We designed and fabricated the engine oil monitoring sensor to measure engine oil deterioration through increased vehicle mileage. Since the condition of the engine oil can be affected by the state of the vehicle and its operating conditions, it should be directly measured and determined in every vehicle. The fabricated sensor has an aluminum parallel capacitor structure that measures capacitance related with the dielectric constant, which is one of the indices of oil deterioration. The size of the capacitor is small enough that it could be easily adapted on the oil level gauge without introducing any change in the design. The fabricated device is installed in the diesel engine to measure the change in capacitance accurately as the vehicle moved from 0 km (new engine oil state) to 11,364 km. The results showed the maximum value at around 5,000 km, and the values plateaued as mileage increased, corresponding with the measurement result of the TAN (Total Acid Number). Based on the results, the condition of the oil must be monitored regularly though oil change is recommended once the vehicle has traveled the distance of around 10,000 km.

: In this paper, we investigate the electric and magnetic properties of the engine oil, and estimate its changing time in transport truck. The four diesel trucks are selected, and the capacitance and inductance are investigated with parallel capacitor and induction coil, respectively. The measured capacitance gradually increases up to 10,000~14,000 km due to the activation of antioxidant, and then decreasing phenomena happen. The inductance decreases and the saturation began in 10,000~14,000 km range. Although the behavior of inductance is different from that of capacitance, but changing points are similar. From those results, we can estimate the changing time of engine oil is around 10,000~14,000 km and the inductance can be used for monitoring of engine oil in transport trucks.