Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 83 No.30 Nine Cement

Wang Luobin had purchased a whole set of small cement equipment for producing cement by the vertical kiln method, but the operation of this equipment required a large amount of coal, and the traversers had no coal for the time being.

The raw materials needed for other cement, such as clay, lime, and gypsum, can be found locally. The clay in the borrow pit of this brick kiln itself has low sand content, and the soil is reddish-high in iron content, which is very suitable for burning cement.For lime, although the calcium carbonate content of the lime fired from the shell oyster house at Bopu is relatively low, chalk deposits can also be found near the borrow pit, and gypsum has not been found nearby, but the question of whether to add gypsum is not an issue. big.

After much consideration, Wang Luobin decided not to install a complete set of equipment that has certain requirements on temperature and raw materials for the time being, but simply fired a substitute cement to meet the current construction needs.This kind of cement is also called "artificial pozzolan cement", and some places have burned it in rural areas in the past.It does not require complex equipment processes. Simply put, it is to crush and grind the fired bricks or pottery, or directly put lime and clay in the kiln for calcination.The process of this substitute cement is very simple, and the calcination temperature is 600-800 degrees Celsius, which is much lower than the 1450 degrees Celsius required for firing Portland cement.The performance is roughly similar to the oldest "pozzolan cement".The Yunnan-Vietnam Railway in Yunnan was built with this kind of cement, and it was widely used in the infrastructure construction in the Southwest during the Anti-Japanese War.

Wang Luobin only knew that there was this thing, but he didn't know if it could be used.So first ask people to take a batch of red bricks that have been fired in the brick yard for experiments.The laborers smashed the bricks into small pieces by hand one by one. The grinding work was originally intended to be carried out by manpower or horsepower. They found many large and small stone mills in the quarry of Bairentan. ——After running for an hour, I found that the efficiency was terribly low: only 10 kilograms were crushed.

After crushing and sieving, Wang Luobin mixed the powder with lime, then added water and mixed well. The mixture was used to build a wall under the watchful eyes of the construction team.Everyone was very excited and wanted to see for themselves whether this legendary cement replacement was really effective.

After drying, it is proved that this substitute cement of burnt clay is fully usable.Of course, it cannot be compared with real Portland cement, but it can be used as a binder for building materials, and even concrete with low strength requirements can be produced.

This discovery excited everyone.Even Zhao Wu, the mason who smashed bricks, had an excited expression on his face—he has been a mason for more than ten years, and when he builds walls and houses, he mixes loess, lime and water to make glue.The most exquisite thing is the plaster with glutinous rice juice added. This group of people actually used bricks to grind powder to make plaster that can firmly bind the bricks together!This is beyond his imagination, are they really pirates?This trick has to be remembered.Because I learned this trick, I was even a little happy that I was captured.

Cement is the first modern industrial product in the true sense of the traversers, although it is not very qualified.But this is a crucial step for the construction of the traversers, and cement is the basic raw material of modern buildings.

However, the grinding efficiency is still too low. According to this level, the 24-hour continuous grinding output is only 240 kg, which is not worth mentioning.

After research by the mechanical team, a simple automatic grinding machine was produced.They used two stone mills found in the Bairentan quarry to make an electric double mill, which was connected to the vertical shaft with a through mandrel. The vertical shaft was equipped with bearings to reduce the resistance during rotation. The rocking frame with the throwing wheel drives the bevel gear through the iron chain to make the stone mill run.

However, feeding and sifting are still done manually, which is not only inefficient, but also prone to pneumoconiosis—a very troublesome occupational disease that is almost impossible to cure.Although the natives who do these jobs are captives, labor is also a kind of wealth for the traversers.Zhan Wuya led a few mechanical team members to study it. A wooden wheel was added to the bevel gear, and a belt was used to drive a windmill for sifting grain. The material automatically flows down the ramp and falls into the windmill, and the wind force is used to separate the coarse and fine grains. The coarse grains are sent back to the funnel above the stone mill from the conveying hopper next to the ramp, and then enter the roller again to grind them finely.This iron-wood-stone-cooperative soil device can crush about 1 ton of broken bricks every day.

With cement, refractory bricks are also needed to build a wheel kiln.Refractory bricks are one of the cornerstones of modern industry. Without this thing, let alone wheel kilns, cement kilns, and even blast furnaces in the future, there is no hope.Fortunately, Lingao produces refractory materials locally.The traversers found alumina and silica for firing refractory bricks from the vicinity of the brick kiln, and easily fired refractory bricks.

With refractory bricks and cement, building a wheel kiln was easy in the hands of the construction team. A few days later, the brick red chimney of the wheel kiln spewed thick black smoke into the air for the first time.

"Damn, it's so beautiful." Someone muttered to himself.There was an intoxicated look in the eyes of the travelers. What was hated by everyone in the past, symbolizing backwardness and pollution, is now regarded as the most beautiful thing by the travelers. Looking at the smoke, Wang Luobin somewhat understood why The great leader didn't value Beijing's ancient city wall at all, and demolished it as soon as he said it.However, the heroic words "Beijing's chimneys should be as dense as forests" were issued—the ancient city wall was something that the Chinese at that time were too familiar with, and the scarce modern industry at that time was the symbol of a country's social progress .

At this time, the brick-red chimney of this round kiln stands proudly among the green mountains and green waters beside the Wenlan River, which does not feel any disobedience to the traveler, and announces the official beginning of the era of industrialization for the traveler.

The wheel kiln needs to be warmed up before firing, and the construction team went to Bopu to build a wood drying kiln for the wood processing plant. With this standard drying kiln, the wood team can continuously provide energy. Qualified wood products are given to the construction site of Bairen City, instead of the temporary substitute wood that is dried in an earthen kiln with different humidity and will shrink and deform at any time.Wang Luobin will not participate in this matter. The size and material of the drying kiln, anyway, Luo Duo will look for books, and he has never seen such a thing when he lived in Guangxi.

Watching the construction team climb up the farm vehicle and drive towards Bopu, he suddenly remembered something, and immediately dialed Mei Wan: "You discuss with the wood team to build another wood retort kiln."

"Dry distillation kiln?" Mei Wan didn't know what it was.

"It's a kiln for burning charcoal. Tell Luo Duo later that he knows about it. You should study it first and see when it can be put into operation."

Since there is no coal, we have to use charcoal instead.Dry distillation of wood can not only obtain charcoal, but also wood tar used as a chemical raw material. This is a complex compound that can extract many useful substances.Charcoal itself is no less calorific than coal.

The catering office delivers meals to the workers working in the brick and tile factory with a kitchen cart.Now, Wood has taught them to line up by stick.Queuing is a basic social order, and it is a manifestation of everyone's fair access to resources. The reason why Chinese people don't like queuing seems to have nothing to do with personal qualities.Perhaps it is largely related to the long-term lack of social resources. Whoever abides by the order will suffer. Therefore, over time, everyone doesn't like to queue, and they will rush when they have the opportunity to push other people to the back.Wu De felt that there was some truth in this statement.

Just like the current food distribution, although each team has a captain to maintain order, the whole team is still a bit messy, and everyone hopes that they can go to the front.Only due to the deterrence of the traversers, the order of the team was barely preserved.

Wood was satisfied with the work of his laborers. During the whole project, he seemed to just walk around and observe the team.Most people work hard, of course not because of their high self-consciousness, but the sense of competition among the five captains. No one wants their team to perform too poorly in front of Wu De—for the common people It is always "traitors are worse than devils", these five captains are indeed very diligent in supervising work, but this is not enough.Wu De knew that the hard work of the captives was only due to fear, and other stimuli were needed to work voluntarily.

Wu De decided to start with food.After each of the captives received a bowl of porridge, Wu De asked someone to bring a basket.This grotesque thing made by a mechanical group exudes a fishy smell of dried seafood.It is a salted fish work that failed to manage food...

"Today, Wang Tian's team did the best and the most," Wu De announced on the mound, "so each of them in the team can eat an extra salted fish."

This added bonus makes many eyelids swell.From the time of being captured, eating two meals of porridge a day-this is still enough for most people-there are many people who have lived half-starved since birth, but even a salty radish and the like I have nothing to eat, drink porridge and urinate a lot, can't eat salt, and my body is weak after two days.

"Wang Tian commanded well, send two." This reward made Wang Tian's face glow with excitement, and the other four felt a little sour.Eating more salted fish is a trivial matter, but losing face is a major matter.They were all planning to deal with some of the foreign workers at night—killing chickens to make an example to monkeys.

(End of this chapter)