Daming: Apocalypse of Longevity

Chapter 91 Bottleneck
But Zhang Boyu has an advantage, that is, he simply doesn't think about things that he can't understand, and just follow the boss's request.

Sun Yuanhua did not let Zhang Boyu pull the smelted iron ingots directly, but let him only pull the iron ore. Naturally, he had his plan. He had to follow the method written in the professional books Zhu Tianqi gave him just now, Try to smelt "new steel"!
The so-called "new steel" was a temporary name given by Sun Yuanhua to distinguish it from various types of steel refined in the past.

In fact, Sun Yuanhua's attainments in cannon casting technology are indeed very high. Although he does not have much knowledge of modern physics and chemistry, he has accumulated rich practical experience and has his own unique understanding of smelting and casting. .

During this period of time, he has been carefully studying the professional books Zhu Tianqi gave him. Many of the problems that troubled him before have been answered in these books. Although the professional terms and rankings in the books are still a bit confusing for him, But after receiving Zhu Tianqi's reply to him, and through Zhu Tianqi's popular explanation in the letter, he suddenly became enlightened.

Sun Yuanhua is an expert in artillery casting and has the best artillery casting technology in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, he knows very well what bottlenecks the Ming Dynasty's artillery faces today. The biggest problem is "materials"!
In fact, although the Ming Dynasty lags slightly behind the European and Western countries in modern science, it does not lack firearms masters. In addition to Sun Yuanhua, there are many firearms experts. The firearms they design and manufacture are very advanced and are among the best in the world. One of the best.

However, these firearms have a very serious problem, that is, they have limited power and are not durable. The reason why Daming's firearms have such defects is mainly because the casting "materials" are not up to standard.

The iron smelting level and output of the Ming Dynasty can be said to be the best in the world, but the technology of steelmaking and alloy refining is not very advanced. It is precisely because the people of the Ming Dynasty were unable to break through the bottleneck of "materials" and could not smelt newer materials. The advent of metal materials with high strength and toughness caused the firearms and cannons of the Ming Dynasty to gradually lag behind those of the West.

In order to improve the power of the Hongyi cannon, Sun Yuanhua also took great pains, and finally adopted the copper-iron casting method, that is, using a copper-iron alloy to cast the Hongyi cannon. Only then did he achieve the desired effect. However, when he wanted to go further, he never did it again. Not here.

Sun Yuanhua knew in his heart that if he could not smelt better metal materials, he would not be able to cast cannons with greater power and longer range. All his ideas and designs for new artillery would be fantasy.

Faced with the bottleneck of cannon-casting materials, Sun Yuanhua may not have been able to figure out why it was difficult to smelt qualified metals before, but through the professional books on smelting and casting given to him by Zhu Tianqi, he has now found the answers to his previous questions. The reason for the failure, and also learned a way to solve the difficult problem of casting cannon materials.

Sun Yuanhua realized that it was difficult for him to smelt suitable cannon-casting materials before. The problems mainly existed in two aspects, one was the fuel, and the other was the blast furnace.

When the Ming Dynasty people smelted steel, the main fuels they used were charcoal and coal. Among these two fuels, charcoal was the fuel that the Ming Dynasty people were more willing to use, while coal was only used as a substitute when charcoal was insufficient.

The reason for this situation is that people in the Ming Dynasty discovered that the steel smelted with charcoal as fuel has better color, greater strength, and stronger toughness, while the steel smelted with coal as fuel has poor color and strength. It has poor toughness, extremely brittle iron, and is very easy to break. When used to cast firearms, it is easy to explode.

People in the Ming Dynasty did not understand modern chemistry, so naturally they were puzzled by this situation. Even the old masters who had been smelting iron for decades could not explain the reason, and even relied on metaphysics, saying something like "carbon source In wood, among the five elements, wood produces fire, and fire overcomes metal, so wood is still needed to make fire, while coal belongs to earth, and the five elements belong to earth, and earth produces gold, and gold is used to refine gold, and it is easy to break after just the time.

Unable to discover the cause, let alone solve it, so even if the temperature produced by using charcoal as fuel is not as high as that produced by using coal as fuel, people in the Ming Dynasty could only insist on smelting higher quality steel if they wanted to. Use charcoal.But if you want to smelt truly qualified steel, you need to have a furnace temperature of at least [-] degrees, but it is obvious that it is impossible to use charcoal as fuel.

The fuel problem that stumped the people of the Ming Dynasty was so simple for any modern person with a certain knowledge of chemistry. Sun Yuanhua was able to find the root cause of the fuel problem through the professional books given to him by Zhu Tianqi.

Coal contains a lot of phosphorus and sulfur. It is these phosphorus and sulfur that cause the quality of steel smelted with coal as fuel to be so poor and so brittle!

Therefore, if you want to use coal, a fuel that can produce higher temperatures, to replace charcoal, you must find a way to remove the phosphorus and sulfur in the coal. At least, they cannot be allowed to melt into the molten iron during the smelting process of steel and affect the final steel. the quality of.

The methods of desulfurization and dephosphorization are also recorded in the book. Sun Yuanhua has also studied it carefully and is now preparing to make a few furnaces to test the effect.

Although the fuel problem seems to be solved soon, the blast furnaces used for smelting iron and steel also need to be improved. Although coal as fuel can produce higher temperatures than charcoal, with the smelting blast furnaces currently used in the Ming Dynasty, It is still difficult for the furnace temperature to reach such a high temperature as [-] degrees.

Because the iron-making furnaces used by the Ming Dynasty were open and unable to effectively collect and retain heat, the thermal efficiency was very low. Therefore, even though the Ming Dynasty invented many advanced human and animal-powered blowers to blow the iron-making furnaces, Still having trouble raising the furnace temperature to a higher level.

Modern blast furnaces have better heat collection and heat retention capabilities, and have very high thermal efficiency. They can easily raise the furnace temperature to thousands of degrees. Their construction methods are also recorded in detail in the books that Zhu Tianqi gave to Sun Yuanhua. Sun Yuanhua has already The man built a modern blast furnace according to what was written in the book. At this time, he was making preparations for ignition according to the smelting instructions introduced in the book.

After Zhang Boyu led people to transport the iron ore back to the inner city, he came to the cave where Sun Yuanhua was to return to his life.

Sun Yuanhua heard that the iron ore had been transported, so he put away the reply letter written by Zhu Tianqi in his hand, raised his head and smiled at Zhang Boyu and said, "Thank you, General Zhang!"

Zhang Boyu hurriedly cupped his fists and saluted: "The last general will not dare!"

Sun Yuanhua immediately walked around the table, stepped forward and said: "General Zhang, I am going to the foundry to light the iron smelting furnace. This iron smelting furnace is the first new blast furnace built in the Ming Dynasty. You Do you want to come over and have a look together?"

(End of this chapter)