Industrial Gear Oils — Enclosed, Open & Worm Gear Formulation Guide

They are validated starting points. You will need to bench-test and adapt treat rates to your specific raw material lots, but you start from a working formulation — not a blank sheet.

The handbook is a PDF — high-resolution A4, printable, with bookmarks and a linked table of contents. You receive an instant download link and it is also available in your library indefinitely.

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Yes. The handbook opens with a fundamentals section that explains the underlying chemistry and ingredient functions before presenting formulations — so beginners can follow the rationale, not just the recipe.

Worm gears operate under near-pure sliding contact between a steel worm and bronze wheel, which precludes full elastohydrodynamic film formation and generates high friction. Enclosed helical/bevel gears run mostly rolling contact and rely on EP chemistry for occasional boundary events. Worm gear oils instead need fatty-acid or glycerol monooleate friction modifiers to reduce the boundary friction coefficient from ~0.10–0.14 down to 0.04–0.07, plus mandatory copper passivation (BTA/TTA) since active-sulphur EP additives corrode the bronze wheel. The handbook keeps these two additive architectures in separate sub-categories rather than trying to force one package to serve both duties.

VDMA 24568 is the German mechanical-engineering association standard for biodegradable, rapidly-hydrolysable lubricants (HEES-type) used in wind turbine gearboxes and other environmentally sensitive applications. It requires the base oil to meet OECD 301B biodegradability thresholds, typically met with saturated synthetic esters or PAG, combined with metal-free or ashless EP/AW additive packages so the fully formulated oil — not just the base stock — passes biodegradability testing. The book’s Sub-category 11 formulation is built around this constraint from the base-oil stage.

Economy Group I mineral formulations rely more heavily on sulphurised olefin EP additives at the higher end of the 0.5–3.0% range because the base oil itself contributes little to film strength. Premium synthetic PAO/Group III formulations can run a lighter, more balanced sulphur-phosphorus package since the higher-VI base oil already delivers a thicker EHL film at operating temperature, which lets the formulation prioritise oxidation life and extended drain interval instead of maximum EP treat rate.

Every ingredient — base oil and every additive — must appear on the FDA 21 CFR 178.3570 or equivalent approved-substance list for incidental food contact. This excludes conventional ZDDP and most sulphur-phosphorus EP chemistry, so H1 gear oils are built on white mineral oil or PAO base stocks with GRAS-listed or H1-approved antiwear and antioxidant systems. Sub-category 12 in the handbook is formulated specifically within these constraints for bakery, dairy, and pharmaceutical gearbox applications.