Chapter 455 Seaman's Wish
"Your Highness, the 'Steam Age' has undergone eighteen days of sea trials and has revealed many problems. I have summarized a few key points that must be addressed immediately."
The arrogant alchemist Seaman, who was incredibly proud in front of outsiders, became increasingly less confident when facing Qin Mo. When he had built the "Steam Age" ship, he humbly asked Qin Mo to point out its shortcomings, but Qin Mo told him to find the flaws through practice.
Seaman didn't think his meticulously designed "Steam Age" had many flaws, but after completing the tests of the dozen or so sea trial items listed by Qin Mo, his palms were sweating profusely. He hadn't expected that the seemingly perfect "Steam Age" would have so many defects.
“Your Highness, when the wind and waves are high, the propeller tail shaft oil seal of the ‘Steam Age’ will leak water, and the amount of water leakage is not small. It requires a water pump to continuously drain the water in order to work normally. I think... we must study a completely new method of sealing the drive shaft.”
"Secondly: During the extreme speed endurance test, after the steam engine had been running at full speed for six hours, the piston in the cylinder suddenly made a loud noise, and thick black smoke filled the engine room. If the chief engineer had not immediately closed the throttle valve, the steam engine might have been damaged."
"Thirdly: It's just too hot inside the engine room. Several crew members have fainted in the past few days. They are all very strong warriors. Are we going to... use all our people or human cultivators as engine room crew and boiler operators?"
When Seaman mentioned the last problem, he hesitated a lot. Elves are much stronger than ordinary people and can do their jobs better in the hot and stuffy engine room. However, elves hate dirty environments. The boiler room with flying coal dust and flowing sewage makes many elves turn away.
“Sieman, let’s talk about the third point first. I’ve seen your design for the engine room. Your boiler blower design is good, but why didn’t you think of designing a larger ventilator to ventilate the entire engine room?”
Qin Mo took out the engine room ventilation design drawings she had drawn earlier and explained the design principles of air exchange and cooling to Ximan. Ximan quickly understood and even picked up a pen to circle several key points on the drawings, discussing various solutions with Qin Mo.
"The problem of water leakage from the propeller tail shaft oil seal mainly lies in adjusting the pressure of the oil chamber inside the drive shaft sleeve. Of course, it would be even better if a hydraulic oil with better sealing properties could be found."
Qin Mo disagreed with researching a completely new propeller drive sealing method because he knew that even those massive ships using ironwood stern shaft oil seals to isolate seawater, and then injecting hydraulic oil into the sleeve oil chamber in front of the stern shaft oil seal, and finally using an oil tank to connect the sleeve oil chamber to adjust the pressure so that the pressure inside the sleeve is equal to the pressure of the seawater outside the hull, so as to prevent seawater from invading the cabin.
The sealing methods on the "Steam Age" ship are quite advanced. The only difference is that the processing precision and design experience are still somewhat lacking. As long as continuous and meticulous improvements are made, it will be fully capable of meeting the needs of various ship types in the future.
"As for the problem with the steam engine cylinder, I know it's a problem with the lubricating oil. Until a better high-temperature resistant lubricating oil is developed, the only solutions are to increase the size of the lubricating oil radiator and set a safe speed for the steam engine."
Qin Mo now misses the evil Zhonghei Oil and Zhonghei Chemical immensely, because he is currently in dire need of various high-grade lubricating oils and hydraulic oils.
He created the Da Yuan Steel Institute, a steel heavy industry enterprise that was on a roll, and the Shipbuilding Machinery Manufacturing Institute, a machinery processing group. However, Da Yuan's petrochemical industry developed relatively slowly.
It is true that there is oil in Southeast Asia, but for many years only small-scale extraction has been possible. Note that it is extraction, not mining. Before the steam engine was perfected, well drilling and extraction technology was impossible.
The yield from the harvest is pitifully small, which is bad enough, but the problem is that chemical processing is not as safe as mechanical engineering. If things go wrong, it might just unleash a series of huge fireworks for you to see.
Qin Mo carefully and meticulously created a distillation tower model, then irresponsibly handed it over to his subordinates for experimentation. To this day, they still can't distinguish between gasoline, kerosene, and diesel, let alone lubricating oil.
Qin Mo can only use castor oil, a super environmentally friendly plant-based lubricant, to lubricate the cylinders of the steam engine. Although castor oil has good performance, a formula that has not been adjusted in practice is always flawed, and it will take a long time to explore and refine it.
Ximan discussed with Qin Mo for a long time, feeling that she had extracted a lot of "secret inheritance" from Qin Mo's mind, and looked very satisfied.
“Simman, you could let your students figure things out on their own for a while, so they can learn to solve problems by thinking for themselves. This will be of great benefit to them in the future when they can work independently.”
“Your Highness, we also wish to live a leisurely life like you, but we are too busy! I have to research the new steam-powered sailing ships, and you also asked me to research double-base gunpowder and the explosive fuses for new cannonballs. The day before yesterday, you also gave me two sets of blueprints for ‘big guns’…”
As Qin Mo watched Ximan ramble on and on, he suddenly felt more like a vampire than a vampire himself. He quickly interrupted Ximan, saying, "How about we give you a raise, bonuses, luxury cars, yachts, and free luxury housing? What do you think?"
Ximan suddenly blushed, and after hesitating for a while, she said awkwardly, "Is there anything else?"
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