Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 459 The Steam Engine

The most important thing about a steam engine is the manufacture of the cylinder.

Ordinary steel cylinders have low air tightness and poor heat and high temperature resistance, making it difficult for the steam utilization efficiency of the cylinder to achieve the effect of providing power.

The current Daming experimental steam engine is therefore unable to provide sufficient power to drive the flywheel.

Now with the further increase in the hardness of high carbon steel.

In addition, the hydraulically driven barrel boring machine has come out, and the cylinder with higher machining accuracy will naturally be boring out.

The reason why the steam engine that Zhu Youjian saw now has better practicability is because the improvement of the material of the cylinder has greatly enhanced its thermodynamic efficiency.

In the past, the steam engine in the early Ming Dynasty could only use a large amount of coal to provide weak power for pumping water.

But now with sufficient thermodynamic efficiency.

It is enough to make the steam in the steam cylinder push the piston to drive the connecting rod to drive the crank gear transmission system, so that the flywheel can rotate quickly, which can make the steam locomotive possible.

"According to His Majesty's wishes, I have separated the condenser from the cylinder;

In this way, after the steam enters, the condensed water can be prevented from directly entering the cylinder to take away the heat of the cylinder, and a condensing box is added to the side of the cylinder, and a piston is connected to the upper connecting rod. When the steam enters the cylinder, the piston is pressed to reach the top. , and at the same time, the air pipe that enters the middle opening enters the condensing tank to lift the piston of the condensing tank to drive the connecting rod upward, and then drive the crank and gear to make the flywheel rotate. "

"In addition, a student of Weichen named Zhu Mingfeng also proposed to put a steam inlet on the upper and lower sides of the cylinder, so that after the steam from the lower side enters and lifts the piston to the top, the steam from the upper steam inlet will The piston in the cylinder is pressed down, so that you don’t have to wait until the cylinder temperature cools down and the piston will fall by itself. The steam intake from the top to the bottom can make the efficiency faster, so two intake inlets are arranged. After the intake from the lower side is completed, the pressure change can make the lower The air intake pipe valve of the booklet is automatically closed, similar to this, after the upper air intake is completed, the upper air intake pipe valve can also be automatically closed."

Fang Yizhi described to Zhu Youjian the structure and principle of his improved steam power engine in detail.

Zhu Youjian listened carefully.

He didn't know the difference between this steam engine and the Watt steam improvement machine he learned in his textbook.

But from the current point of view, this steam engine already has great application value.

The difference from the steam-powered engine first developed in the previous laboratory is not only the improvement of the cylinder, but also the way of power supply.

Zhu Youjian didn't know where Fang Yizhi came up with the idea of ​​replacing piston movement with rotary movement, and the way he used it was a crank gear system, perhaps inspired by the improvement of the gun carriage.

But it has to be admitted that upgrading the form of steam power from piston motion to rotary motion means that it is feasible to use steam engines to drive wheels.

It's like relying on the power provided by the steam engine to forge iron blocks and bore the barrel and barrel of the gun one by one.

Now after changing to rotary motion, it can still rely on the steam engine to provide power and transmit kinetic energy in the form of rotary motion, which promotes the development of machine tool processing and the emergence of new vehicles and production tools.

No matter what.

Daming's first steam engine that can be used in industrial production and other fields has finally been successfully manufactured!

At this time, at this time, the study of steam power engines has not yet emerged in the West.

It was after the end of the seventeenth century that the study of steam power engines began to rise in the West.

Once again, Daming was at the forefront of the development of world civilization.

Boilers, cylinders, condensers, crank gear systems, flywheels, connecting levers and conduits...

Zhu Youjian looked at it carefully for a long time, but he didn't think there was anything missing from this steam engine.

Even the linkage structure of each place adopts a parallel four-bar linkage structure, so that the whole machine can run smoothly, and there is also a centrifugal force governor device at the air pump, which can adjust the power speed.

Zhu Youjian smiled after repeated confirmation. He had to admit that the steam engine with real application value was officially successfully developed by Daming!

And this steam engine already has the ability to become a steam locomotive.

In fact, the reason why Daming was able to manufacture this kind of Watt-improved steam engine that only appeared at the end of the eighteenth century in the original history has a lot to do with Zhu Youjian.

Because he asked the steam engine to drive the iron wheel to rotate instead of the mule.

That's why Fang Yizhi thought of using the crank gear rotation system to replace the piston motion with rotary motion so as to drive the flywheel to rotate.

And it was Zhu Youjian who first told Fang Yizhi the physical basis of the relationship between pressure, pressure and temperature, so that he knew the root of steam power, and he also thought of using dual-port air intake to separate the condenser.

This is different from the history of the steam engine in the original history.

In the original history, more than 1000 years ago, after the ancient Greek mechanic Hero invented the steam-rotating ball, it was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that Papin of France knew how to use this phenomenon and the principle of leverage to invent the piston steam engine.

However, Papin did not know how to use the difference in pressure between water vapor and water to increase the power of the steam engine.

In the end, Newcomen manufactured a steam engine with both condensing steam and gas piston power generation five or sixty years later, and began to apply it in industry, but the utilization efficiency was still not high at this time, just like the steam engine in the laboratory in the early Ming Dynasty.

And it was another 50 years before Watt knew that the steam engine could be further improved because of an accident.

But it took almost 30 years for him to improve each component to be almost perfect.

The reason it took so long was because they didn't know that the steam engine could be applied on a large scale, even to make trains and ships.

They only explore more functions based on phenomena, and most of the time it is just one person's accidental interest and inspiration to change some machines that everyone is used to.

People are lazy, and most people don't like to think.

This is why it takes so long to change a power rotation method from Newcomen to Watt.

It might have taken longer if Watt hadn't been an active thinker and interested in it.

But Daming at this time is different.

Zhu Youjian knew from the very beginning that the steam engine would be the mainstream of the future era and would even change the entire world civilization.

So, under the intervention of his imperial power.

The imperial elites will take the initiative to think about improving and inventing the steam engine that His Majesty wants, which makes the speed much faster.

Moreover, although Zhu Youjian did not know the specific manufacturing details of the steam engine, he knew the general principle of the steam engine and the effect it could achieve, which gave Daming a clear goal and direction for developing the steam engine.

In this way, Daming accelerated the manufacturing of steam engines.

　Although there are only a short two thousand words in this chapter, after checking the information for a day, many structures and principles can be deduced and reasonable, and it also provides a rational explanation for Daming’s ability to manufacture this kind of machine. Industrial development began in 17, and it has been nearly five years now. Under the clear direction of Zhu Youjian, a later generation, the natural speed of steam engine manufacturing will be very fast.And the difficulty itself is not high, and it is still much worse than the internal combustion engine.Then Ming will stay in the steam age for a long time.But even 100 years is enough to beat the world.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)