Chapter 897 Power Research Institute under great pressure
In the industrial county of Xingang County, the newly built factories are arranged in an orderly manner. Next to the steel mill is the newly built rolling mill. The huge rolling mill workshop is several hundred meters long, like a long shed.
The huge space here seems extremely empty at this time. The workshop that should have been full of machines now has only two pitiful production lines working. This is the only place in the Han tribe that can roll rails.
In the newly renovated steel mill, next to several earthen blast furnaces, the regenerators and manual blowers that were originally arranged in a star array have now been replaced by steam-powered fan blowers made of steel.
The huge fan blades driven by the steam engine continuously blow the pre-heated hot air into the blast furnace at a speed that cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. The blowing equipment is replaced by steam engines instead of human power. This improvement alone can save dozens of workers' workstations and allow the blast furnace to burst out with more powerful production capacity.
However, these workers will not be dismissed. The population of the Han tribe is very tight now, and it is not luxurious enough to abandon skilled workers at will.
These workers who were laid off from the blast furnace blower position will all be sent to the rolling mill workshop to receive new skills training, and then continue to live as workers.
In the steel mill, the earthen blast furnace transformed by the steam engine is producing molten iron one by one. The molten iron is placed in a heat-resistant crucible with a steel shell, and then sent to a flat furnace not far away for a new baptism. The
hot molten iron is transferred to the open furnace, and a hollow steel pipe is slowly lowered from the open furnace until it is inserted deep into the molten iron. The next moment, the blower starts, and the steelmaking furnace using the open furnace top blowing process blows a large amount of oxygen-rich air into the interior of the molten iron. The oxygen reacts with the carbon in the pig iron to form carbon dioxide, which is then discharged from the surface of the molten iron in the form of bubbles, reducing the carbon content in the pig iron to the requirements of steel, completing the gorgeous transformation.
The whole process does not require any additional fuel and energy supply. The oxidation reaction of the molten iron alone can release a large amount of heat to maintain its own temperature in a red-hot liquid state.
Not far away, the commander of the open-hearth furnace in the safety room of the high tower was wearing big sunglasses and observing the whole process of molten iron turning into molten steel
in the open-hearth furnace. When he judged that the molten steel had basically reached the standard based on his experience, he would ring a hanging bell on the top of the safety room, and then wave the corresponding colorful flag to stop the blower. The next step was to pour the molten steel back into the transferred ladle. The furnace workers would use iron spoons to scoop up the floating impurities and slag, and then transport
them to the sand pit beside and park them at the casting position. The large sand mold at the casting position was ready. The molten steel was hoisted by iron chains and gradually poured into the mold. Finally, it was cast into large rectangular ingots, each weighing about 3,500 kilograms.
The nearly two-ton large steel block had not yet completely cooled down. When it was in a red-hot state, the workers took steel chisels and hammers to dig it out of the mold, then hoisted it with iron chains, and then used iron brushes to clean the sand and impurities on the surface, and finally hoisted it to the steel rolling workshop.
A different fate awaits these steel ingots.
Workers hoist these steel ingots that have cooled to dark red into a heating furnace to reheat them to orange-red, and then hoist them out and send them to the rolling mill.
Driven by the iron bull steam engine, two cast steel wheels weighing several tons instantly squeeze and deform the steel ingots. The originally square steel ingots are gradually stretched and thinned like dough, and squeezed into an I-shaped load-bearing structure. After several rounds of rolling, this square steel ingot weighing 3,500 kilograms is squeezed into a 100-meter-long narrow-gauge steel rail like making ramen. Finally,
after caliper and weighing measurements, it meets the design standard of 35 kilograms per meter. Then the workers use hammers to knock a qualified steel stamp on the side of the rail, and it can be used to lay the railway.
At the end of the rolling mill, countless rails have been piled up, at least several thousand. Based on the length of ten rails per kilometer, divided by two, these rails are enough to lay more than 200 kilometers of narrow-gauge mining railways. However, the current production is still going on and there is no intention to stop.
The role of narrow-gauge railways is actually much more useful than heavy-duty railways. Heavy-duty railways have high construction costs, long construction periods, and large carrying capacity. They are suitable for super projects such as national arteries, but narrow-gauge railways are more convenient for short-distance and complex terrain transportation.
The biggest advantage of this thing is that there is no need to lay a foundation. You just need to simply level the road surface and then roll it with a stone roller several times, and you can lay it directly. The railway is still heading west this morning, but it can be dismantled and laid to the north in the afternoon. This is its special value.
Flexible installation, maneuverable at any time according to different needs.
The railway can be maneuvered at will! Can you believe this? !
"Chief, how many more narrow-gauge rails do we need to produce? Our warehouse is still under construction. The temporary storage in the workshop alone adds up to tens of thousands of tons of rails. We are running out of space."
Dali followed Luo Chong to visit the improved steel mill and the newly built steel rolling mill. Seeing the rails being produced one after another, Dali, who felt the pressure of inventory, immediately reminded Luo Chong.
"Let's produce 10,000 rails first. One rail is 100 meters long. 10,000 rails is only 1,000 kilometers. Divide it by two, and we will only lay 500 kilometers of railway.
We don't mind having too many narrow-gauge rails. The iron ore here, the copper mines in Babaoshan, the copper mines in Qiongzhou Island, the coal mines in Dongxin County, and the iron and stone mines in Tang tribe all need to be transported by these narrow-gauge railways. Even the construction of the future capital will also require this kind of railway to transport earth and building materials. This is just the beginning.
The production of narrow-gauge rails should not stop. When the goal of 10,000 rails is achieved, one production line will be stopped, and one production line will be kept working for a long time, and then rebar will be produced.
How is the rebar rolling mill doing now? "
Luo Chong first arranged the production plan for future rails, and then asked about the progress of the research and development of rebar rolling equipment.
Rebar is also called steel bar. This kind of thing may not seem very important, but modern countries are supported by these steel skeletons. Not to mention buildings, how many steel bars are needed for each kilometer of heavy-duty railways and highways?
A few years ago, the construction cost of each kilometer of the highway in the flower-growing country exceeded 100 million yuan. Does anyone know how many steel bars are used for one kilometer of highway?
Of course, the Han tribe does not need paved roads such as highways now. The existing land transportation of the Han tribe is mainly horse-drawn carriages. Horse hooves are most comfortable running on dirt roads. If you really let the horse hooves run on asphalt roads, I am afraid that a horse will be useless in a few days.
The Han tribe has begun to manufacture steel bars now, which are completely used for the construction of bridges and heavy-duty railways. For example, the most urgent one is the construction of the cross-sea bridge.
"Reporting to the leader, the rolling mill of rebar is relatively slow now. I have seen this thing. From a technical point of view, I feel that the difficulty is not as great as the rolling mill of rails, but it has too many models, while rails only need one specification.
Besides, I think our Power Research Institute needs to expand its scale. I feel sorry for them because you have assigned so many tasks to them now. "Da Li relied on his relationship with Luo Chong and couldn't help but complain.
Yes, rebar is indeed much simpler than rails, but what Da Li said makes sense. No matter how difficult rails are, aren't they just one model? Rebar has a total of ten models, ranging from the smallest 6 mm diameter to the largest 50 mm diameter. Each model requires the use of rollers of different models, which indirectly increases the difficulty and workload.
In addition, the research institute needs to develop more equipment.
In addition to narrow-gauge rails and heavy-load rails, as well as rebar rolling mills, there are other supporting equipment, such as large spring winding machines, which are used to produce train frame springs. Each carriage needs two frames at the head and tail, and each frame needs four wheels and eight large shock-absorbing springs, which are all indispensable items.
In addition, there is a stone crusher. The Han tribe did not have this thing before, and it was not needed. Even if there was a need for crushed stone, at most they would go to the river to collect some pebbles.
But now it is different. Ballast is needed to build railways, which are the broken stones on the railway. In addition, a large amount of stone is needed to make concrete. Just building the cross-sea bridge will consume an unknown amount of stone, so a stone crusher is also very important.
In addition, Luo Chong is also developing industrial production equipment for cement.
Speaking of the production process of cement It is not difficult. You just need to crush the limestone into powder, mix it with clay iron powder and calcine it. After burning, grind it into fine powder again, and then mix it with gypsum powder in a certain proportion to make cement.
Calcination is not a problem for the Han tribe at present, because they have accumulated a lot of experience in coking and steelmaking. The most troublesome thing now is how to grind various minerals into fine powder.
In this production process, it is also necessary to break the minerals into small pieces first, then put them into a crusher and grind them, and finally carry out a fine grinding process. After three times of processing, the ore can be turned into the shape required by the Han tribe.
So these crushers The fine grinder also became a research project of the institute.
In addition, the trains also need to be manufactured at the same time, and other new equipment needs to be developed. Even though Luo Chong added a group of interns to the Power Research Institute last year, the institute still feels a bit stretched in terms of personnel.
All the researchers are working around the clock and have no time to rest. Even the interns who came last year have gone to the production line to train workers.
Dali's complaints are actually reasonable. Luo Chong now has too many research and development projects for the institute. After all, it is to build an industrial system, even the most basic industrial system, which is not a small task.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
