Chapter 729 Research Projects of the Institute (Subscription Requested)

The Fubo battleship has completed the task of cooperating with the army to capture the territory of Maodun, and there is nothing to do if it continues to stay in the grassland Honghu.

Luo Chong simply ordered Shu Da to go to Takuhai County, wait for other ships at the estuary to form the Fubo fleet, and then take the entire fleet to the sea for offshore training, adapt to the ocean climate, and training subjects such as circumnavigating the island and strategic reconnaissance deterrence.

First, find out the hydrological environment around Zhudao, so that it will be easier to complete the plan against the Xin tribe.

Of course, the Tang tribe was not aware of this, and they didn't know what the Han tribe wanted to do by putting such a big ship in Takuhai County.

Tang Yao didn't stay in the Tang tribe for long. After she saw sorghum, corn and cotton sprouting in the Tang tribe, she was ready to leave for the Han tribe.

This time, the preparations were more thorough than the last time. Luo Chong specially sent a ship and a large number of people, and specifically instructed Tang Yao to ship the usable medicinal materials and tools for preparing medicinal materials to the Han tribe by ship, so that she could start her research work as soon as possible.

To this end, the Han tribe specially brought some large flower pots and dug out a lot of herbs from Tang Yao's garden. Some bottles and jars of medicine-making tools were also moved to the boat. After making full preparations, Tang Yao set sail and prepared to go to the Han tribe to start her learning journey.

A month passed quickly, and Tang Yao soon arrived at the shore of Liuyang County again. Then she took a carriage to Hanyang City. The new medical school had not been built yet, so it was not possible to start work for the time being.

Therefore, the herbs that Tang Yao brought were temporarily transplanted to the small garden of Luo Chong's family. Hanyang City was relatively small, and there was no open space in the city to plant her medicinal herbs. The nearby areas outside the city were all owned farmlands, and it would be inconvenient to manage them if they were farther away. Therefore, they could only be placed in Luo Chong's garden for the time being.

Medical research could not be carried out immediately, but Tang Yao could not be idle, so Luo Chong arranged for her to go to school in Hanyang City as an international student, and learn the writing and language of the Han tribe first, otherwise she would not be able to help write medical books in the future.

In order to take care of the herbs and to go to school, Tang Yao, who was still a girl from an outside tribe, moved into the other courtyard of Luo Chong's house for many reasons.

It was originally a courtyard for the children, but Luo Chong's two children were still young and could not live independently, so the house was temporarily empty. It was more than enough to arrange Tang Yao and her servants. It was

also the first time for Tang Yao to live in such a mansion. There were bright glass windows, brick and tile buildings that could shelter from wind and rain, waxed wooden floors, white walls painted in the city, various solid wood furniture, and many fabric soft stools and bedding. It was not known how many times better than her hut in the Tang tribe.

However, all these arrangements were remotely controlled by Luo Chong. He was not at home, not even in Hanyang City. He did not even show up when Tang Yao came to Liuyang County.

Since the war on the grassland subsided, the Han tribe has been engaged in construction and has built several new counties. The population has increased sharply, and large-scale trade with the Tang tribe is about to begin. The original coinage output is a bit insufficient.

For this purpose, Luo Chong specially went to the new mint on the island in the middle of the lake and presided over the development of several second-generation coin stamping production lines. Due to the establishment of the coking plant and the new steel county, the Han tribe obtained a large amount of steel, so the new assembly line equipment also adopted a large number of steel structure machines, but the original power was still mainly wind and water power. Despite this, the coin production efficiency was more than doubled compared to the original.

He stayed on the island in the middle of the lake for nearly two months to develop this new assembly line.

However, it was impossible for Luo Chong to do such things personally. He just drew the drawings and then stepped forward to solve the problems when the workers encountered problems. The rest of the time, he was busy with other things in the research institute.

This is the science and technology research and development center of the Han tribe, which brings together the top craftsmen and the best students. At the same time, it also undertakes the manufacturing of some special instruments.

For example, the core lighting equipment in several lighthouses was completed here. Other projects under development include silver-coated glass mirrors, telescopes, microscopes, astronomical telescopes, etc. However, no major results have been achieved in a short period of time. Luo Chong is not in a hurry and lets them study slowly.

The rubber R&D team also undertook new research tasks, namely three new rubber products, valve cores, inflatable inner liner of leather balls, and inflatable tires.

Yes, Luo Chong still started with bicycles.

In the hall of the institute, there are already several "bicycles", including three large and small bicycles made of wood, three large and small bicycles made of bamboo and wood, and three types of pedal tricycles.

The appearance of these new vehicles immediately shocked the researchers of the institute. When it comes to inventions and creations, they really dare to touch their conscience and say that no one except their leader will accept it. The leader's head is like a hole, and all kinds of strange ideas come to mind, which makes people unconvinced.

Although these "bicycles" are made of wood and bamboo, and their practical performance is very poor, they can indeed be ridden, which shows that there is nothing wrong with Luo Chong's idea. The only problem is that the materials are not suitable. As long as the right materials and production process are found, are they still afraid that this thing cannot be popularized?

Take the transmission structure of the chain and gears for example. The researchers praised Luo Chong as a genius who could come up with such a strange but extremely practical transmission structure.

After a while, the bicycle Luo Chong wanted was not assembled, but the researchers made some small things using Luo Chong's gears and chain mechanisms.

For example, the pedal grinding wheel driven by the chain gear is very convenient for sharpening knives or grinding things.

Another person also used Luo Chong's gear and chain transmission system to make a small pedal-powered table saw. The large gear drives the small gear on the circular saw blade, which can make the circular saw rotate at a very high speed. It can be used to process some wooden parts without any pressure. It can be called a woodworking artifact.

The most important thing is that this thing is relatively small and can be disassembled and assembled at will. It is not restricted by the natural conditions of wind and water power. It can be quickly assembled and used wherever it is moved. It is indeed very important for processing small wooden products.

Although the bicycle has not been made yet, Luo Chong is very happy to see that someone has made other very practical tools using his design ideas.

Of course, bicycles have to continue to be made.

There are many blacksmiths and casters in the institute, all of whom are the best in the Han tribe. They are also the only craftsmen in the Han tribe who have mastered the gas welding technology. However, in the institute, they are uniformly divided into the metal processing group.

According to Luo Chong's requirements, they first cast and polished several solid steel bars of different diameters to be used as cold bones during forging, that is, the core material for shaping.

After the production is completed, some steel pipes of different diameters are knocked out by hand forging. Finally, after cutting, bending, and then welding together with gas welding according to Luo Chong's requirements, a general bicycle frame is made.

The production of steel chains can actually be done by hand. The only thing that needs to be paid attention to is the size of each part. Handmade products are not rigorous and cannot be universal. This has always been the norm. In order to promote bicycles in large quantities in the future, Luo Chong simply made a chain punching machine, which can be regarded as a complete solution to the universality of standard chain parts.

The frame, chain, gears, pedals, etc. were all there. Luo Chong had people make a trial wheel hub with thin steel plates. The wheel hub and the axle were also fixed with fine steel spokes. This task was not very simple.

To install the spokes, it was necessary to reserve spoke holes and valve holes in the wheel hub. These drilling issues were relatively easy to handle. They could just use the quenching method to make some tool steel drill bits with a hardness higher than that of ordinary steel. The rare thing was the thread used to fix the steel spokes.

This was the first time that the Han tribe tried to use a threaded structure on a metal connector.

Fortunately, the Han tribe had accumulated several years of experience and technology in metal processing. With Luo Chong's guidance, although it was a little difficult, it was finally done.

The spokes were made by stretching the steel billet with a pulling machine. After they were made, they were still very long. Then they were placed on an ultra-small hand-cranked lathe similar to a key-making machine, and then the quenched high-hardness cutter head was used to turn out the male thread, that is, the convex thread.

For nuts, a large number of nuts are first stamped out of tempered steel plates, and then fixed on a vise, tapped manually with a tap, and female threads, i.e. concave threads, are drilled on the inner wall of the nuts.

After the threads of the spokes and nuts are fixed, they are re-fired and quenched in a red-hot state to restore the hardness of the thread teeth, which can also increase the service life and wear resistance.

After all this is done, only the core inflatable inner tube and outer tube are left. The most critical technology on this is actually the valve core, but the method of making the valve core is not difficult if you understand its principle.

It is nothing more than a large screw wrapped around a small screw, with a hollow needle for air intake installed in the middle, and then a section of rubber tube is put on the hollow needle.

Luo Chong had a lot of trouble with this thing when he was a child in his previous life. You know, the rubber tube on the valve core is the best material for making slingshots, which is the favorite of many boys, and chain guns. In that era known as the kingdom of bicycles, people really had a lot of fun on bicycles.

The valve core was soon trial-produced, all of which were made by hand-made micro-machine tools or by hand rubbing by fitters.

The research and development process of Eucommia rubber tires is relatively boring. The extraction of the gum in Eucommia with alkali solution is already very skilled. The key is the processing process after obtaining the raw rubber particles.

The rubber particles need to be placed on a heated steel roller and continuously squeezed and stirred. At the same time, some anti-aging agents and pigments need to be added. The chemical industry of the Han tribe is not outstanding, and Luo Chong has very few things to use. As for rubber antioxidants, he only has phenol that is prepared to make picric acid explosives.

This thing is extracted from the coal tar of the coking plant. Although it is troublesome to make, there is no problem with long-term supply.

In addition, for the pigment of rubber, he uses a small amount of coal tar and graphite powder. After mixing and rolling, the rubber is pure black, and the inner and outer tires are all black, because Luo Chong does not have many suitable rubber pigments.

After this step is completed, Eucommia rubber becomes a large black rubber mud ball, which looks like black plasticine.

Then cut the plasticine into pieces and weigh the required amount, put it in the mold and squeeze it into the shape of the tire, and then put it into the vulcanization chamber for vulcanization.

The higher the degree of vulcanization of the rubber, the softer the rubber is and the greater the elasticity is. The lower the degree of vulcanization, the lower the elasticity is, and it is also relatively hard. This is also the difference between the inner and outer tires.

The Han tribe does not have high-tech testing equipment and does not know the degree of vulcanization at all. It can only judge the degree of vulcanization based on the amount of reagents used during vulcanization and the fumigation time. Finally, the experimental products are numbered and compared one by one, using the most stupid elimination method to find the most suitable vulcanized tire.

There is no other way, you can only experiment one by one, and the spirit of science lies in this. In addition, the cost of the experiment is also very huge. After all, so many reagents, manpower and precious raw materials are invested, and finally a lot of "mostly" useless data are obtained, just to find the two needed ones. Scientific research is just like this, it is so pitfalls, and only national organizations of the level of the Han tribe can afford such experimental expenses.

After spending half a month and conducting continuous experiments, Luo Chong finally found the inflatable inner tube and anti-skid outer tube that he liked from more than 5,000 experimental samples.

The outer tube is a semi-open carcass, which is actually a circular tube with the inner surface cut out. The inner tube is different. As an inflatable sealed rubber tube, the inner tube has stricter production requirements. However, Luo Chong could not come up with any good production process to make an inner tube in one go, so the method he used was still relatively low-level. He used an extruder to squeeze the plasticine into a cylindrical rubber tube, and then cut it into sections. Then, he used glue and hot melt to glue the two broken ends together, thus making a completely sealed inflatable inner tube.

Although it was a very stupid method, it worked anyway. When a bicycle tire was punctured and leaked, didn't it also need to be repaired and glued? Since the glued tire could be used, then the tire that Luo Chong directly glued could also be used in theory.

With the right samples and molds, the first batch of fifty tires were made. Following Luo Chong's instructions and guidance, the craftsmen of the institute quickly figured out how to use this thing, happily installed it on the wheel hub, and then used an air pump to inflate the tire. Watching the tire bulge little by little, the group of craftsmen of the institute were like children. For the first time, they knew that air could also be used as a wheel to carry heavy objects.

(End of this chapter)