Chapter 768 The Failed Steam Engine
After sorting out the affairs of Takuhai County and Tang Tribe, Luo Chong also boarded the ship back to Hanyang City the next morning. Xiaodie and Zhan Ying also boarded the ship with their two children. They all went to the shore of Tang Tribe to wait for Tang Yao.
Tang Yao also wanted to go back with him this time to continue the revision of the seven medical textbooks of the Han Tribe.
Not long after, the guards came to report that Tang Yao had come with a team of carriages.
This time, not only did she have to go back, but she also had to bring some plant seeds to Hanyang County, such as sesame, cabbage, and celery that were newly discovered a few days ago. Some of them were directly taken seeds, and some were transplanted in buckets and brought over.
There were also some other things, namely the two precious fragrant woods from the Tang tribe. Each of them also brought back a log. Luo Chong was going to go back and try to make sandalwood. He knew the method of making incense, which was to grind the fragrant wood into powder, add bone powder or something like that to knead it into dough, and then put it in a mold to squeeze it into long strips and dry it. It was similar to making noodles. He had seen others do it in his previous life.
In addition, there were dozens of kilograms of rubber, which were collected and sent over overnight these days. Natural latex will automatically coagulate even without any chemical reagents, but it will take a little longer. Therefore, some of the rubber sent by Tang Yao had been made into rectangular sheets according to Luo Chong's requirements. There was also a small bucket of rubber latex left, which had not dried yet.
These were the things Luo Chong wanted to take back for experiments. Although he had discovered important resources, he had to have the ability to use them, so he had to figure out the use process of rubber as soon as possible.
The voyage to the north was full of crosswinds, but the Han tribe's horizontal-bone schooners could use this wind direction, so the speed of sailing was not slow. There was no stop on the way. After a month, Luo Chong and his family finally returned to their home in Hanyang City in early October.
After spending a day to understand the progress of the tasks of each county in the past six months, and then urging them to do a good job of harvesting and storing the last season of grain this year, Luo Chong immediately rushed to the Power Research Institute in Xuefu County to check the progress of his steam engine research and development.
In the experimental workshop of the institute, Luo Chong looked at the more than 30 researchers in front of him and asked in disbelief: "Failed?!"
"Yes, chief, it's a problem with the piston. According to the ideas and design plans you gave, we have built several steam engines, but they all failed in the end because of the piston problem." A project leader reported to Luo Chong.
"Piston, what's the problem?" Luo Chong frowned and asked with some displeasure.
"According to the leader, this combined sheet-shaped piston has good air tightness, but the friction is too great, and the wear and tear on the inner wall of the cylinder is very serious. It can be used and rotates very fast, but it is not wear-resistant. We tested it for two days and one night, and then the piston was worn out and began to leak, or it broke, and it made a lot of noise during operation.
I think that although it can rotate, it will have to be replaced with a new piston within two days, so it should not be considered a success. If this can be considered a success, then the piston is consumed too quickly."
The person in charge also said very helplessly. To be honest, they were skeptical about the technology that Luo Chong said, which achieved the sealing effect by the expansion of copper sheets due to heat, and felt that it was a bit impossible. But after it was made, the effect was amazing! ! !
But the problem was that the effect was too amazing. Because the seal was too tight, but the contact area between the piston and the cylinder wall was small, when the piston was working, it could be described as "hard squeeze".
You can imagine the scene of several thin pieces of iron sheets rubbing back and forth in an iron barrel. The sound is even more irritating than a cat scratching glass. The key is that a cat only scratches glass once or twice, but this steam engine rubs back and forth non-stop.
The thing rubs for two days and one night, and the squeaking noise never stops. It can drive people crazy if you are close to it. Anyone who sees this thing will wish it would break immediately. Maybe God can't bear to torture these people anymore, and then the piston really broke.
Several young researchers even joked, "I think this steam engine can be used as a torture device for interrogation in the future. I believe that no matter how determined a guy is, if he is placed next to this thing for a cup of tea, he will cry and shout out everything he knows."
Luo Chong still didn't believe it, so he asked someone to make a prototype for trial operation. As a result, he decisively asked someone to stop the steam engine after just two minutes.
Damn, he couldn't stand this stimulation .
Luo Chong began to admire these researchers. How dare they let this thing run for two days and one night? ! !
Now that we know where the problem is, it is easy to solve it. First find the specific problem and then find a way to solve it.
After asking about the processing process of the piston and cylinder in detail, Luo Chong found some problems. First, the most serious one is the noise problem. This should be caused by too much friction and too small contact area between the piston and the cylinder. The contact area between the piston and the cylinder can be increased by replacing the combined sheet piston with a cylindrical block piston to achieve the effect of reducing noise.
However, in this case, air tightness becomes a problem again.
It is impossible to add rubber seals to the cylinder and piston, because it is a moving machine. It is necessary to reduce friction as much as possible while ensuring air tightness in order to achieve the purpose of rapid work.
As for the material of rubber, it goes without saying that the friction is extremely large. If you put rubber on the piston, don't even think about it. It is estimated that the cylinder will explode directly.
This thing is only suitable for fixed places such as valves and connectors, and is used as an airtight part, so you can only think of other ways.
The best solution is to directly make a metal cylinder and a cylindrical metal rod, so that they fit together tightly, which can not only ensure air tightness, but also solve the problem of small contact area and excessive friction.
However, this requires very precise processing technology. The most important thing is that the size difference must be controlled within a very small range to achieve the desired effect. The most critical technology to solve this process problem is polishing.
So Luo Chong asked them, "How do you polish the cylinders?"
"Our cylinders are first cast into blanks using sand casting, then drilled using a windmill vertical boring machine, and finally fine sandstone particles are poured into the blanks for mixing and polishing."
Luo Chong clapped his hands, "This is where the problem lies. The cylinders polished in this way are still not smooth enough, the friction is too great, and they are not fine enough. It would be great if we could make things like sandpaper, emery cloth, and sanding belts."
(End of this chapter)
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