The Castrol Technology Centre is a research institute owned by BP in

South Oxfordshire South Oxfordshire is a local government district in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England. Its council is temporarily based outside the district at Abingdon-on-Thames pending a planned move to Didcot, the district's largest town. The a ...

, north of

Whitchurch-on-Thames Whitchurch-on-Thames is a village and civil parish on the Oxfordshire bank of the River Thames, about northwest of Reading, Berkshire, in close proximity to Whitchurch Hill. Opposite Whitchurch on the Berkshire bank is the village of Pangbour ...

History

Castrol

Castrol was founded by C.C.Wakefield in 1899, making lubricants (Wakefield lubricator) for railways. The research site is based at Bozedown House, a former private residence originally built by William Fanning c.1870 and then rebuilt by Charles Palmer in 1907 after the original house was destroyed by fire. It became a chemical research site in the 1950s and was purchased by Castrol in 1976. In 1993 it won the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for its Castrol Marine Cyltech 80. Castrol employs around 7,000 staff worldwide. Castrol was bought by BP in 2000.BP
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Structure

The site is around three-quarters of a mile north of the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

, east of the B471, accessed from the A4074 at Woodcote. The site has around 500 staff.

Function

Castrol has twelve research sites around the world. The site at Pangbourne is the largest of the twelve sites. Research is done on

rheology Rheology (; ) is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in a fluid (liquid or gas) state, but also as "soft solids" or solids under conditions in which they respond with Plasticity (physics), plastic flow rather than deforming Elasticity (phy ...

and the

viscosity The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the inte ...

engine oil Motor oil, engine oil, or engine lubricant is any one of various substances used for the lubrication of internal combustion engines. They typically consist of base oils enhanced with various additives, particularly antiwear additives, detergen ...

References

External links