Technological power starts with upgrading lenses.

Chapter 387 Exploded!

"Sorry, I'm not feeling well today. I'm going to go back and rest."

Facing the somewhat irrational Duke, Byrne did not intend to compromise.

He and Duke have worked together for such a long time, and the two have actually always had a good personal relationship, but they are not the same type of people after all.

Duke is a businessman. He is doing nuclear fusion just to turn his life around. He doesn't consider the consequences of experimental failure at all...

In other words, he actually considered it, but didn't care.

So what if the experiment fails and the device is severely damaged?
It's nothing more than leaving a mess to Mobil.

But for Byrne, a physics professor who studies nuclear fusion, this incident means something completely different.

Once the LM-26 project is successful, it will surely win many international academic awards in the future.

No one will remember who paid for LM-26.
But everyone must remember that it was he, Byrne, who built the LM-26.

Joshua Byrne's name will be recorded in history like other famous scientists such as Edison and Tesla, and he will become a scientific giant respected by all mankind and even the future world.

Even without talking about these utilitarian things, the LM-26 is the result of many years of hard work by Byrne, and he can't bear to waste it like this...

The failure of today's experiment has basically no impact on Byrne, it just delays the ignition for a period of time.

Anyway, Mobil has already taken a fancy to them. Even if Duke fires him now, Mobil will still have to invite him back after it officially takes over General Fusion tomorrow...

Byrne no longer had to worry about General Fusion going bankrupt and forcing him to interrupt his research.

Therefore, Byrne chose to turn against Duke directly.

Seeing Byrne's leaving back, Duke's face couldn't help but darken, but soon he turned his gaze to Crowley who was standing there in a daze.

"Crowley, you will continue to conduct today's experiment."

"what?"

Byrne's assistant was stunned for a moment, then quickly shook his head and said, "But I'm just an assistant to the director..."

"Not anymore. Byrne has been fired. I now appoint you as the technical director of General Fusion. As long as you can successfully ignite today, your salary will be twice that of Byrne, which is eight times your current salary!"

A trace of struggle suddenly appeared on Crowley's face, but soon greed took over his mind.

Moreover, Duke suddenly added: "If we can successfully light the fire today, it will no longer be Byrne who goes down in history, but the two of us."

"Especially you, Crowley. Scientific exploration requires some courage. No one will remember a coward without the slightest sense of adventure. The successful ignition of LM-26 will make you the most respected physicist in the world!"

This sentence completely shattered Crowley's sanity.

The opportunity to pick peaches is not available every day, especially these honey peaches, which are so ripe that anyone who sees them will salivate...

"It's my pleasure."

……

"Fuel setting: 0.75 mg deuterium-tritium mixture."

"Setting completed."

"Begin the ignition experiment."

Under Crowley's supervision, the experiments were soon restarted, and Crowley first doubled the nuclear fuel.

As the machine emitted a harsh sound of electricity, the plasma ring successfully entered the reaction chamber.

bang——

The 120 steam hammers around the device immediately completed the strike on the plasma ring.

However, this attempt failed.

But the data is encouraging. This time they created a temperature of 5960 million degrees, 13 higher than last time.

"It works, which means my guess is correct."

Far from being disappointed, Crowley was encouraged and immediately ordered the reaction chamber to be cleaned and the experiment to be repeated by adding more fuel.

By the third experiment, when the fuel was increased to 1.5 mg, the temperature inside the cavity had reached 6320 million degrees.

Although the conditions for fusion reaction have been met, the fusion reaction still has not occurred.

In fact, this is normal, because there is a probability of fusion occurring due to atomic collision. Only when two atoms collide and a fusion reaction occurs, releasing the first wave of energy, will a chain fusion reaction occur, detonating other nuclear fuels.

What they created were only the minimum conditions for fusion reaction, so the probability of ignition was very low.

But now the fuel has reached 1.5mg...

Even Crowley, who was obsessed with money, couldn't help but sweat.

The complete fusion of 1kg of deuterium-tritium mixture can release about 3.38E14 joules of energy (equivalent to about 9360 million kWh of electricity without considering the power generation efficiency).

According to the design of the LM-26 device, each reaction can only withstand a maximum of 6.876E8 joules of energy.

In other words, he could only inject a maximum of 2.04 mg of deuterium-tritium mixture into it.

"I think to be on the safe side, I should stop at 1.5mg and try my luck a few times. If that doesn't work... then try 2mg."

Duke checked the time, shook his head and said, "Each of your experiments takes more than an hour, and it's already 9 o'clock in the evening, which means we only have two chances... If you don't want to be kicked out by Byrne tomorrow, I don't think now is the time to hesitate."

Crowley's face suddenly turned pale.

What Duke said was absolutely right. The moment he accepted Duke's invitation, it was actually a betrayal of Byrne. This decision had blocked his retreat.

Today, they cannot afford to fail!
"Fuel setting: 2 mg deuterium-tritium mixture."

“Isn’t this a bit too radical?”

"Yes, it's already 9 o'clock in the evening. I think we should stop here for today..."

The other researchers were terrified when they saw Duke and Crowley, who were already a little bit crazy...

"Please hold on a little longer!" Duke immediately soothed them. "After today's experiment, regardless of success or failure, I will give each of you a bonus of $20,000! I will pay for it out of my own pocket and transfer it on the spot!"

Everyone was a little excited after hearing this. A researcher said tentatively: "We can help you prepare for the experiment, but we want to stay away from you before the formal experiment..."

"make a deal!"

So this group of people immediately started the experiment with their own ulterior motives.
As 2 mg of deuterium-tritium nuclear fuel was injected into the plasma injector and heated into plasma, all the researchers immediately ran out of the laboratory.

Duke and Crowley stayed in the control room to carry out the final operations.

Of course, there are also some security and logistics staff who are completely unaware of the situation.

A dozen researchers were looking at the laboratory not far away in the cold wind, smoking and chatting.

"It feels like they've gone crazy..." "Who cares about them? Duke is the big boss after all. Even if the company is taken over by Mobil in the future, he will still be a major shareholder. If you really offend him, your life will be difficult in the future..."

"Yes, as long as the money is in place."

"But if something happens to him, who will we ask for the bonus we just promised him?"

"Although I am a little worried, according to the normal design standards of LM-26, the energy released by 2mg of fuel is completely within the tolerance range, and the possibility of an accident is indeed not high..."

"Then why did you run out?"

"Hey, this isn't..."

Boom——

Before the researcher could finish his words, a loud explosion suddenly occurred in the laboratory!
The huge impact force generated by the explosion made the entire ground tremble! !

Several researchers were so frightened that their legs went weak and they knelt on the ground. They looked at the laboratory that was blasted with a hole and glowed with blue light, and their faces were filled with horror...
-
Dongyang.

Before seven in the morning, Kang Chi's cell phone suddenly rang urgently.

Because he had been busy until midnight helping Yan Hui solve Xunlong's manufacturing problems, Kang Chi was not awakened by the ringing. It was not until the third ring that Kang Chi finally forced his eyes open, touched his phone and said in a daze, "Who is it?"

"It's me, Zhong Weijian." Academician Zhong on the other end of the phone could tell Kang Chi was in a bad mood, but the matter was more important, so he continued, "The General Fusion exploded!"

Damn it! ! ?

Kang Chi immediately perked up after hearing this.

"It exploded? When did it explode? How did it explode? Was it powerful?"

"..."

Zhong Weijian was silent for a moment, then asked, "Why do you sound so happy?"

"Ahem... It's nothing, I was just excited for a moment." Kang Chi asked seriously, "Is it serious? No one was injured?"

"There is no official report on the specific situation, but according to rumors in Maple Leaf Country, it seems that five people, including General Fusion's boss Isaiah Duke, were sent to the hospital. I don't know if their lives are in danger..."

"As for their magnetized target device, it is obvious that it must have been severely damaged. This incident happened at 31: p.m. on the st, which means it was : a.m. yesterday here, taking into account the time difference."

"In addition, their technical director Joshua Byrne gave a media interview after the accident."

"According to his description, they seemed to have some disagreements during the experiment that day, but he did not reveal what the disagreement was. He only said that he left the laboratory after the first experiment."

"I guess Duke, who issued the military order, took the rest of the people to conduct some dangerous and radical experiments, which eventually led to the accident..."

After Zhong Weijian finished explaining the situation, he said in a serious tone: "Although the radioactive neutrons produced by milligram-level nuclear fuel cannot be considered a nuclear leak accident, at most it can only be considered an accidental explosion in an experiment. Byrne also repeatedly emphasized this point in the interview."

"But no one believes him at all. Now all media outlets are questioning the safety of the magnetized target device... This wave of public opinion will definitely affect us soon."

"The Ministry of Science and Technology also called me just now. Although they didn't directly stop us, they hope to send a safety consultant to re-evaluate the risks of our experiment..."

"No matter what the result of the assessment is, I think the safety plan will have to be upgraded several levels based on the original one... This may take a lot of time."

"..."

Kang Chi immediately stopped thinking about gloating...

They are not doing their best, and it ends up affecting their own plans?
What is this thing called?
At this moment, Kang Chi only felt disappointed with General Fusion.

Even if they succeed in lighting the fire first, it's better than exploding...

Fortunately, it was Kang Chi who proposed the magnetized target route. For his sake, the leaders only asked them to increase the safety level of the experiment. They even asked Zhong Weijian to convey the notification instead of talking to him directly.

It can be said that it gives enough face.

If we change someone, the entire project will probably have to be re-evaluated.
-
The explosion of General Fusion affected more than just Kang Chi.

How happily the stock prices of ExxonMobil and Amazon rose before, how painfully they are falling now.

Just one day after the news spread, their stock price fell back to the price before investing in General Fusion, and it was even a bit unstoppable...

This incident also made the M Country Energy Bureau more convinced that the magnetized target nuclear fusion proposed by Kang Chi was definitely a huge pit!
Fortunately, it was only General Fusion that was fooled.

If it were them, they probably wouldn't know how they would be criticized by the media and the public...

At the same time, domestic media quickly reported this news, and the word "nuclear fusion" appeared in everyone's sight again.

"Fuck, how did they end up making hydrogen bombs when they were working on nuclear fusion?"

"The key is that he blew himself up..."

"Master Kang, please protect yourself. If anything happens to you, where can we buy cheap graphics cards?"

"Yeah, if it doesn't work, forget it. Saving your life is the most important thing."

"It's not as exaggerated as you say. I saw the news pictures and I feel that the power of the explosion is at most equivalent to an RPG. As long as we keep a safe distance, what's the harm in it exploding? We can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, right?"

"I agree with the above comments. Besides, our President Kang's strength is not comparable to theirs."

"No matter what, I think safety comes first."

Just like Zhong Weijian’s guess, netizens who did not understand the technical details did not directly question Kang Chi, but they generally had some doubts about the safety of this experiment.

But in fact, the safety standard of Jinwu No. 1 is much higher than that of General Fusion. Even if an accident like General Fusion really happens, there will definitely be no casualties.

Besides, Kang Chi didn't need to joke about such things and conduct some radical and risky experiments.

Because of the General Fusion experiment accident, Kang Chi had to temporarily put aside the Xunlong project and let Yan Hui and his team continue in Dongyang. He came to Luzhou in advance and took over the task of assembling the Jinwu No. 1, and asked Zhong Weijian to hand over the upgrade work related to experimental safety.

A week after Kang Chi arrived in Luzhou, the Maple Leaf Country Energy Bureau finally released an investigation report on the December 12 General Fusion Experiment Accident.
Kang Chi also immediately summoned the main technical directors of Jinwu No. 1 to analyze the report.

[The steam hammer transmission device is abnormal, and the pressurization sequence of the steam hammer is deviated...]

When Kang Chi saw this, he couldn't help but widen his eyes: "So from the beginning, their experiment failed because of the problem with the transmission device..."

"Instead of solving the problem, they continue to add fuel? Tsk tsk tsk... All I can say is that if you don't do it, you will die."

Seeing this, Kang Chi had already guessed the cause of the explosion.

Kang Chi believed that the device would be able to withstand the fuel they injected normally, but in their eagerness for quick success, they overlooked a problem.

Since there are problems with pressurization, is it possible that there will be no problems when these steam hammers rebound and reduce pressure during a fusion reaction?
Very simple reason,

It's hard for you to push it in, how can you pull it out smoothly?
Once the speed of pulling it out is not enough, the decompression performance will decrease, and the result can be imagined.

I guess their design was too extreme, leaving no room for themselves, so they couldn't get a venting device, and it was just a thermobaric bomb at that time...

Then, bang—

I can only say that they deserved to be blown up...

(End of this chapter)