Synththetic oil...

[Haztoys]

Just found a copy of "Stranger in a strange land"...Yard sales are great..LOL..Got nine books for $4.00...8) ...

And they bring up the Leuna-Werk synthetic oil plant ...

Anyone know how much synthetic oil they used...

I've often wondered why it could be done in the 40's and not now...

(I know ..I know Its about greed of the oil companies)

 

[syscom3]

The process to convert coal to gas is a well understood. After the war, truck loads of documents were grabbed by the allies and then translated and indexed for research.

The issue today is the cost to do the process. Its still to much to be competitive.

 

[buzzard]

Haztoys,

Congrats on the books, "Strangers..." is great, ain't it

Synthetic oils cost more to produce than even $100/bbl oil.

"Since the invention of the original process by the German researchers Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the 1920s, many refinements and adjustments have been made, and the term "Fischer-Tropsch" now applies to a wide variety of similar processes (Fischer-Tropsch synthesis or Fischer-Tropsch chemistry)

The process was invented in petroleum-poor but coal-rich Germany in the 1920s, to produce liquid fuels. It was used by Germany and Japan during World War II to produce ersatz fuels. Germany's annual synthetic fuel production reached more than 124,000 barrels per day (19,700 m³/d) from 25 plants ~ 6.5 million tons in 1944.[2]" ~ Wik

Hi-octane fuels are especially difficult and expensive to produce. that's why German engines were tuned to run on lower octane fuel than that used by the Allies. If I remember correctly, poor fuel quality gave the Germans fits when testing Allied AC. I think they mention that in your new find.

JL

 

[kool kitty89]

On the octane rating that's untrue, Kfurst had some good info on it, but the main difference is that normally the allied system listed the octane rating for rich conditions, while the German system for lean.

Hence the German "92-97" octane (C-3) would be similar to 100/130 octane by allied standards. (also a mix of B4/C3 making something like 92/115 octane)

I cant remember the exact equivelent for standard B-4 fuel, but it was similar to 87 octane. (~92 octane rich)

From Kfurst:

The LW used two kinds of fuel. B-4, nominally 87 octane, and C-3, nominally 96 octane.

By Allied standards, C-3 was actually 130 grade fuel; in late 1942, its mixture was changed and it was an equivalent of 150 grade fuel. I am not sure about B-4.

Some reports though indicate that the fuel found in cases the downed fighters tanks was some kind of mixture of B-4 and C-3, something like 92 octane IIRC.

In any case, its worth to consider the fuel requirements from the technical sides; the main Allied inline engines, the Merlin and Allison, were relatively low displacements at 27 liters compared to the DB etc. engines. So the only way they could match the larger engine`s output was using highly manifold pressures, and/or higher RPMs. Higher manifold pressures absolutely required higher grade fuels to prevent knocking; also, to make best use of these fuels for power, comparatively low CRs were used; combined with the high supercharging needs required for high manifold pressure, this lead to high fuel consumption, and much more need for high octane fuels; the Germans, French (and thus Russians, who copied French inlines) with their high capacity engines simply didn`t require such fuels for high output

 

[mad_max]

C-3 at times was quite good and at other times not so good, but better than B-4. At it's best the rich rating was over 140, but normal quality was 130+. THe real difference was C-3 had poor lean rating, but really how much time did the German's spend trying to get maximum range instead of maximum performnce.

 

[kool kitty89]

Also:

Comiso, that would be a great thread to start.

From wikipedia....

World War II and octane ratings
World War II Germany received much of its oil from Romania. From 2.8 million barrels in 1938, Romania's exports to Germany increased to 13 million barrels by 1941, a level that was essentially maintained through 1942 and 1943, before dropping by half, due to Allied bombing and mining of the Danube. Although these exports were almost half of Romania's total production, they were considerably less than what the Germans expected. Even with the addition of the Romanian deliveries, overland oil imports after 1939 could not make up for the loss of overseas shipments. In order to become less dependent on outside sources, the Germans undertook a sizable expansion program of their own meager domestic oil pumping. After 1938, the Austrian oil fields were made available and the expansion of Nazi crude oil output was chiefly concentrated there. Primarily as a result of this expansion, the Reich's domestic output of crude oil increased from approximately 3.8 million barrels in 1938 to almost 12 million barrels in 1944. Even this was not enough.

Instead, Germany had developed a synthetic fuel capacity that was intended to replace imported or captured oil. Between 1938 and 1943, synthetic fuel output underwent a respectable growth from 10 million barrels to 36 million. The percentage of synthetic fuels compared to the yield from all sources grew from 22 percent to more than 50 percent by 1943. The total oil supplies available from all sources for the same period rose from 45 million barrels in 1938 to 71 million barrels in 1943.

By the early 1930s, automobile gasoline had an octane reading of 40 and aviation gasoline of 75-80. Aviation gasoline with such high octane numbers could only be refined through a process of distillation of high-grade petroleum. Germany's domestic oil was not of this quality. Only the lead additive tetraethyl could raise the octane to a maximum of 87. The license for the production of this additive was acquired in 1935 from the American holder of the patents, but without high-grade Romanian oil even this additive was not very effective.

In the US the oil was not "as good" and the oil industry had to invest heavily in various expensive boosting systems. This turned out to have benefits: the US industry started delivering fuels of increasing octane ratings by adding more of the boosting agents and the infrastructure was in place for a post-war octane agents additive industry. Good crude oil was no longer a factor during wartime and by war's end, American aviation fuel was commonly 130 to 150 octane. This high octane could easily be used in existing engines to deliver much more power by increasing the pressure delivered by the superchargers. The Germans, relying entirely on "good" gasoline, had no such industry, and instead had to rely on ever-larger engines to deliver more power.

However, German aviation engines were of the direct fuel injection type and could use methanol-water injection and nitrous oxide injection, which gave 50% more engine power for five minutes of dogfight. This could be done only five times or after 40 hours run-time and then the engine would have to be rebuilt. Most German aero engines used 87 octane fuel (called B4), while some high-powered engines used 100 octane (C2/C3) fuel.

This historical "issue" is based on a very common misapprehension about wartime fuel octane numbers. There are two octane numbers for each fuel, one for lean mix and one for rich mix, rich being always greater. So, for example, a common British aviation fuel of the later part of the war was 100/125. The misapprehension that German fuels have a lower octane number (and thus a poorer quality) arises because the Germans quoted the lean mix octane number for their fuels while the Allies quoted the rich mix number for their fuels. Standard German high-grade aviation fuel used in the later part of the war (given the designation C3) had lean/rich octane numbers of 100/130. The Germans would list this as a 100 octane fuel while the Allies would list it as 130 octane.

After the war the US Navy sent a Technical Mission to Germany to interview German petrochemists and examine German fuel quality. Their report entitled Technical Report 145-45 Manufacture of Aviation Gasoline in Germany chemically analyzed the different fuels and concluded that "Toward the end of the war the quality of fuel being used by the German fighter planes was quite similar to that being used by the Allies".

 

[syscom3]

On the octane rating that's untrue, Kfurst had some good info on it, but the main difference is that normally the allied system listed the octane rating for rich conditions, while the German system for lean.

Hence the German "92-97" octane (C-3) would be similar to 100/130 octane by allied standards. (also a mix of B4/C3 making something like 92/115 octane)

I cant remember the exact equivelent for standard B-4 fuel, but it was similar to 87 octane. (~92 octane rich)

From Kfurst:

Hmmmm ...... I learned something new today.

 

[Kurfürst]

Some new stuff on Axis oil on my site: Kurfurst - Your resource on Messerschmitt Bf 109 performance

Rather really, its just a compilation of sources that can be found on the net, but I believe it can be useful.