| Summary: | Engine oil is used to lubricate and to seal internal combustion engines in order to reduce the friction between the surfaces of mechanical parts. Currently, the decision of changing the lubricant is based on mileage that recommended by the manufacturer where it will causes the frequent change that necessary. Many techniques of monitoring the lubricant degradations have been done previously and the optical approach is the best solution in monitoring the lubricant degradation. In this work, a type of 15W40 engine oil for motorcycle is chosen for the experimental raw samples because it will degrade faster than car's engine oil. The objective of this work is to develop a simple optical sensor by using light emitting diode (LED) and light dependent resistor (LDR) sensor instrument prototype to detect the motorcycle engine oil quality with respect to selected mileages based on Beer Lambert's law. The respective mileages from fresh oil to a certain mileage are represented by the light reflectance and absorbance properties which are then converted to voltages. The concentration of contamination in lubricant is inversely proportional with absorbance value where the voltage is decreases as the mileage increased at a certain sampling mileage as stated in Beer Lambert's law. Thus, it is proven that the absorbance concept by Beer Lambert's is suitable for degradation monitoring of lubricant using optical approach. © 2012 IEEE.
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