Standardöle

Standardöle are oils used as reference or calibration materials in the testing and quality assurance of lubricants, fuels, and related products. They provide stable, well-characterized baseline values for properties such as viscosity at various temperatures, density, boiling point, pour point, refractive index, and thermal stability. Standardöle are often offered as Certified Reference Oils, with property values certified by manufacturers or national metrology institutes and traceable to recognized standards.

They encompass different oil classes, including mineral oils, synthetic oils (such as polyalpha-olefins and esters), and mixed systems. The selection depends on the intended application, for example calibrating rheometers and viscometers, spectrophotometers, or differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analyzers, or validating test methods according to ISO, ASTM, or DIN standards.

In practice, Standardöle are used in quality assurance: laboratories employ them as references in routine analyses, in proficiency testing, and to demonstrate the comparability of measurements across instruments or sites. Manufacturers provide accompanying documentation with certified values, uncertainties, and statements on traceability.

The term is not a single normative standard, but denotes the role of certain oils within a testing regime. In norms and guidelines, reference oils or Certified Reference Materials are specified as tools to support method reliability and interlaboratory comparability.