In order to correlate the effect of lubricant viscosity and base oil on the efficiency of a lubricant, we measure the variation of tapping torque according to ASTM D5619 standard. Three fully formulated lubricants containing the same additive package but having different viscosities are tested in the first part of the experiment. The effect of chemically active and chemically non-active paraffinic base oils combined with a sulphur additive is studied in the second part. The nature of the tribofilm created at the bottom of the threads formed during the second part of the study is characterized by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). The aim is to associate the surface analysis results with the efficiency obtained during the form tapping tests. The results show that the lubricant viscosity does not have any influence on the tapping torque values whereas physico-chemical interactions between different base oils and a sulphur additive can modify importantly the overall efficiency of lubricant.
