doomsday survival

Chapter 374 Steam Age ([-])

The current production capacity of the Chang'an tribe has reached a bottleneck, and the root cause is the lack of human resources.

In the industrialized mass production of the old era, with the help of automated machinery, it may only take two or three days, or even a day, to reach the current production capacity of the Chang'an Tribe.

But the current Chang'an tribe can't reach that level at all. Even if all the tribes are involved, these manpower can't replace the mechanical power. It can be said that it has nothing to do with the number of people.

Many of the current production needs electricity, plus domestic electricity consumption, seeing the oil in the oil depot decrease day by day, Shi Jian and Feng Kuang are very worried.

If there is no way, it won't be long before the production of the Chang'an tribe will return to the original primitive stage, and the standard of living will drop to a higher level.

Feng Kuang heard that Shi Jian was going to study new power, and asked with great interest: "What are you going to use? Wind turbines?"

Shi Jian shook his head slightly, and said, "Wind power generation is of course also a method, but at our current level, it is still not possible to manufacture wind power generators that can also be put into production."

"That's true, but what new power do you want to use?" Feng Kuang asked puzzled.

"Old Feng, actually we made a mistake and forgot the principle of gradual progress." Shi Jian suddenly sighed.

"Step by step? What do you mean?" Feng Kuang still didn't quite understand.

"Steam engine," Shi Jian gave the answer, "During the first industrial revolution, it was driven by the steam engine. I believe that the production capacity at that time will be much larger than ours now, isn't it?"

Feng Kuang, who majored in chemistry, had long forgotten such an ancient thing as a steam engine.Although he forgot, but when Shi Jian said it, he understood immediately.

Feng Kuang clapped his hands and said excitedly: "Yes, we can completely replace electricity with steam engines, and even generate electricity."

"That's right, so we can save this scarce fuel." Shi Jian nodded in agreement.

Of course, the steam engine also needs fuel, but compared with the internal combustion engine, it needs a wide range of fuel. To put it bluntly, as long as it can boil water and generate steam, it can be used as fuel.

However, it is not a matter of a day or two to produce a steam engine. For the time being, it is still necessary to continue to use fuel to generate electricity to maintain the continuation of production.

After Shi Jian and Feng Kuang studied, they immediately began to invest in the research and development of the steam engine.He had never worked on a steam engine before, but his major made him very clear about the structure and principle of the steam engine, and the only thing left was to realize it.

The steam engine is mainly composed of a cylinder, a base, a piston, a crank connecting rod mechanism, a slide valve steam distribution mechanism, a speed regulating mechanism and a flywheel. The cylinder and the base are stationary parts, and the others are moving parts.Of course, there is also a boiler, relying on it to generate steam.

The principle and structure of these components is not a problem for Shi Jian, who majors in mechanical design. In addition, he has also found a lot of valuable information in the computer hard drives of various factories. The steam engine is gone.

The largest and most difficult part to process is the cylinder. When Watt improved the steam engine, he spent a lot of effort here, until he finally used a boring machine to process it to solve the sealing of the cylinder.

Shi Jian can now be regarded as standing on the shoulders of his predecessors, and naturally he has avoided many detours. He adopted the method of casting first and then boring the cylinder. After repeated failures, he finally succeeded in producing the first qualified cylinder.

After the cylinder was solved, the other parts became much easier. Finally, within three days, the first steam engine of the Chang'an tribe was assembled by Shi Jian.

Next, Shi Jian used another four days to build a boiler.The structure of the boiler is not complicated, mainly the water tank and the combustion chamber, and then some external pipes.

Shi Jian searched the entire industrial park, and finally found several usable air pressure gauges, and chose one of them to install on the boiler.

The steam engine is placed in the foundry, because the smelting is always going on, and the foundry is the largest power consumer in the whole land.In order to save electricity, Shi Jian was the first to use steam engines to replace electricity here.

When the machine was tested for the first time, the elders and the elders of the tribe also ran over early, wanting to see how the machine, which was completely produced by the Chang'an tribe, worked.

Shi Jian also acted as an explainer, explaining the principle and advantages of the steam engine to the people on site.

In a steam boiler, water boils to steam through the combustion process.Steam is sent to the cylinders through pipes.The valve controls the time when the steam reaches the cylinder, enters the slide valve chamber through the main steam valve and the throttle valve, and is controlled by the slide valve to alternately enter the left or right side of the cylinder to push the piston to move.The steam pushes the piston to do work in the cylinder, and the cooled steam is introduced into the condenser through the pipe and recondensed into water.This process is repeated continuously while the steam engine is in motion.

Therefore, as long as water can be converted into steam, the steam engine can be made to work. This is also the biggest advantage of the steam engine-it can use all fuels to convert heat energy into mechanical energy, including nuclear fuel.

In fact, the application of nuclear energy is inseparable from the steam engine. The atomic reactor does not directly generate mechanical energy, nor does it directly generate electrical energy. The atomic reactor actually only heats water, and the boiled steam of the water is converted into useful work by the steam engine.

Everyone looked at the steam engine with great interest, and Feng Kuang was still on the sidelines to expand the bright future: "We can use steam engines to generate electricity in the future, and then there will be no need to limit electricity at night, and we can turn off the lights whenever we want." When will it be turned off? You don’t have to worry about fuel anymore, if it doesn’t work, all the wood in the mountain can be used.”

"Brother Feng is right. Maybe we can build a train. The speed is much faster, and we can pull more things at a time." Xia Qianhe also thought about it.

What they said, many people present could not understand. Only those who have experienced the old times can understand how useful this steam engine is.All of a sudden, those old people fell into the memories of the old times, and at the same time described those things of the old times to the young people in front of them one by one.

Shi Jian looked at these old men and women who were talking more and more irrelevant, smiled wryly, and said, "Let's not think so far ahead, let's talk about the recent benefits first."

"Isn't the latest one just steelmaking? What else can there be?" Gao Shanhe patted the steam engine, "With this thing, there is no need for a motor to blow the air."

"Of course it's steelmaking, but let's think about it later, winter is coming soon." Shi Jian finished speaking and pointed to the boiler.

"Haha, heating! How could I forget this! It seems that this winter will definitely not be cold." Feng Kuang laughed.

The winter in Northeast China is very cold, especially in the last days when there is no greenhouse effect. In the past, everyone relied on charcoal braziers and kangs for heating. Now that there are boilers, it is natural to switch to heating.

Shi Jian waited until everyone was talking about it, and said: "Let's not discuss other things, we are testing the machine today, as long as we can succeed this time, then we can build a bigger steam engine in the future. The things you just thought about , can be achieved!"

The boiler had already been filled with water, and the furnace was filled with coal. Shi Jian gave an order, and the fire was ignited.

The scene fell silent, and everyone looked at the raging fire in silence, praying in their hearts that the steam engine could be tested successfully once.

Finally, the steam pressure gauge on the boiler moved, and steam began to flow into the steam engine.Slowly, the connecting rod of the steam engine began to move slowly.

"Success!" Shi Jian waved his fist vigorously, his excitement overflowing.

Feng Kuang also happily patted Shi Jian on the shoulder, and said, "Shi Jian, great job, it's not easy to get the steam engine out so quickly!"

Wang Gang stared closely at the blower driven by the steam engine, and saw that it was being pushed by the steam engine and started to work. He cheered, "Wow, it's moving, the bellows is moving!"

"Great! The steam engine research is a success!" Everyone in the workshop cheered.

But at this moment, a wisp of steam began to emerge from the joint of the pipe carrying steam, and more and more, and finally diffused all around, making it impossible to see anything clearly.

"Damn it! Close the valve!" Shi Jian shouted hastily.

Liu Hai, who was closest, ran over immediately, groping in the dense steam, hoping to find the main valve.As a result, the valve was not found, but the top of the boiler was touched, and Liu Hai's palm was immediately scalded with a big blister.

Liu Hai gritted his teeth, resisted and groped for a while, finally found the main valve, and immediately shut it tightly.

It took a while for the steam in the room to dissipate, and Shi Jian saw that Liu Hai was injured, he didn't care to find out what was wrong, so he immediately sent Liu Hai to the hospital and went to He Chong for treatment.

Now that this mistake has occurred, no one has thought of it, and they are all a little disappointed.But in order not to discourage Shi Jian, no one showed it. Instead, they all helped Shi Jian find out what the problem was.

Shi Jian was not pretentious either. After turning off the fire, he led everyone to find the problem.

There are many people and strength is great. After careful investigation by Shi Jian and others, they finally identified the problem.Shi Jian was able to console himself with the fact that there was nothing wrong with the steam engine, the problem was the sealing of the pipes.

This made Shi Jian feel a little worried, and kept thinking in his heart: "What should I use to solve the seal?"

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(End of this chapter)