Perpustakaan Digital ITB

Blending is an ancient art, which, despite being practiced for thousands of years, has been taken granted. It has come a long way during the past few centuries, and in particular, during the past few decades. Many of the recent advances are the result of computerized measurement and simulation techniques that are now ubiquitous in laboratories through-out the world. Lubricant is one of the blending product that produced by mixing some types of fluids they are base oil and additives substances. If the blending not perfect, then the result is not homogeneous and then it will make some problem. The current blending process in Indonesia, by PERTAMINA (Pertambangan Minyak Nasional, Indonesia Oil and Gas Company), is conducted through industrial process. For future lubricant product, developed by the PERTAMINA’s Division of Product Development, the blending process is carried out by experiments. However, the use of numerical method in the product development of future lubricant is very limited. The numerical method called by the Computational Fluid Dynamics or CFD, has potentials to aid the product development. In this case, the blending process can be accomplished by the numerical method first, thus reducing risk and cost associated with experiment. By this way, the properties of base oil and additives can be examined through CFD method before the experiment phase.