The viscosities of three pentaerythritol tetraalkanoate ester base oils and one
fully formulated lubricant were measured with an oscillating piston viscometer in
the overall temperature range from 275 K to 450 K with pressures up to 137 MPa. The
alkanoates were pentanoate, heptanoate, and nonanoate. Three sensing cylinders
covering the combined viscosity range from 1 mPa·s to 100 mPa·s were calibrated with
squalane. This required a re-correlation of a squalane viscosity data set in the
literature that was measured with a vibrating wire viscometer, with an estimated
extended uncertainty of 2 %, because the squalane viscosity formulations in the
literature did not represent this data set within its experimental uncertainty. In
addition, a new formulation for the viscosity of squalane at atmospheric pressure
was developed that represents experimental data from 169.5 K to 473 K within their
estimated uncertainty over a viscosity range of more than eleven orders of
magnitude. The viscosity of squalane was measured over the entire viscometer range,
and the results were used together with the squalane correlations to develop
accurate calibrating functions for the instrument. The throughput of the instrument
was tripled by a custom-developed LabVIEW application. The measured viscosity data
for the ester base oils and the fully formulated lubricant were tabulated and
compared with literature data. An unpublished viscosity data set for pentaerythritol
tetrapentanoate measured in this laboratory in 2006 at atmospheric pressure from 253
K to 373 K agrees with the new data within their experimental uncertainty and
confirms the deviations from the literature data. The density data measured in this
project for the three base oils deviate from the literature data in a way that is by
sign and magnitude consistent with the deviations of the viscosity data. This points
to differences in the sample compositions as the most likely cause for the
deviations.