Lord of Industrialization

What Hoffman experienced this winter also happened in the villages and surrounding areas in Wesson, including his search for a wife.

At the beginning of the new year, the soldiers at the border checkpoint were surprised to find that there were many more people coming to Wesson, most of them young people, many with their families.

At this time, Frederick was testing the clutch with Schmidt and others. There was a problem with this gear clutch. The gear could not be shifted until the gear stopped rotating, otherwise the gears would be beaten and the gears would be damaged.

Frederick had no good solution for this, and the gearbox was also like this.

Research on gearboxes has also promoted the development of gears. Gears require good tooth contact strength and wear resistance, and the gear teeth are required to maintain relatively high toughness, which puts forward higher requirements for processing.

Then Frederick discovered that he had forgotten the differential, and the bevel gear in the differential that he had seen in his previous life was too difficult to process with current technology.

He thought for a long time, and finally recalled that there seemed to be such a spur gear differential, which used ordinary gears and could work well with the chain drive.

The differential designed by Frederick had a mooncake-like housing, and a chain or gear drove the housing to rotate. The gears at the top of the two axles are inside, and multiple small gears are set on the inner side walls to mesh with the axle gears here, just like a large circle with several small circles around it.

When the housing rotates, the pinion drives the axle gear on this side. Under normal circumstances, the internal pinion gear and the axle gear are relatively stationary. When the speed of one side of the axle slows down or even stops, the pinion here will rotate.

He made a model out of wood and existing gears, and it failed because a heavier load on the axles on either side would cause the casing to spin.

Failure is not terrible. The elders said that everyone will make mistakes, but engineers must analyze the causes of mistakes.

Frederick studied for two days and finally discovered where the mistake was. He had remembered it wrong.

This differential is generally correct. There is a problem with the internal pinions. They need to be arranged in a "" shape when viewed from above and a "" shape when viewed from the side. The left and right ends engage the two axle gears respectively, and the middle end bite each other.

Viewed from the side, when the axle gear rotates clockwise, the upper pinion gear rotates counterclockwise. When the gears rotate counterclockwise, the right side goes up and the left side goes down, so two small gears side by side and rotating in the same direction are stuck with each other.

When the load on both sides of the axle is the same, the two pinions will act like a whole and drive the axle gear to rotate.

Suppose that when the load on one axle increases, the corresponding axle gear stops rotating. If the clutch is moving clockwise at this time, the pinion on the stopped side will rotate clockwise around the fixed axle gear, itself will also rotate clockwise, and at the same time drive the adjacent pinion to rotate counterclockwise, and then drive the other side to The rotating axle gear turns clockwise.

Although it is rare for one side of the axle to lock and stop, and the speed just slows down, from the perspective of mutual motion, it can also be seen as the axle on that side has stopped, and the differential will work.

The new spur gear differential was ready, and everyone installed it on the stand together with the carriage's axle and wheels, and then connected it to a newly modified two-cylinder steam engine through the newly made chain.

As the cylinder starts, the two wheels immediately rotate rapidly. A lever is installed on the outside of the wheel, which triggers a counter every time it rotates.

Five minutes later, a student reported to the principal that the wheels on both sides were rotating at the same speed.

Frederick nodded and asked them to proceed to the next test.

Soon, a student took a wooden board and pressed it on one wheel to increase its load. The wheel speed on this side slowed down a lot, while the wheel on the other side not only did not stop, but also turned faster.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, another problem was solved.

Next, there is a more troublesome task. Assembling various systems together is also a skill. If you don't do it right, the light weight will be too heavy, and the heavy one will fall apart.

Frederick asked Benz to make models of the same size according to each system. The steam engine, condenser and water tank were empty wooden boxes, the chain was a hemp rope, and the flywheel was directly modified from the soup bucket lid that was bitten by rats in the canteen. Wait, as long as they are the same size, then a group of people use their brains to build blocks.

Then a problem arose. The chassis of the steel frame carriage was not suitable for tractors, so Frederick began to calculate the weight and position of each system. With reference to the truck chassis he knew, "I was thinking" about coming up with a chassis that at least would not be crushed. The chassis comes out.

In the final assembly stage, various problems emerged one after another. In order to facilitate riveting, the original assembly plan was overthrown and restarted.

In the continuous cycle of problems arising - analyzing problems - solving problems - summarizing experience, the steam tractor took shape bit by bit.

What followed was a variety of documents weighing more than a tractor in the archives, which recorded in detail the results of every experiment and every process detail.

Frederick specially arranged for someone to compile them into a book, which would be useful if he traveled through time again one day.

One day in early March, Frederick deliberately asked Benz: "How many days are expected to complete the entire assembly?"

Benz opened a thick notebook, which recorded the parts of the entire tractor, ticking each one after it was installed.

"There are still three days," he replied. "In three days, all the instruments will be assembled, and then the no-load test will begin with adding water."

Frederick nodded and said, "Just watch over the next few days. I'm going to see how the farm tools are doing. I'll send them over when they're done, and then I'll go do some other things."

The farm tools matching the steam tractor were researched and produced at Bryant's blacksmith shop, and Frederick sent a group of experienced farmers to help.

Frederick felt at ease with this master blacksmith. He had participated in many innovative projects and he didn't have to worry about it, so he rarely went there.

Bryant lived up to his trust, and the plow, planter, furrower, and wheat harvester were all ready.

Frederick squatted in front of several brought out farm tools and studied them with interest.

Although he has issued a slogan for more plows and rakes, the current one is only a 20-horsepower steam tractor, which can only drive one plow for deep plowing. For shallow plowing, it can use more plows than the current plows.

With the current level of agriculture, the depth of farmland is generally only about 10cm. After all, it is enough to sow wheat at 3 to 5cm, and the depth of plowing is less than 20cm, and it is only plowed once every four or five years.

The cultivated layer of land without deep plowing is more than ten centimeters thick, and underneath is the compact plow bottom layer. This layer of soil is dense and relatively compact, which will hinder the infiltration of water, air circulation, and the growth of crop root systems.

The deep plowing mentioned by Frederick is more than 30 centimeters, which is very helpful in improving the physical properties of the land, increasing the available soil moisture, eliminating weeds, adding nutrients, promoting the growth of microorganisms, and improving the development of crop root systems.

His hometown conducted a survey in 14 counties and cities including Chang'an and Baoji in the 1950s. The wheat yield of farmland cultivated to a depth of 36 to 40 centimeters increased by more than 40% compared with that of farmland cultivated to a depth of 10 to 20 centimeters.

So Frederick was very satisfied after measuring the size of the plow with his hands. With the development of technology and the popularization of deep plowing, grain production could reach a higher level.

Another thing that can improve work efficiency is the wheat harvester. It can be towed behind the tractor and is powered by wheels on the ground. The wheat dialing wheel protruding from the side can turn the wheat towards itself when rotating. The double-layer saw teeth below The reciprocating motion can cut the wheat straw, and the conveyor belt at the rear can send the cut wheat to the other side of the tractor, where a carriage can follow and wait for the wheat and wheat straw to fall into the vehicle.

After looking around here, Frederick was very satisfied. He calculated the dates in his mind and thought that he could try the power of steam tractors for this year's summer harvest and autumn sowing.