Sensors and Actuators A 121 (2005) 327–332

Viscosity sensors for engine oil condition monitoring—Application

and interpretation of results
A. Agoston a,∗ , C. Ötsch a , B. Jakoby b
a AC2 T Research GmbH, Lubrication, Viktor-kaplan-Str. 2, A2700 Wiener Neustadt, Austria
b Institute of Sensor and Actuator Systems, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria

Received 11 October 2004; received in revised form 18 February 2005; accepted 21 February 2005
Available online 18 March 2005

Abstract

There is an increasing demand for the on-line condition monitoring of lubricating oils. In our recent research, we considered various sensor
principles for the on-line monitoring of thermal aging of engine oils. One of the investigated parameters is the viscosity of the lubricating
oil, which can be efficiently measured using microacoustic sensors. Compared to conventional viscometers, these sensors probe a different
rheological domain, which needs to be considered in the interpretation of the measurement results. This specific behavior is examined by
systematically investigating engine oils with and without additive packages, which were subjected to a defined artificial aging process.
© 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: On-line oil condition monitoring; Microacoustic TSM; Viscosity sensor

1. Introduction of indirect methods mainly relying on operating parameters

Lubricating oil in internal combustion engines is exposed
to various strains depending on the operating conditions, the
fuel quality, the ambient conditions and operating parame-
ters. The rate of deterioration strongly depends on these in-
fluences. In order to avoid an engine failure, the oil must be
changed before it looses its protective properties. At the same
time, an unnecessary oil change should be avoided for envi-
ronmental and economical reasons. In order to determine the
optimum oil change interval reliably, it is necessary to mon-
itor the actual physical and chemical condition of the oil.
The oil’s ageing process is very much influenced among
other things, by the fuel quality, due to the blow-by gases of
the combustion process. Therefore, especially for gas engines
fueled with biogas of a priori unknown and fluctuating fuel
quality, the direct monitoring of the oil condition is essential.
For automotive applications, according to the current state
of the art, the condition of the engine oil is estimated by means
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +43 2622 8160062; fax: +43 2622 8160099
E-mail address: agoston@ac2t.at (A. Agoston).
like engine speed, performance and temperature [1–3].
For large-scale stationary engines currently a more reliable
but also a more elaborate approach is used, where oil samples
are taken in regular intervals for off-line laboratory analysis
in order to determine the optimal oil change interval. The
disadvantages of this method are high fixed costs and also
the delay between sample drawing and analysis results.
Currently developed alternative approaches aim at
utilizing sensors as devices providing input for on-line
lubrication-monitoring systems in order to determine the
current oil condition directly inside the engine. The sensor
signals should provide information about the actual physi-
cal/chemical oil quality in order to complete the information
needed by the prediction algorithms, as shown in Fig. 1.
Moreover, the sensors should exhibit a long lifetime,
although being continuously exposed to the aggressive
environment inside an operating combustion engine. The
entire system should give a reliable indication on the current
oil condition and estimate, when the oil will reach the end
of its lifetime and an oil change will be necessary.
Previous attempts in the automotive field were based on
measuring the permittivity or conductivity of the oil [4–6].

0924-4247/$ – see front matter © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.sna.2005.02.024
328 A. Agoston et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 121 (2005) 327–332
Fig. 1. Structure of a sensor assisted algorithm for a lubrication-monitoring
system. The indirect data provided by the engine management and its relation
to the oil wear will depend on the actual engine platform used whereas the
data provided by the sensors are directly linked to the oil condition and are
thus platform-independent.
Although measured directly in the oil, these parameters are of
limited use as they are influenced by many different oil wear
mechanisms, thus providing a poorly analyzable signal only.
There were also attempts to sense a representative chemi-
cal parameter (see, e.g., [7]) directly, but chemical sensors
commonly exhibit a limited life time only and show adverse
properties with respect to aging and drift.
The viscosity is considered as one of the most important
parameters for the oil’s lubrication properties and its inclu-
sion into on-line monitoring systems has been suggested ear-
lier [8]. In laboratory analysis, the measurement of the vis-
cosity is well-established; however, the used viscometers are
barely suitable for reliable and cost-effective integration in
an on-line monitoring system. In contrast, due to their small
size and the absence of macroscopically moving parts, mi-
croacoustic sensors appear ideal for this purpose [9].
Since every viscosity measurement method tends to probe
different rheological aspects of the liquid under investigation,
we investigated the rheological aspects associated with the
application of microacoustic viscosity sensors for the moni-
toring of deteriorated engine oils and compared their appli-
cability to conventional viscometers.
2. Method
For the experiments, a number of well-defined oils were
used, which include various kinds of pure base oils, base oils
with several kinds of additives and different concentrations
of a heavy duty diesel (HDD) additive package, and finally a
series of used diesel engine oils. For reference purposes, these
oils have been chemically characterized in the laboratory.
As microacoustic viscosity sensor we used a thickness
shear mode (TSM) microacoustic quartz resonator with a res-
onance frequency of 6 MHz featuring an AT-cut quartz blank
with 4 mm electrode and 8 mm disk diameter, respectively,
which was completely immersed in the samples such that
both disk faces were in contact with the oil. These devices
basically consist of a thin piezoelectric quartz disk, which
is electrically excited by means of the thin conducting elec-
trodes deposited on both sides of the disk. When driven with
an ac-voltage, the device exhibits mechanical resonances at
Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit of a TSM quartz resonator.
certain frequencies, where it shows a dominant oscillatory
shear displacement at the disk surfaces. In contact with a vis-
cous liquid, a thin liquid film becomes entrained with this
shear movement at the surface. This loading effect leads to
an associated change in the electric parameters of the res-
onator depending on the viscosity (and density) of the liquid.
The change in the electric parameters can thus be used to de-
termine the liquid’s viscosity electrically (see [10] for more
details on the sensor principle).
In contact with a viscous fluid, two independent electrical
parameters of the TSM resonator change as shown in Fig. 2.
Firstly, because of higher inertia associated with the liquid
being entrained with the shear movement at the sensor sur-
face, the equivalent inductance changes (L1 ), which leads
to a change in the (series) resonance frequency (f/f0 ). Sec-
ondly, the attenuation (characterized by a loss resistance R in
the equivalent circuit) changes because of the viscous energy
loss in the fluid [10,11].
For Newtonian liquids, the changes in both parameters R
and L1 are approximately proportional to the square root of
the viscosity η and density ρ of the fluid [10]:
√
R ∼ L1 ∼ ηρ. (1)
Because of the small relative changes L1 /L1 , we can also
consider the change f/f0 as being √ approximately propor-
√
tional to ηρ, where f0 = 1/2π L1 C1 is the series reso-
nance frequency.
The resonance frequency can show an additional offset
proportional to the density of the fluid. This is caused by
roughness of the sensor surface leading to trapped liquid on
the oscillating surface, which results in an increase of the
effective inertia of the quartz surface [10].
Due to comparatively high frequency and the very small
displacement amplitudes at the resonator surface, the mea-
sured viscosity can generally be expected to exhibit a dif-
ferent (e.g., non-Newtonian) behavior when compared to a
conventional rotational viscometer measurement.
3. Experimental results
First a set of basic mineral oils (samples 0-A to 0-D) cov-
ering a wide range of viscosities was used to evaluate the
sensor characteristics, see Table 1. The additivated oil sam-
ple 0-E is based on base oil SN 150 (corresponding to sample
0-B) and contains 12 m % of an OCP (olefin-co-polymer, a
 A. Agoston et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 121 (2005) 327–332
Table 1
Set of mineral oils used for the first evaluation of the sensor
Name Oil type
0-A SN 85
0-B SN 150
0-C SN 500
0-D SN 500 + 40 m %BSS 150
0-E SN 150 + 12 m %OCP
III-A SN 150 + 5 m %HDD
III-B SN 150 + 10 m %HDD
III-C SN 150 + 15 m %HDD
v is measured with Ubbelohde viscometer at 40 ◦ C.
Fig. 3. Sensor parameter f/f0 vs. R for mineral oils of different viscosity.
commonly used viscosity modifier) solution, which contains
10% pure OCP. The oil sample group III contains different
amounts of a complete heavy duty diesel additive package.
The sensor provides two different parameters f and R,
as discussed above. The damping in air is negligible small, so
for oil loading R ≈ R can be assumed. Fig. 3 compares the
two measured parameters (at 40 ◦ C) against each other. For
Newtonian liquids, they should be linearly related with each
other (see Eq. (1); [10,11]). f shows the aforementioned off-
set due to the surface roughness of the sensor. At the measur-
ing frequency the oils show a slight non-Newtonian behavior,
as indicated by the slightly non-linear relation between the
two parameters.
In the following, the loss resistor R is considered as the out-
put parameter of the sensor. In monitoring applications, this
approach yields a reduced sensitivity to surface contamina-
tions as the latter tend to stick to the surface and thus primarily
lead to errors in the frequency but virtually do not influence
the damping of the device. Fig. 4 shows the squared loss resis-
tor, R2 (which, for Newtonian liquids, is proportional to the
viscosity of the oil1 ) plotted versus the kinematic viscosity
measured with an Ubbelohde viscometer. The sensor shows
an ideal linear correlation in a wide viscosity range for base
oils (0-A to 0-D), but there is one deviating oil sample (0-E),
which is the one containing the viscosity modifier (VM).
1 For the considered oil samples, the differences in density can be neglected
compared to the differences in viscosity.
329
v40 ◦ C (mm2 /s)
15
30
100
180
80
36
41
48
Fig. 4. Good correlation for base oils (A–D), but there is an odd-one-out oil
sample containing the viscosity modifier OCP (E).
It appears as if the sensor does not detect the effect of the
viscosity modifier. This is also confirmed by the fact, that the
sensor shows approximately the viscosity of the associated
base oil (0-B), whereas the kinematic viscosity obtained from
Ubbelohde’s method is more than twice of that of the base oil.
The observed effect is independent from the temperature as
shown in Fig. 5. Here, the sensor output was converted to vis-
cosity values using the correlation line in Fig. 4 as calibration
curve, such that sensor values and viscometer measurement
can be compared in one diagram. In this case, the “macro-
scopic” reference viscosity was measured using a Stabinger
viscometer [12]. Here, the curves obtained by both methods
for the base oil and the curve for the oil with the VM measured
by the microacoustic sensor virtually coincides, whereas the
oil with VM shows an increased viscosity when measured
with the Stabinger viscometer.
It is thus assumed that the viscosity detected by the sen-
sor is not affected by influence of the high molecular weight
polymers of the viscosity modifier (like OCP in this case),
such that the macroscopically appearing VM-induced thick-
Fig. 5. Temperature viscosity characteristics of the two oils with (0-E) and
without OCP (0-B) measured with the TSM viscosity sensor (+, ×) compared
to the characteristic measured with STABINGER rotational viscometer (♦,
).
330 A. Agoston et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 121 (2005) 327–332

Table 2
Four different types of engine oils of the grade SAE 15W 40, which were
selected for artificial deterioration
Name Type of SAE 15W 40 engine oil
A009 Diesel, with additive package 1
A010 Diesel, with additive package 2
A011 LPG, with additive package 3
A012 LPG, with additive package 4

ter 4, 6–8 days and were measured by using the conventional

Ubbelohde method and the microacoustic TSM sensor.
Fig. 7 shows the measured viscosities versus the duration
of the artificial aging process in days. The expected tendency
for thermal deterioration is an increase in viscosity due to
the oxidation of the base oil. Accordingly for the oil samples
of series A010 and A012, a global increase in viscosity was
Fig. 6. Additives change the relationship between sensor signal and kine- observed for both methods. For sample A010, the Ubbelohde
matic viscosity.
method yields a sudden drop in viscosity between day 6 and 7
which is not present in the microacoustic measurement. In the
ening effect is basically not detected. Similar results have contrary, the oil samples A009 show a continuous decrease in
been obtained for other high molecular weight additives. This the conventionally measured kinematic viscosity but a steady
behavior might be attributed to the fact, that the microacous- increase in the microacoustic viscosity. Therefore, the classi-
tic viscosity sensor probes the liquid’s viscosity in a very thin cally measured kinematic viscosity itself in this case does not
layer (typically in the order of microns) above the sensitive represent a parameter indicating the oxidative degree of the
surface [10]. Another possibility could be, that the thicken- oil’s deterioration. Also the aforementioned viscosity drop
ing effect is not apparent at the very low shear displacement for sample A010 corresponds to this observation. However,
amplitudes as they are imposed by the sensor. the viscosity indicated by the sensor shows a steady increase
This means, that depending on the concentration of the in viscosity for all sample series as shown in the lower part
viscosity modifier, the relationship (or correlation) between of Fig. 7.
the sensor signal and the kinematic viscosity as measured by If we now compare the sensor output to the conventionally
classical, “macroscopic” viscometers, such as Ubbelohde or measured viscosity (Ubbelohde) for the different oil types
Stabinger, is more or less affected. over different degree of deterioration, we accordingly find
Fig. 6 shows the obtained correlation curve for oil samples no consistent relationship between the two measured param-
of group “0” (as already shown in Fig. 4) compared to those eters as it can be seen in Fig. 8. For oil sample A012, there
obtained for fresh oils additivated with a HDD (type “III”
in Table 1), and for several used diesel engine oil samples,
which were all of the same type (SAE 15W 40 containing
a commercial additive package) but had been subjected to
different strains in engine tests. It can be observed that a
different viscosity calibration curve is obtained for each oil
type, which can also be attributed to the different impact of the
additives on the microacoustic and the conventional viscosity
measurement method. However, it is interesting to observe
that for the used oils the viscosity increase induced by aging
of the oil (e.g., due to oxidation) can be equally well-observed
by means of both methods.
According to these results, the microacoustic sensor seems
unable to reliably detect the macroscopic viscosity of engine
oil as obtained by the classical methods. But still the sensor
provides information about the actual oil condition, thus the
status of deterioration.
To investigate further on this property, experiments using a
series artificially deteriorated oils were made. Different types
of SAE 15W 40 grade engine oils (see Table 2) and some
hydraulic oils were chemically deteriorated with a standard Fig. 7. Change of Ubbelohde (upper plot) and the sensor-viscosity (lower
CEC (L-48-A-95) method at 160 ◦ C. Samples were drawn af- plot) during thermal deterioration for different engine oils (SAE 15W 40).
 A. Agoston et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 121 (2005) 327–332 331

Fig. 9. Correlation of the sensor signal with the oxidation value (measured
Fig. 8. Comparison of viscosity change measured by the sensor and by
with FT-IR spectroscopy).
Ubbelohde viscometer for three different SAE 15W 40 grade engine oils.

is a fairly good correlation, for A010 it is less pronounced

and we observe the above-mentioned drop between day 6
and 7 yielding an irregularity in the correlation curve. For
oil sample A009, we obtain a negative correlation, accord-
ing to the fact that. the conventional viscometer indicates a
decreasing viscosity whereas the microacoustic sensor yields
an increasing viscosity for increasing degree of deterioration.
Interpreting this behavior, the decrease in viscosity for sam-
ples A009 and A010 can be attributed to the degradation of the
viscosity modifier polymers. Since the sensor does not detect
the effect of the viscosity modifiers but basically measures
the viscosity of the base oil, its output signal is not affected
by the degradation of the viscosity modifier. This means, that
the sensor predominantly detects oxidation-induced viscos-
ity changes, or more generally, all changes in viscosity which Fig. 10. Sensor signal R2 showing the same increasing tendency as TAN for
affect the base oil. artificially aged engine oils.
In order to check this hypothesis, we investigated the cor-
relation of the sensor viscosity signal with the total acid num- ing the sensor signal to TAN in Fig. 10 shows an even better
ber (TAN) and the characteristic oxidation value obtained by correlation for the artificially aged oils. The sample A009 has
FT-IR spectroscopy. The oxidation value represents the IR- a lower resulting TAN after the ageing cycle compared to the
attenuation at wave number 1720 cm−1 compared to the fresh other two oils. That means that A009 is ageing slower, as it
oil. The oxidation value is a good indicator of oil degradation. can also be seen in the lower part of Fig. 7.
Oxygen from the air at elevated temperature will oxidize the
oil to a variety of compounds containing carbonyl-groups,
e.g., carboxylic acids. These acids contribute to the acidity 4. Discussion and conclusions
of the oil, reducing the basic additives present in the oil and
leading to corrosion. The acidity is conventionally measured It has been shown that the viscosity of mineral base oils can
as TAN in milligrams of KOH required in tests to neutralize be reliably measured by a microacoustic sensor. At the same
all the acidic constituents present in a 1 g oil. This property time, the influence of particular polymer additives, like OCP,
is one of the most important parameters in used oil analysis, on the macroscopic viscosity is not detected by the sensor.
indicating oxidation and the extent of acidic contamination Specifically, neither the thickening effect, nor the degrada-
of used oils. tion of the viscosity modifier polymers are detected by the
Fig. 9 shows the sensor signal plotted against the oxida- used microacoustic sensor. Accordingly, in the case of engine
tion value for the oil samples A009, A010 and A012. For the oil containing viscosity modifier additives of high molecular
sensor signal, we obtain a steadily increasing signal with in- weight, the sensor output does not correlate with a conven-
creasing oxidation for all cases. In case of the sample series tional viscosity measurement. This behavior was attributed
A009 and A010, this behavior is even almost linear. Compar- to the fact, that the sensor probes a thin oil film and thus will
332 A. Agoston et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 121 (2005) 327–332
not detect any changes, which are induced by structures or in-
teraction mechanisms with associated characteristic lengths
being in the same magnitude or larger than the penetration
depth of the acoustic wave in the oil (“macroscopic” viscos-
ity changes). Alternatively, the effect could also be caused
by the high oscillation frequency and/or the small oscilla-
tion amplitudes associated with the microacoustic sensor (in
comparison to conventional methods).
At the same time, experiments with artificially deterio-
rated oils indicate, that the relative increase in the sensor
signal provides more direct information on the oil’s age
in terms of oxidation, than the conventionally measured
“macroscopic” viscosity. In particular, it was found, that the
sensor signal correlates much better with the degree of oxida-
tion of the oil. This can be explained by the fact that oxidative
deterioration causes an increase of the base oil’s viscosity.
Conventional viscosity measurements do not detect this in-
crease distinctively since the deterioration of the viscosity
modifiers (if present) yields a decrease in the macroscopic
viscosity, which represents an effect in the opposite direc-
tion.
In experiments with artificially aged oil samples it has
been shown that the sensor signal correlates with the mea-
sured value of the total acid number (TAN) for artificially
aged oil. The acidity of artificially aged oils is caused by the
oxidative degradation products of the oil itself where the pres-
ence of these thermal degradation products can be detected
by the microacoustic sensor independently from the additive
content of the oil. Thus, the sensor is potentially suited for the
detection of the oxidation-induced viscosity changes caused
by thermal deterioration of the oil.
Acknowledgement
This work was funded from the Austrian Kplus-Program
and has been carried out within the Austrian Center of
Competence for Tribology, with the kind support of OMV,
BOSCH and GE Jenbacher.
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Biographies
Attila Agoston was born in 1975 in Budapest, Hungary. He obtained his
Dipl.-Ing. (MSc) in biomedical and electrical engineering at Graz Uni-
versity of Technology, Austria, in 2001. In 2002, he joined the Austrian
Center of Competence for Tribology (AC2T research) as junior researcher,
where he is currently working in the field of sensors for oil condition
monitoring. In parallel, he is pursuing a PhD degree in electrical engi-
neering at the Vienna University of Technology.
Bernhard Jakoby obtained his Dipl.-Ing. (MSc) in communication en-
gineering and his doctoral (PhD) degree in electrical engineering from
the Vienna University of Technology (VUT), Austria, in 1991 and 1994,
respectively. In 2001, he obtained a venia legendi for theoretical electrical
engineering from the VUT. From 1991 to 1994, he worked as a research
assistant at the Institute of General Electrical Engineering and Electronics
of the VUT. Subsequently, he stayed as an Erwin Schrödinger Fellow at
the University of Ghent, Belgium, performing research on the electrody-
namics of complex media. From 1996 to 1999, he held the position of
a research associate and later assistant professor at the Delft University
of Technology, The Netherlands, working in the field of microacoustic
sensors. From 1999 to 2001, he was with the Automotive Electronics Di-
vision of the Robert Bosch GmbH, Germany, where he was conducting
development projects in the field of automotive liquid sensors. In 2001,
he joined the newly formed Industrial Sensor Systems group of the VUT
as an associate professor, where he is currently working in the field of
liquid sensors. He is a senior member of the IEEE. He is a member of
the Technical Program Committees of the IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium,
the Eurosensors Conference, and serves as Technical Co-Chair for the
IEEE Sensors Conference.
Claudia Ötsch studied chemistry at the University of Vienna (MSc) un-
til 1999. She continued a PhD at the Austrian Institute of Petroleum in
the field of analytical chemistry of additives in petroleum products and
degreed with distinction in 2001. Then a post-doc followed at the Insti-
tute of Chemical Engineering of the Technical University of Vienna. In
addition to that she finished a post gradual study in “Environmental Man-
agement”. Since 2003, she works at the Austrian Center of Competence
for Tribology (AC2 T research) as a senior researcher.