Paraffin

[keithfazzani]

Would I be right in assuming that paraffin/kerosene was used to some extent in WW1? If so how was it transported? Was it in the same containers as used for petrol and water? The reason I ask is that I am investigating an RAMC officer who was killed by accidental petrol burns. I am just trying to,see if it might have been caused by a mix up over containers. 

[michaeldr]

This will not be of much help as I have not been able to identify the exact difference, but difference between the two sorts of container there certainly was. I read a report by a naval surgeon serving with the RND who complained of injuries caused to men's hands by carrying water to the trenches in petrol containers. He insisted that they use kerosene jerry cans instead.

[Madmeg]

In NZ/Aus I believe that Kero cans were pyramidal in shape- wider at the base than the top. My family used old kero cans as molds for the family soap business. These would have been quite small in size so not sure if larger cans had the same difference.

Kerosine/paraffin would have been used for heating and I think running aeroplane engines. Older tractors used a mix of paraffin and (um petrol or diesel I can't remember now!) probably petrol- called TVO back in the day (certainly as late as the 70's for the old grey fergies) so it might have been used similarly then?

[keithfazzani]

Thanks. As they were indeed different shapes my theory doesn’t hold so am still puzzled as to how a man, in this case a doctor, was covered by so much petrol which burned and caused fatal wounds. 

[johnboy]

Is there any info as to where it happened? In my experience working on petrol and diesel engines I have never had any irritation when it has contacted my skin. The only way I can see burns is if the fuel caught light. Spilt on clothes and being close to a naked flame.     

[Interested]

1 hour ago, Madmeg said:

heating and I think running aeroplane engines

Not sure any of the early aero engines ran on paraffin; jet engines, certainly, but piston engines need high-octane fuel I think.  Perhaps an expert will be along shortly.

[Madmeg]

I knew some aero engines run on paraffin- thought it would be the older ones but happy to be corrected :-)

[pierssc]

11 hours ago, keithfazzani said:

Would I be right in assuming that paraffin/kerosene was used to some extent in WW1? If so how was it transported? Was it in the same containers as used for petrol and water? The reason I ask is that I am investigating an RAMC officer who was killed by accidental petrol burns. I am just trying to,see if it might have been caused by a mix up over containers. 

No idea as to the container question, but when you say a person died from an accidental petrol burn, the thing that sprang to mind was that someone (not necessarily the victim) put petrol into something like a paraffin lamp, with catastrophic results when it was lit. 

It seems that only a little petrol would do it.  According to Wiki (on Kerosene lamps): "Contamination of lamp fuel with even a small amount of gasoline results in a lower flash point and higher vapor pressure for the fuel, with potentially dangerous consequences. Vapors from spilled fuel may ignite; vapor trapped above liquid fuel may lead to excess pressure and fires. Kerosene lamps are still extensively used in areas without electrical lighting; the cost and dangers of combustion lighting are a continuing concern in many countries".

Alternatively, someone might have been trying to burn something and had the bright idea of deliberately putting petrol on the fire to help it along. 

 

[keithfazzani]

Pierssc you may well be right. Talking to a veteran he told me of a very similar incident in recent times, someone mistook a petrol container for a paraffin container, the person involved was badly burned but survived. The latter is also a possibility, apparently a relatively frequent BBQ accident. 

[RobertBr]

10 hours ago, johnboy said:

Is there any info as to where it happened? In my experience working on petrol and diesel engines I have never had any irritation when it has contacted my skin. The only way I can see burns is if the fuel caught light. Spilt on clothes and being close to a naked flame.     

Many years ago I was working under my car and spilt some petrol on my sleeve. It evaporated causing second degree burns.

It does not have to catch light.

Bob

[Chasemuseum]

Various military instruments using paraffin (kerosene) had dedicated fuel cans. This included signal lamps and medical sterilizer burners. This was only for the convenient fuel to refuel the instrument. in c.19 there were dedicated 2 gallon paraffin cans for signal lamps. The problem is that it is now almost impossible to distinguish between the the larger bulk fuel cans (2 to 5 gal) and the commercial 2 and 5 gal cans.

With ASC trucks, it was usual to have a frame under the tray to carry three standard rectangular 2-gallon cans, 1x petrol, 1x oil & 1x water. 

It appears highly likely that the commercial 2gal & 5gal gal cans were used indiscriminately for all types of fluids and were very dependent on cans being properly labelled and properly flushed from the previous contents. Multiple references from the Dardanelles campaign indicate that neither was conducted well. There are numerous reports of the 2-gal petrol cans being reused for drinking water and the water being heavily contaminated with petrol and making soldiers ill.    

Regards aircraft engines in WW!, These were always petrol driven spark ignition engines. Compression type "oil" engines were never used. The one complication to that statement are the Gnome and Le Rhone rotary type engines, running off the "Single valve" (mono-saupe), principle. These have the inlet valve incorporated in the piston, with a single exhaust valve on the cylinder. The air-fuel mixture is fed to the cylinders through the crankcase. Without an oil filled crankcase sump, lubrication was a serious problem. This was managed by having a pressurized oil injection system to spray castor oil into the crankcase. Large quantities of castor oil would pass unburnt through the cylinders and out the exhaust system, With the pilot becoming coated in sooty black oil during the mission. These were a very unusual style of engine by modern standards, with the crankshaft fixed to the aircraft frame, and the propeller fixed to the crankcase and rotating around the stationary crankshaft. The mass of the crankcase could have bizarre gyroscopic effects on the aircraft in flight. This type of engine was physically limited to the maximum power output, making them relatively obsolete by the end of the war. The number of smaller aircraft types using these engines had been enormous due to their superb power/weight ratio and good reliability. 

 

Regards ignition safety and flammability of liquids, - all flammable and combustible liquids are defined by the "flash point", the temperature at which a vapour-air mixture above the surface of the liquid will support a "flash", when a flame is passed near the surface (to complicate matters, the test can be in an open or sealed container giving the "closed cup" and "open cup" flash point. This is less than the temperature where sustained ignition will occur and substantially below the auto-ignition temperature (where a spark, flame or hot surface is no longer required for ignition).  As a rough rule, combustible liquids like diesel, kerosene and paraffin oil will have a flash point well above ambient temperature, usually + 50deg C, while flammable liquids (spark ignition fuels such as petrol) will have a FP well below 0deg C. The result is that a flammable liquid's vapours are easily ignited, by static electric sparks during fuel transfer, the opening or closing of electrical switches or tobacco smoking. The ignition source does not need to be near the fuel. As the vapours are generally about 4x heavier than air, a person may be entirely unaware that they are standing ankle deep in a dangerous fuel air mixture even when they are 10m away from the fuel transfer. By comparison, combustible liquids are difficult to accidentally ignit. Over-filling a fuel tank and spilling fuel onto a hot engine exhaust pipe will do it, but it is quite hard and people become very carefree regards the hazard. 

 

When fuels are mixed together (some residual petrol in a can being filled with paraffin) then the FP can be reduced to less than ambient temperature making accidental ignition easy.

 

In the 14-18 period the equivalent of the HSE was very much embryonic, lots of accidents occurred and it was not much of an issue killing a few people in industry. In the case of working class people, life was cheap. There are still places like that in the world today. Although I am now retired, I once worked at a project with a 1,200-man workforce and we were having 15 deaths/year on site. And the site basically did not use contractors.

 

[rolt968]

On 15/02/2022 at 09:51, pierssc said:

It seems that only a little petrol would do it.  According to Wiki (on Kerosene lamps): "Contamination of lamp fuel with even a small amount of gasoline results in a lower flash point and higher vapor pressure for the fuel, with potentially dangerous consequences. Vapors from spilled fuel may ignite; vapor trapped above liquid fuel may lead to excess pressure and fires. Kerosene lamps are still extensively used in areas without electrical lighting; the cost and dangers of combustion lighting are a continuing concern in many countries".

Strangely enough after reading this thread I was wondering about some kind of accident with a Tilley (or similar) lamp. It sounds as if dangerous contamination could happen if someone carried paraffin in a conatiner which had previously contained gaso;one and had not been properly cleaned.

RM

 

[Moonraker]

On 15/02/2022 at 07:40, Madmeg said:

... Older tractors used a mix of paraffin and (um petrol or diesel I can't remember now!) probably petrol- called TVO back in the day (certainly as late as the 70's for the old grey fergies) so it might have been used similarly then?

The Hornsby "Little Caterpillar" of 1909 originally ran on paraffin. More here. (Scroll down.)

See also this old GWF thread.

IIRC one disadvantage was that horses didn't like the smell and/or noise.

[Chasemuseum]

5 hours ago, rolt968 said:

I was wondering about some kind of accident with a Tilley (or similar) lamp.

These can be dangerous in the sense that the fuel is often pressurized in the base of the lamp. If the pump mechanism is leaky, it can spray a mist of fuel out while it is being pumped. A mist of combustible liquid will behave like a flammable liquid vapour and is readily ignited. 

 

Accidents are very well known. In third world countries this is a major source of blindness.

[charlie962]

Very useful discussion. I note the distinction between flammable and combustible liquids.

I have heard it said you can stub a cigarette out in  a dish of diesel but I am not prepared to test it.

Thanks charlie

 

[reese williams]

My other collecting gig is gas pressure appliances (gpa), think camping lanterns and stoves. I got started by acquiring some military stoves and lanterns then branched into the whole realm of gpas. Tilleys and Petromax and most all the European gpas are kerosene fueled while most American ones use a very low octane (50-55) naptha based fuel. Naptha is the first level product from gasoline refining. The Amish, a religious sect here in the US which eschew many modern devices including electricity use gpa's for primary home lighting. It is common for them to use a 70/30 mix of kerosene and Coleman Fuel (naptha or white gas) in their pressurized lanterns.  Others in the collecting community have adopted the practice on kerosene lanterns. It makes the lantern easier to light, especially in cold weather. As far as I know there have not been any catastrophic accidents caused by this fuel mix and the practice has been around since the early part of the last century. 

Given that this mix is safe to use in a pressurized device I cannot see any way that a petrol tin by simply being unrinsed could cause anything even close to enough contamination when filled with kerosene to have any change in the burning properties of the kerosene, certainly not an explosive change. An unrinsed petrol tin would contain at most a teaspoon of gas. That is not going to affect any kerosene added, even if it is only a gallon can. It would, however, be enough to flavor a five gallon can of water. Enough to make you sick? Probably not, but certainly enough to make you complain about the taste.

[depaor01]

I hope this bit of light relief is OK to post here. If not please remove. Read the container warnings carefully.

Taken from another forum...

 

[Chasemuseum]

I like it. !!

 

Way off WW1 topic, but excellent

[keithfazzani]

Thank you all. In discussing this further I have heard of an accident in Northern Ireland where a soldier was badly burned after mistaking fuel containers in the dark and using petrol in a lantern or cooker not sure which, having mistaken the container as a paraffin container. This would seem to the most likely explanation. 

[healdav]

The RN used to have a 5 gallon drum of soft soap which was labelled NITROGLYCERINE. Technically that was correct (and the manufacturers insisted on labelling it thus), but didn't give quite the right impression to the public.

There were at least two cases of bomb scares when a drum was washed up on the beach.

[michaeldr]

On 15/02/2022 at 07:32, michaeldr said:

I have not been able to identify the exact difference, but difference between the two sorts of container there certainly was.

I still can't say what the difference between the two sorts of container was, [other than per the Naval Surgeon's remarks, one notable difference must have been the handle] however we can see what a WWI petrol can looked like from this photograph in the IWM collection

 

[Great War Truck]

The two gallon tins were designed just for petrol, but had other uses. MT should carry three tins (painted black from 1917-1918) marked P, O or W for paraffin, oil and water. Petrol tins would remain in either the manufacturers colour scheme, red or green. The green is a bit lurid. 

[Great War Truck]

Here is an image of all three together. I would have thought the incident was caused by a petrol can mistaken to be a paraffin can. 

[michaeldr]

On 21/02/2022 at 12:37, michaeldr said:

I still can't say what the difference between the two sorts of container was, [other than per the Naval Surgeon's remarks, one notable difference must have been the handle] however we can see what a WWI petrol can looked like from this photograph in the IWM collection

Sorted; see

 

[Madmeg]

On 19/02/2022 at 04:39, depaor01 said:

I hope this bit of light relief is OK to post here. If not please remove. Read the container warnings carefully.

Taken from another forum...

 

Love it! 

Flamable (oris it combustible? ) water :-D