100-Octane

[Jim Speiser]

Hello,
I'm researching an aspect of the Battle of Britain, specifically exactly how
the UK came into possession of the 100-octane fuel that allowed the
Sptifires to climb higher than the Me-109s. There doesn't seem to be any
documentation on exactly how it got there; one moment the planes are
fighting in France with 87-octane, the next moment they are defending
England with 100-octane. There is a quote from Tedder, who says that Shell
established a processing facility in Heysham, but we can't find the original
source of the quote (it's not in his autobiography), nor any details on the
Heysham plant.

Any help/references appreciated.

Speiser Pere et Fil
--

[D. Patterson]

Post by Jim Speiser
Hello,
I'm researching an aspect of the Battle of Britain, specifically exactly how
the UK came into possession of the 100-octane fuel that allowed the
Sptifires to climb higher than the Me-109s. There doesn't seem to be any
documentation on exactly how it got there; one moment the planes are
fighting in France with 87-octane, the next moment they are defending
England with 100-octane. There is a quote from Tedder, who says that Shell
established a processing facility in Heysham, but we can't find the original
source of the quote (it's not in his autobiography), nor any details on the
Heysham plant.
Any help/references appreciated.
Speiser Pere et Fil
--

It began with the technical developemnt of a 100 octane fuel by Shell Oil
with the encouragement of Jimmy Doolittle as Shell Oil's manager of aviation
fuels in the United States. Shell Oil found the use of tetraethyl lead and
hydrogen as fuel additives made it possible to suppress engine knock and
boost engine performance. However, this new fuel remained a scientific
curiosity, because there was no feasible means for a refinery to
economically produce bulk quantities of this fuel, until Humble Oil
developed a new alkylation process in 1938. Dr. William J. Sweeney as vice
president for fuels research at Standard Oil of New Jersey guided the
further development of a new superblended 100 octane fuel for his company.
This secret new high octane fuel subsequently became known by the British
Air Ministry as BAM-100. The British Air Ministry began ordering this new
100 octane superblend fuel in 1937, but it was to be some time to come
before the first bulk shipments arrived in Britain.

Britain began stockpiling 100 octane fuel with receipt in June 1939 of a
bulk shipment from the Esso refinery in Aruba. This initial shipment of 100
octane fuel was soon supplemented with further shipments from the same
refienry and from other refineries in Curacao and the United States. Upon
the beginning of the war and the establishment of the U.S. Neutrality Act,
shipments of the 100 octane fuel from American refineries to the stockpiles
in Britain were interrupted for a period of time. Limited stocks of the 100
octane fuel were obtained from South Africa and the Caribbean, while
President Roosevelt found a means to resume American shipments of the 100
octane fuel to Britain.

The changeover to the 100 octane fuel appeared to be sudden because the
Spitfires' Rolls Royce Merlin engines were not converted for the use of 100
octane fuel until March 1940, and the limited stockpile of fuel was
carefully rationed until more adequate supplies could be stockpiled for
future requirements. By May 1940, unarmed reconnaisance Spitfires began
flying combat missions using the 100 octane fuel. By 31 July 1940, there
were 384 Spitfires serving in 19 squadrons using the 100 octane fuel to
boost performance by an additional about 25-34 mph. The limited size of the
stockpile required strict rationing until supplies of this high performance
fuel could be greatly increased to meet all requirements in the period
following the Battle of Britain in 1940.

By 1943 a cold Alkylation process had been developed to produce enormous
outputs of the 100 octane AvGas. Some 90% of the Abadan refinery eventually
became devoted to supplying the RAF's enormous needs for AvGas. By 1944, the
Merlin X engine was using 150 octane AvGas for even greater performnce.

[Andrew Clark]

Post by D. Patterson
It began with the technical developemnt of a 100 octane
fuel by Shell Oil with the encouragement of Jimmy
Doolittle as Shell Oil's manager of aviation
fuels in the United States. Shell Oil found the use of
tetraethyl lead and hydrogen as fuel additives made
it possible to suppress engine knock and
boost engine performance. Shell Oil found the use of
tetraethyl lead and hydrogen as fuel additives
made it possible to suppress engine knock and
boost engine performance. However, this new fuel
remained a scientific curiosity, because there
was no feasible means for a refinery to economically
produce bulk quantities of this fuel, until Humble Oil
developed a new alkylation process in 1938. Dr.
William J. Sweeney as vice president for fuels
research at Standard Oil of New Jersey guided the
further development of a new superblended 100
octane fuel for his company. This secret new high
octane fuel subsequently became known by the British
Air Ministry as BAM-100. The British Air Ministry
began ordering this new 100 octane superblend
fuel in 1937, but it was to be some time to come
before the first bulk shipments arrived in Britain.

This is certainly the US-centric view found on a number of
websites. It is, however, incorrect and incomplete.

The US subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch company Shell certainly
produced limited amounts of 100 octane aviation fuel for the
USAAC from about 1937, but they did so by blending ordinary
paraffinic petrol and iso-octane, producing an effective
low-benzole high-lead fuel suitable for US aircraft engines.
(The iso-octane, by the way, was obtained by the patented
alkylation process developed by the British-owned
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's Sunbury Research Laboratory in
1935, for which Humble Oil had paid over US$ 8 million for a
licence). However, this low-benzole fuel was *not* suitable
for British aircraft engines.

Quite independently from the US experiments, Anglo-Iranian
Oil had been developing from 1936 another high octane leaded
fuel for British aviation engines based on high-benzole
Venezuelan crude oil blended with iso-octane from the
British refinery at Abadan. Bulk supply contracts were
placed by the Air Ministry in 1937 for this fuel and it was
put into wide-spread use in the RAF in March 1940 (dyed
green to distinguish it from the 87 octane, which was blue).

Post by D. Patterson
Britain began stockpiling 100 octane fuel with receipt
in June 1939 of a bulk shipment from the Esso refinery
in Aruba. This initial shipment of 100 octane fuel was
soon supplemented with further shipments from the same
refienry and from other refineries in Curacao and the
United States. Upon the beginning of the war and the
establishment of the U.S. Neutrality Act, shipments of
the 100 octane fuel from American refineries to the

stockpiles

Post by D. Patterson
in Britain were interrupted for a period of time. Limited
stocks of the 100 octane fuel were obtained from
South Africa and the Caribbean, while President Roosevelt
found a means to resume American shipments of the 100
octane fuel to Britain.

In November 1940, UK supplies of high octane aviation fuel
were derived from three Esso refineries handling Venezuelan
oil, two in the US and one in the Caribbean (about 45%), the
Anglo-Iranian Oil refinery at Abadan (25%) and Shell
refineries in Borneo (30%). Half the British supply was
non-US in origin.

Source for above: "The History of the British Petroleum
Company" (Cambridge University Press, 1994). You might also
consult the British Official History volume entitled "Oil",
by Payton-Smith, (HMSO, 1971).

[DBurch7672]

The changeover to the 100 octane fuel appeared to be sudden because the
Spitfires' Rolls Royce Merlin engines were not converted for the use of 100
octane fuel until March 1940, and the limited stockpile of fuel was carefully
rationed until more adequate supplies could be stockpiled for future
requirements.

What did these conversions involve?

[R ESTEY]

Post by Jim Speiser
Hello,
I'm researching an aspect of the Battle of Britain, specifically exactly how
the UK came into possession of the 100-octane fuel that allowed the
Sptifires to climb higher than the Me-109s. There doesn't seem to be any
documentation on exactly how it got there; one moment the planes are
fighting in France with 87-octane, the next moment they are defending
England with 100-octane. There is a quote from Tedder, who says that Shell
established a processing facility in Heysham, but we can't find the original
source of the quote (it's not in his autobiography), nor any details on the
Heysham plant.
Any help/references appreciated.
Speiser Pere et Fil
--

Gasoline is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons (C5- C10, number of carbon atoms)
It was found that the straight run gasoline distilled from crude had a very
low octane rating as the straight chain alignment of carbon atoms combusted
very easily. The compression of the gasoline/air mix will detonate before the
piston reached the top of its stroke (knocking). Attempts to increase the
yield of gasoline from each barrel lead to "cracking" - first by heat (thermal)
later using catalytic methods to reassemble the hydrocarbon molecules. The
reformed molecules formed branched chains more resistant to "knocking" . It was
found that crudes high in aromatic content (benzene) made the best base
for high octane fuels. Crudes from Aruba, where Shell had a refinery, were
high in aromatics and was used as the base for 100 octane fuel. Tetra ethyl
lead was then added to boost the octane level further. Using 100 octane
fuel it was found that engine manifold pressures in the Merlin engines could be
doubled. This increased engine output nearly 30% from 1030hp to 1300hp. 100
octane fuel was dyed a distinctive color and was to used only for combat
missions as it was scarce. When war was was declared US neutrality laws
kicked in and export of it from American refineries stopped. FDR was able to
maneuver a bill through Congress to sell was materials to Britian on a "cash
and carry" basis - Britian had to pay in hard currency and carry it using
their own tankers. In November 1939 flow of 100 octane fuel was resumed.

[Presidente Alcazar]

Post by Jim Speiser
There doesn't seem to be any
documentation on exactly how it got there; one moment the planes are
fighting in France with 87-octane, the next moment they are defending
England with 100-octane.

The RAF had begun purchasing 74,000 tons of 100-octane fuel per year
from 3 suppliers in 1937. This rate of importation was doubled after
Munich. The RAF wanted to build up a reserve of 400,000 tons before
converting aircraft en masse to use it operationally.

Post by Jim Speiser
There is a quote from Tedder, who says that Shell
established a processing facility in Heysham, but we can't find the original
source of the quote (it's not in his autobiography), nor any details on the
Heysham plant.

Plants at Heysham, Stanlow and Billingham produced iso-octanes which
were the additives required to raise 87-octane fuel to 100-octane
rating, but a deliberate policy decision was made to develop
production facilities outside the possible range of bombing attack.
This led to commercially-owned plants in Trinidad, Aruba, Abadan and
the US being expanded and domestic British production (including a
troublesome new plant at Thornton) being held to a minimum.

Post by Jim Speiser
Any help/references appreciated.

The relevant official history, "Oil. A Study in Wartime Policy and
Administration" by D. J. Payton-Smith (HMSO, 1971), is a good start.

Gavin Bailey

--

Apply three phase AC 415V direct to MB. This work real good. How you know, you
ask? Simple, chip get real HOT. System not work, but no can tell from this.
Exactly same as before. Do it now. - Bart Kwan En
--

[Steven James Forsberg]

: I'm researching an aspect of the Battle of Britain, specifically exactly how
: the UK came into possession of the 100-octane fuel that allowed the
: Sptifires to climb higher than the Me-109s. There doesn't seem to be any
: documentation on exactly how it got there; one moment the planes are
: fighting in France with 87-octane, the next moment they are defending
: England with 100-octane. There is a quote from Tedder, who says that Shell
: established a processing facility in Heysham, but we can't find the original
: source of the quote (it's not in his autobiography), nor any details on the
: Heysham plant.

: Any help/references appreciated.

The British apparently ramped up production at a number of facilities
in order to meet their wartime needs. The PRO has several related items,
and Cabinet record CAB/66/14/20 specifically mentions the Imperial Chemical
Industry Bilingham Plant, Heysham, and Thornton. For history on the Bilingham
plant you can go to site:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nationonfilm/topics/chemical-industry/
though I can't seem to get the links to the videos to work.

British record titles also indicate that "Trinidad Lease Holdings, Inc."
was involved (though it may just be a business title and really in Trinidad),
and more importantly major efforts at the Anglo-Iranian oil refinery in
Abadan, which had no fewer than 4 extensions in two years to produce more
high octane fuel. The PRO also has records of the "Air Ministry High Octane
Fuel Committee" from 1937 onwards. And, perhaps interestingly, there is
mention of a Shell-BP ltd facility in Faversham for "secret wartime
operations" though it appears to be tankage and not production.

regards,
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
***@bayou.uh.edu

--

[Louis Capdeboscq]

Post by Jim Speiser
I'm researching an aspect of the Battle of Britain, specifically exactly how
the UK came into possession of the 100-octane fuel that allowed the
Sptifires to climb higher than the Me-109s.

As aircraft technology developped, and that of the combustion engine in
general, it was realized that engines weren't operating at anywhere near
their theoretical capacity. That was particularly true of aircraft engines.

Oil companies in the world's two largest oil-producing and -consuming
countries, i.e. the United States and the United Kingdom, therefore
tackled the problem. The USAAC laid out a specification for a
high-octane fuel in 1934, and both Exxon (US) and Shell (Anglo-Dutch)
developped apropriate technology for the high-performance fuel.
Depending on how you read the relevant patent litigation, both companies
developped their technological solutions independently or not.

High-octane fuel allowed an aircraft to develop more power by pound of
fuel, not to climb higher. This meant that you could either increase
takeoff weight (not very useful for the Battle of Britain Spitfires, but
far more so for the 1943-45 Allied aircraft), or performance at a given
setting. Call it an additional 20 mph top speed at the usual combat
altitudes, and better acceleration.

Post by Jim Speiser
There doesn't seem to be any
documentation on exactly how it got there;

The British had refineries in the UK, in the West Indies / Venezuela,
and in the Persian Gulf. They also built plans in the US. The idea was
to have some domestic refining capacity (quickly accessible) and some
non-domestic one (longer delay before the fuel reached the UK, but less
vulnerable to enemy bombing).

In addition to these, they purchased available stocks on the US market.

Post by Jim Speiser
one moment the planes are
fighting in France with 87-octane, the next moment they are defending
England with 100-octane.

The reason for the transition was that the British had been waiting for
enough fuel stocks to build up OR an emergency to come up before they
would use their 100-octane fuel. At the time of the Battle of Britain,
stocks had increased AND it was an emergency.



LC

[Emmanuel Gustin]

Status: RO

Post by Louis Capdeboscq
High-octane fuel allowed an aircraft to develop more power by pound of
fuel, not to climb higher.

Not even that. High-octane fuel often has a lower energy
content, not a higher one. High-octane fuel allowed engines
to develop more power by pound of engine, by allowing
higher compression ratios, thus burning a denser fuel/air
mixture. Below the rated altitude of an engine, superchargers
were capable of delivering air at a higher pressure than
the engine could tolerate without premature ignition during
the compression stroke; high-octane fuel allowed the pressure
in the cylinder to be higher, and the extra allowed pressure
was used to increase power at low altitude. [Water injection
(further delaying the ignition) allowed even more fuel to be
burned for short periods.] The gain was at altitudes below the
rated altitude, i.e. the altitude where the compression was
optimal; above that altitude the thin air, not the compression
ratio, limited the amount of fuel that could be allowed into
the cylinder.

[Yama]

In addition, I've read that there is more to fuel performance than Octane
number alone and going by that can be misleading. Reportedly German
87-octane fuel offered better performance than British 87-octane, and German
C4 (96 Octane) was not that much worse than Allied 100/130 Octane.

[R ESTEY]

Post by Yama
In addition, I've read that there is more to fuel performance than Octane
number alone and going by that can be misleading. Reportedly German
87-octane fuel offered better performance than British 87-octane, and German
C4 (96 Octane) was not that much worse than Allied 100/130 Octane.

Actually German aviation fuel was inferior to Allied fuel - Germany was
deficent in petroleum resources and depended on imported oil, from Mexico
and US before war, from Russia until June 1941 and from Romania after that.
Also German built synthetic coal to oil plants using 2 processes. Bergius
where coal was ground up and mixed with heavy oil into paste, put in reactor
and hydrogen added under high temperature and pressure to create synthetic
petroleum. Fisher-Tropsch, coal was converted to mix of carbon monoxide
and hydrogen by blasting steam into bed of red hot coal. Gas mix was passed
through catalyst to convert to petrolem. This couild be refined into
gasoline, diesel, lube oils, etc. German refineries were not built to
produce high octane aviation fuel in large quantities because the process of
cracking and catalytic reformation resulted in loss of 5-7% of original
feed stocks as gases. German avaition fuel was a mixture with synthetic
petroleum as base (which contained large amount of aromatic hydrocarbons,
Allies used aromatic crudes as base), naptha from Romanian crude with
tetra ethyl lead as octane booster. German aviation fuels gave poor fuel
economy and rough running, high cylinder temps at lean settings.

[John Waters]

Post by Yama
In addition, I've read that there is more to fuel performance than Octane
number alone and going by that can be misleading. Reportedly German
87-octane fuel offered better performance than British 87-octane, and German
C4 (96 Octane) was not that much worse than Allied 100/130 Octane.

Concerning German AV fuel, quality or the lack of: *

"In an effort to match the superior American fuels, the Germans in 1944 were
adding 40% aromatics to their brew to pull the octane up to the 96-point
range. This increase meant less fuel production overall at a time when the
Germans were critically pressed for gasoline for pilot training.

Then to, the increased fraction of the aromatics reduced performance in
other ways; engines overheated more readily, richer-mixtures had to be run
to prevent stalling (reduceing aircraft endurance, fouling plugs and fuel
efficency) and added compounds attacked rubber hoses and the self-sealing
bladders in German fuel tanks. And still the fuels were not equivalent.

The Germans attempted to make up for the remaining gulf
by useing power boost, either methanol-water or nitrous oxide injection.
This expedient did increase horsepower, but could only be used for short
periods and had to be carefully turned on and off to maintain performance.

The upshot of the difference in 1944 was that the P-51D's Rolls Royce Merlin
engine produced 1520 hp with 100-octane fuel, while the Me-109G's Dalimar
Benz 605 could only reach a similar level of performance with 25% more
engine displacement and greater weight. "


*See: Parker Danny S. To Win the Winter Sky. pp.70-71.



Regards, John Waters

[Yama]

Before and during WW2, it was common "wisdom" that 'inferior' powers like
USSR and Japan were pretty much unable to design decent aircraft of their
own and mostly relied on copying other nations. Thus for example in Spanish
civil war, I-16 was called "Boeing", I-15 was "Curtiss" and SB was "Martin".

--

[c***@ddddartmouth.edu]

On Tue, 6 Jul 2004 02:21:23 +0000 (UTC), Louis Capdeboscq

Post by Jim Speiser
I'm researching an aspect of the Battle of Britain, specifically exactly how
the UK came into possession of the 100-octane fuel that allowed the
Sptifires to climb higher than the Me-109s.

Higher octane fuel did not allow Spitfires to climb higher than the
Bf109E's that they flew against during the Battle of Britain. In
fact, many historians give the edge to the 109 in high altitude
capability.

What the high octane did do for the engine was allow the Rolls Royce
engineers to introduce a more efficient supercharger for the Merlin
that forced more air and fuel into the intake manifold than the
version used in the Mk1's.

Horsepower production is a matter of fuel/air + ignition + compression
+ rpm. Increase any one of those factors (except for ignition which
only needed to ignite the mixture at the proper time) and you get more
power, up to a point. At some point, you can exceed the ability of
the engine to stay together, or the fuel to burn properly, or the
ignition to ignite properly. The point is, none of the engines of
that era had reached their ultimate development yet. The Merlin is
now producing in excess of 3,000 horsepower for races at Reno and it's
basically the same engine, albeit with some compression and
supercharger changes and some unholy fuel mixtures.

The Rolls Royce engineers were told that a higher octane fuel was
being developed, and modified the Merlin to make use of it by revising
the amount of fuel and air that got packed into the intake manifold.
They could do this because they knew that the higher octane fuel would
resist detonation that would otherwise have occured with the higher
manifold pressures being run in the engine. They managed this in
large part by revising the supercharger, allowing it to increase it's
compression ratio.

So what does this give you? It gives you an engine that, in the exact
same airframe, now produced more power. Coinciding with the higher
powered engine was the addition of a three bladed variable pitch
propeller which allowed the pilot to use the full throttle without
worrying about overspeeding the engine: he could select maximum rpm
and push the throttle to full military power and know that the engine
would stay bolted together, even in a dive.

But this did not necessarily give it a higher ceiling than the Bf109,
nor did it give it a better performance at extremely high altitude.

This was because even though the new supercharger was superior to the
older one, there were still limits to what it could do and the
Messerschmitt was optimized for better performance at higher altitude
than the Spitfire. Luckily for the Spitfires, most of the combat
occured at less than the absolute maximum altitude the fighters were
capable of. At medium high altitudes, from 18 to 20,000 feet, the
Spitfire could hold it's own against the Bf109E.

Corky Scott

PS, simply using 100 octane fuel in an engine optimized for 87 octane,
with no changes, would have done nothing for engine performance. The
only way to increase performance is to increase either rpm or
compression. Since there were also physical limits as to how fast
props could turn, that left only compression (or cubic inches) as the
method for increasing performance. I take that back, the engineers
could have revised the ratio of the gear reduction unit that turned
the prop thus allowing higher engine rpm without increasing the
maximum speed of the propeller.