation in Modern Data Centers
• From Lubrication to Insulation: Expanding Oil Analysis Beyond Rotating Equipment
• How to Interpret RPVOT Regions for Better Lubricant Decisions
• Lubricant Additive Depletion as an Early Asset Health Signal
• How to Interpret Industrial Oil Analysis Data Like A Pro

The post Electric Vehicle Transmission Oil Analysis: Critical Technology and Business Opportunity Towards 2030 appeared first on Precision Lubrication.

A new or rebuilt gearbox sends back a high iron result. Often, someone labels it break-in wear and waits for the next sample. That habit can be costly.

In continuous-process plants, debris may keep circling through loaded contacts. On the other hand, an unneeded shutdown or oil change also has a cost. So the real question is not whether early wear happens.

It is what is making the particles, and whether they should stay in the system.

What the Study Looked At

Our reliability team studied routine oil analysis results from wheel loader differentials and final drives. All of them came from one original equipment manufacturer. The study covered 612 samples collected over two years.

We sorted the samples into 500-hour bands of component time. In addition, we kept only samples taken just before a scheduled oil change.

A Clear Break-In Period

Iron ran well above normal for about the first 3,000 operating hours. After that, it dropped and settled at much lower levels.

This trend pointed to a clear break-in period. However, it did not prove that every early iron result came from harmless surface mating.

Figure 1: Average iron vs. component time across 612 samples from wheel loader differentials and final drives

What Routine Oil Analysis Cannot Explain

Elemental spectroscopy finds and measures iron in the oil. Yet it says little about particle size, shape or how the wear happened. For example, the same high result could come from three sources:

• polishing wear as gear surfaces form their contact patterns
• leftover debris from machining and assembly
• corrosive wear products

Each source calls for a different maintenance response.

Where Break-In Debris Comes From

Break-in wear generally comes from two places.

What the Ferrography Showed

Analytical ferrography, run to ASTM D7684, added the missing physical evidence. During the test, a magnetic field pulls ferrous particles onto a glass slide. Then an analyst checks them under a microscope for size, shape, amount and wear mode.

Figure 2: Analytical ferrography: an analyst examines ferrous particles on a glass slide under a microscope

The earliest samples held plenty of polishing wear. This fits new gear surfaces forming their working contact patterns.

They also held ferrous particles that looked like leftover machining and manufacturing debris. In other words, this debris was still in the components when they went into service.

How the Wear Signature Shifted

As running time went up, the amount of larger polishing debris fell sharply. By about 500 hours, the remaining signature had shifted mostly toward corrosive wear products.

These particles may react less to the ferrogram’s magnetic field. Still, they can add to the iron that elemental analysis measures.

This helps explain why iron concentration may remain elevated even while the population of larger metallic particles is falling.

Figure 3: Cutting wear particle

Figure 4: Corrosive wear particles

Figure 5: Rubbing and abrasive wear particles

Build Early Service into the Maintenance Plan

The study suggests four practical steps for maintenance and reliability teams.

Apply the Framework, Not the Numbers

Don’t copy this study’s numbers straight onto every reducer, gearbox or enclosed drive. Design, manufacturing tolerances, load, environment and lubricant all shape the break-in signature.

However, the decision framework works across many industries. These include pulp and paper, petrochemical, primary metals, and food and beverage plants. In each case, high early wear metals deserve interpretation, not an automatic pass.

Break-in wear is real, but it is not always benign.

When a team combines trend data with particle evidence, it can remove harmful debris sooner. It can also avoid needless work and set solid limits for future samples.

Related Reading

• From Lubrication to Insulation: Expanding Oil Analysis Beyond Rotating Equipment
• Case Study: Gearbox Condition Monitoring with Wear Debris Analysis
• Maximize Oil Analysis with Onsite Tests and Optimized Sampling Intervals
• Finding the Why: How Oil Analysis Supports Root Cause Analysis
• Justifying Your Oil Analysis Program: A Financial Perspective

The post What an Oil Sample Study Reveals About Break-In Wear appeared first on Precision Lubrication.

The ASTM D02.CS96 Subcommittee for In-Service Lubricant Testing brings together people from many parts of the industry. Its members come from oil analysis labs, instrument makers, service providers, OEMs and end users. Together, they advance standards for in-service lubricant testing and condition monitoring.

These standards matter because they keep oil analysis accurate, consistent and practical. As a result, labs and end users can trust the numbers they use to judge oil health and run their programs.

Who Can Join

Anyone who wants to help shape these standards can join. In return, members get an early look at new tools and test methods. They also work with industry experts and contribute to precision and validation studies. Above all, they help keep ASTM methods relevant and technically sound.

The CS96 Subcommittee meets twice a year, in June and December. These meetings take place during ASTM D02 Petroleum Products, Liquid Fuels, and Lubricants Committee Week.

Where CS96 Fits Within ASTM D02

For context, the ASTM D02 Committee writes and maintains more than 800 standards. People around the world use them for petroleum products, liquid fuels and lubricants. Within D02, the CS96 Subcommittee manages 45 standards. Each one is reviewed every five years for technical accuracy.

Highlights from the June 2026 Meeting

In June 2026, the ASTM D02 Committee Week took place in Chicago, IL. There, CS96 members took part in technical discussions and reviewed standards. They also stressed the need to keep test methods in step with what the industry needs today.

The group now has three main priorities: modernizing existing standards, developing methods for emerging technologies, and strengthening the precision of existing methods.

Three Priorities for CS96

Above all, broader industry participation keeps these standards relevant, practical and technically accurate.

What’s Next: Get Involved

The Subcommittee welcomes new members. In particular, it is looking for people with expertise or interest in:

• FTIR applications in oil analysis
• Particle quantification (PQ) and wear debris analysis
• Particle counting
• Viscosity measurement technologies
• Online (sensor) and portable condition monitoring tools
• In-service grease analysis
• Statistical analysis of oil condition monitoring data
• New or emerging trends in oil condition monitoring technology

There are many ways to take part. For example, you can review existing standards or join round-robin studies. You can also share technical knowledge, introduce new technology or simply stay current with the industry. Either way, CS96 membership is a practical way to get involved.

The Next Meeting: Orlando, December 2026

The next ASTM D02 meeting for the CS96 Subcommittee is December 6–10, 2026, at the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld, 6677 Sea Harbor Dr, Orlando, Florida. For more information, visit astm.org or contact Subcommittee Chair Lisa Williams at lisa.williams@ametek.com.

Related Reading

• How ASTM Standards Set the Foundation for Lubricant Condition Monitoring
• ICML 55 Standard Brings ISO 55000 Concepts to Lubrication Management
• Particle Counting in Condition Monitoring – Managing Expectations
• Online Sensors for Oil Analysis: Benefits, Concerns and Practical Uses

The post Shape the Future of In-Service Lubricant Testing Standards: Join the ASTM D02.CS96 Conversation appeared first on Precision Lubrication.