Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 144 Steelmaking

Although the modern fishing boats possessed by the traversers have absolute advantages in detection capability, protection, speed and maneuverability, their firepower is very weak.If there were not three pirate ships this time, but thirty, it would be difficult for the single-handed Yu No. 1 to get good fruit, and the pirates in the Fujian and Guangdong seas each have at least three or four hundred. strength of the ship.For the entire Bopu port, the range of activities and various facilities of the traversers have far exceeded the scope of the Bopu camp. More than 200 traversers and members are scattered in an extremely wide space, almost completely undefended.

To sum it up: not only must the navy be upgraded, but in case of emergency, the port fortification work of Bopu Port must also be put on the agenda.The suggestions of the staff officers include: building turrets; mass-manufacturing artillery that is not lower than the level of 1800; There is no ability to overhaul this kind of ship within 5 to 10 years.Even simple maintenance such as putting on the bottom paint of the boat can't be done.It is not that there is no material, but that the antirust and toxicity effects of modern ship bottom paint cannot be achieved.

The task of making guns was assigned to the mechanical group of the industrial department.This is simply a stimulant for mechanical fanatics.How many days have I been aggrieved and I have been making small hardware, even the mechanical crossbow is made of wood.Now the cannons can finally be released, and everyone is full of energy.In the shed of the machinery factory, artillery enthusiasts from all walks of life come in an endless stream, and they come up with various plans. The basic styles are basically concentrated on three kinds of artillery: 12-pound mountain howitzer; light and flexible, small and versatile 92 infantry gun; Mortars that fight the world.Everyone added different functions and improvements to these cannons according to their hobbies.

A lot of steel is needed to make guns.Dengyingzhou has already shipped two batches of pig iron ingots and a small amount of wrought iron from Guangzhou, totaling 50 tons, and 20 tons of urgently needed coal.It can roughly meet the initial large-scale steelmaking needs.

The converter steelmaking method used by the traversers, in the time and space of the 21st century, small converter steelmaking is a backward industry that the country has explicitly eliminated, but it is a truly advanced industry here.This industry is settled in Bopu Port Area.

Bopu was chosen because Lingao’s iron and steel complex is an enterprise that needs to import all raw materials, and bulk coal and iron ore shipped by ships can be used nearby.The current steelmaking workshop is nothing more than a large brick shed with four small converters and an iron furnace lined up on the hardened floor.

Ji Wusheng, the person in charge of the metallurgical department, used to be a steelworker. Although he has never done small converter steelmaking, he still understands the principle. After D-day, he has smelted several furnaces of steel, proving that it is possible to smelt steel with charcoal and local pig iron products. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to grasp the ratio of materials, so what steel can be produced each time is entirely dependent on luck.In addition, the energy consumption of the metallurgical department is really large enough, and the two blowers have to stop all nearby electricity-consuming departments during steelmaking alone.

The metallurgical group uses a converter side-blowing method to make iron according to the pig iron composition tested. Using the converter side-blown method, a certain proportion of wrought iron is added.The proportion is about 76% of pig iron and 24% of wrought iron. In addition, a very small amount of sand is required. The function of sand is to form acidic slag and absorb the phosphorus contained in pig iron.

After discovering the real estate refractory materials, the metallurgical team has built an iron melting furnace. This circular iron melting furnace is not big, but it is much more complicated than a converter.Because the converter requires that the molten iron coming out of the iron furnace must reach 1380 degrees Celsius.This temperature is unattainable for ordinary fuels. Before there is no regenerator, the highest temperature that can be achieved artificially is 1250 degrees Celsius.

To achieve this temperature, the cold blast must be replaced with a hot blast.This is the so-called "regenerator".The concept of hot blast was invented by the Englishman Nelson and applied to the ironworks in Glasgow in 1829.

The technical level of the regenerator used by the metallurgical group is roughly equivalent to that of the British steel plant in 1850, and the cast iron tube hot blast stove is used.The cold blast passes from the upper branch of the blast pipe main pipe to each heating furnace, and enters the pipe on the other side of the heat exchange chamber through the arched cast iron pipe above the fire, and then enters the tuyere of the furnace.The whole device is sealed in a thick arched heating furnace with bricks and refractory materials to preserve and reflect as much heat as possible. After the blast is directly heated, the temperature can rise to 300 degrees Celsius, which is enough to melt lead.However, this temperature is still not satisfactory to the metallurgical group. Another measure adopted is exhaust gas heating. The exhaust gas of the iron-smelting furnace is drawn out from the top of the iron-smelting furnace with ceramic pipes, enters the regenerative furnace from the upper part, and is discharged from the exhaust gas outlet at the lower part.

A large amount of gas is produced in iron furnaces that use coal or coke. For centuries, this gas has basically been vented from the top of the furnace. When the gas is burned, the blazing flames are very spectacular at night, but it is a serious waste of energy. and pollute the environment, so in 1832, an iron factory in Baden, Germany first piped the gas to the regenerative furnace for heating, and various methods would eventually increase the hot air to more than 500 degrees Celsius.

Iron or steel can be made without a regenerative furnace, but the production efficiency is completely incomparable.According to the calculations of the British, the early regenerative furnace increased the air supply to more than 300 degrees Celsius, and the output of the same amount of fuel iron was three times higher than that of the cold blast.

High-temperature hot air will damage the air supply port of the iron melting furnace and must be protected.The technical level of the traversers is sufficient to overcome this problem.They easily copied the Scottish tuyere invented by Condy of the Scottish Iron Works. This kind of tuyere has a wrought iron coil embedded in a cast iron conical tube. only.Water flows in from one end of the protruding pipe, and flows to the narrow end of the tuyere.The water circles around the coil and exits through a pipe protruding from the opposite side.

With this iron melting furnace, the metallurgical team can successfully smelt steel in several small-scale steelmaking.The next step is coking.

Early traversers used charcoal, but coke was still the most ideal fuel.The significance of coal coking is not only to provide high-quality fuel for the iron and steel industry, but also various by-products obtained in the coking process are important raw materials in the chemical industry.For this reason, a complete set of coal coking equipment was shipped.Not only can coking be made, but also more than 20 important chemical products can be produced with its by-products.Including gasoline, diesel, asphalt, phenol, toluene, crude benzene, sulfuric acid, various solvent oils, lubricating oils and paraffin.It can be said that once the coal coking complex is put into operation, the chemical industry level of Chuozhong will have a qualitative leap.

However, like all packages, it is difficult to install.Although the manufacturer is required to train in advance, a large number of drawings, installation manuals and special equipment have been prepared.In the hands of a group of installers who have become monks halfway, the progress is still slow.Moreover, this system is a continuous operation type, which cannot be started and stopped, and hundreds of tons of coal are required for one feeding.The traveler's total coal reserves are only 20 tons.Therefore, the metallurgical group can only adopt simple coking methods.

There are many methods of local coking. The simplest method is the stacked open-air method. 2 to 4 tons of coal are piled up on the ground in a semicircular pile with a diameter of 3 to 4 meters at the bottom, and the top is covered with straw to ignite the fire. It takes 4 to 5 days. It is coke, and the coking rate is only 50%. This method was used in the era of large iron and steel smelting. The waste of resources and environmental pollution are extremely serious. Travelers can ignore environmental protection issues, but coal tar is an important raw material for chemical industry. Can not be wasted casually.

Luo Duo once again found an improved solution from the computer's science and technology resource library, using the Kailuan round furnace for coking production.The Kailuan furnace has three different specifications, and the number of feeds per batch varies from 55 tons to 260 tons.The 55-ton furnace has the best price/performance ratio, and it is also in line with the current situation that the traveler has limited coal in the initial stage.

The building materials are also very simple. Except for a few parts that require iron sheets, the basic materials are bricks and refractory bricks.The entire coking process takes about 12 days, and the coking rate is 75%. This kind of furnace can use the gas generated by coking to heat the coking oven, and at the same time, part of the coal tar can be recovered.The tar recovered after cooling with water is collected in earthenware pots and prepared to be used as chemical raw materials in the future.

Finally, the coke and pig iron were ready.Ji Wusheng summoned the steel workers.These newly diverted traversers put on asbestos protective clothing and gloves, special hats and color-changing goggles.He reiterated several key points with the people in each operating position: first, the air volume must be adjusted evenly, not suddenly large or small; secondly, when the molten iron is poured into the furnace, it should not be higher than the tuyere, otherwise the tuyere will be blocked. Finally, the amount of pouring molten iron should not exceed one-sixth of the converter cavity.

Two blowers started to operate at the same time. One blows air to the iron furnace, gradually raising the temperature to over 1300 degrees. The pig iron ingot has been completely melted. At this time, Ji Wusheng directed the workers to put in 0.4% baking soda for desulfurization treatment. At the same time, during the preheating of the converter, according to the requirements, the entire converter should be preheated to 1000 degrees Celsius to reduce the temperature loss after the molten iron enters.

When the optical thermometer shows that the temperature of the molten iron in the furnace has reached 1380 degrees, the molten iron is poured into the converter to start blowing. Keep heating up.Ji Wusheng stared closely at the tongue of fire in the furnace, and iron flowers burst out one after another. The tongue of fire was red-yellow, then yellow-white-white, and finally completely white and shiny.This shows that the furnace temperature is constantly rising.

The blowing lasted for more than ten minutes, the density of the star-shaped carbon flowers continued to increase, and the bright white flames changed from short to long, and the burning of carbon reached its peak at this time.

When Ji Wusheng saw that the tongue of flames began to shorten and the carbon flakes became thinner, he knew that the remaining carbon in the molten iron was beginning to approach the content of steel.He raised and lowered the rocker once or twice to see if there were any more sparks, and when he saw that there was no sudden increase in the number of sparks, he ordered the fan to be turned off.

Afterwards, the workers removed the furnace cover and air ducts, started slag removal and slag removal, and finally poured.What molding sand adopted is 90% yellow sand, 5% clay and 5% white mud.After casting, it is a steel ingot.As for whether the steel ingot is high-carbon, medium-carbon or low-carbon, Ji Wusheng can't control it for the time being. Every time a furnace is smelted, an experiment must be done to determine what kind of steel it is.

(End of this chapter)