Siheyuan: I eat melons while doing scientific research

Chapter 1335 This won't work (4k)

Seeing their reaction, the chief engineer laughed and said, "It's good that you have this idea, but don't worry. This mission is not the kind that asks for an exorbitant amount of money. It takes our current situation into full consideration."

After all, Gao Zhendong's equipment specifications were based on the upper limit of their existing experimental equipment plus a little bit of planning. It was a level that, although higher than the existing equipment, was within reach and the results were obvious. With a little effort, success was highly probable.

This is one of Gao Zhendong's greatest strengths; he has an excellent grasp of the "degree" of things. He doesn't care about the things he does himself, which are left to his own devices; but whenever he offers suggestions or plans that aren't implemented by him, he either carefully controls the pace of progress or provides ample assistance.

What they're working on this time is the hovercraft that Gao Zhendong proposed last time, specifically for resupplying islands and reefs. It can be carried in landing craft and even other landing ships and travel around.

These two comrades are from Northeast China and are currently testing hovercraft. This time, their mission has essentially been transformed from preliminary work to formal deployment.

"Oh, that's even better. I'm not afraid of anything else, but I'm mainly worried about delaying our business," the comrade who was in charge of the hovercraft said with a smile.

"Okay, regarding this matter, for more specific details, you should contact the comrades at the Naval Equipment Bureau. They will take you to find the person in charge. They have some ideas they need to discuss with you, and they might also be able to resolve some of your practical technical difficulties," the chief engineer said with a smile.

Can it also solve practical technical difficulties?
That's quite unusual.

Generally speaking, people who make requests can solve any difficulty except for technical ones.

After all, if he can solve the technical problems himself, then he probably won't need to find someone else to do it; he can just do it himself.

"Surely this is a good thing? Boss, you're not kidding me, hahaha."

"Get lost, I don't have time to fool you." The chief engineer probably has some connection with the guy who works on hovercrafts, because he spoke very casually.

An hour later, the two hovercraft engineers sat in the meeting room of the Third Rolling Mill's Third Branch, looking utterly bewildered. Beside them sat a colleague from the Naval Equipment Bureau, who was amused by their expressions.

The comrades from the Naval Equipment Bureau have accompanied many comrades here before, and they are very familiar with the expressions on these two people's faces; everyone who comes here for the first time looks like this.

The comrades at the Naval Equipment Bureau knew, but the comrades who worked on hovercraft didn't. They were just wondering what use hovercraft would be for a steel plate rolling mill.

Furthermore, this doesn't seem like the place to solve technical problems related to hovercrafts. Are they suggesting we just replace the hull of the hovercraft? The problem is, the most important part of a hovercraft—its hull—is something a steel mill can't solve.

With their heads covered in circles, the comrades soon met Gao Zhendong.

"Chief Engineer Gao, these two are comrades who work on hovercraft, Engineer Zhang and Engineer Wang." The comrades from the Marine Equipment Bureau were old acquaintances, and they introduced them to Gao Zhendong.

For the comrades at the Naval Equipment Bureau, this set of procedures is quite familiar.

Zhang and Wang stared at the young man in disbelief, wondering what kind of person he was.

The main problem is that the colleagues at the Shipbuilding Institute who are related to them cannot introduce the relevant situation to them in advance, let alone introduce Gao Zhendong.

Gao Zhendong himself was used to this situation. As he got older, fewer people were surprised by his age, but his workplace was still a difficult hurdle to overcome, mainly because it was unrelated to his job.

Gao Zhendong sat down and said with a smile to the comrades from the Naval Equipment Bureau, "How about this, let our comrades who are in charge of hovercraft first give an introduction to the current situation of hovercraft, and we can talk about other things later."

Gao Zhendong knew a little about the development trajectory of hovercraft, but as the scope and depth of the impact and changes brought about by many things over the years have gradually increased, he was well aware that what he knew in his previous life might be somewhat different from the actual situation. So he asked his comrades to introduce some things first, otherwise it would be a big joke if it turned into a case of trying to find a sword by marking the boat in the past.

The comrades from Northeast China did not hesitate. If they wanted to get the project, this requirement was almost inevitable. They took out some basic materials they had prepared for going to Beijing and reported to the Naval Equipment Bureau and Gao Zhendong on the spot.

"...As the Institute of Shipbuilding began to organize and concentrate its efforts, we ended our previous 'scattered' research approach three years ago, and focused our limited resources on conducting research. This approach has yielded better results than before..."

Gao Zhendong was unaware of this situation, but he was more concerned about just how good the "better results" would be: "How is the research progressing?"

"As early as the late 50s, we had already completed the research on the principle model..."

Hearing this, Gao Zhendong was delighted; it was indeed quite early.

In fact, to some extent, we completed the prototype of the hovercraft 13 days earlier than the world-renowned John Bull, but we didn't announce it, so it became a mystery known only to us.

However, this prototype test vessel has a "minor" problem...

"However, this experimental boat doesn't have an apron, and the air cushion is formed by a hard jet, so its maneuverability, stability, and air cushion efficiency are all poor..."

Gao Zhendong chuckled to himself. Sure enough, there was a price to pay for acting early.

Hard jet means that without the assistance of sidewalls, aprons, or other means, a layer of air cushion is created by jetting air through rigid nozzles around the hull. It is a typical example of achieving miracles through brute force. As for whether this miracle works or not, that's none of your concern.

Undoubtedly, this form has many flaws. Putting aside everything else, the unrestrained airflow is simply impossible to process, calculate, or control. If we could get the calculation and simulation of this thing right, it wouldn't just be as simple as making hovercraft.

Even the hovercraft that John Bull announced in the late 50s was the same; it used rigid jets, required a huge amount of lift power, and was only 100...mm off the ground...

Therefore, the earliest hovercraft, even those that were fully floated, had little to no amphibious capability. This is because a 100mm obstacle-crossing capability is practically negligible. True amphibious capability in fully floated hovercraft only came after John Bull invented the flexible apron.

Gao Zhendong thought for a moment and asked, "Are you mainly working on fully-cushioned hovercraft now? Aren't you working on sidewall hovercraft? Fully-cushioned hovercraft should be on their aprons by now, right?" Huh? This steel-rolling comrade actually knows a bit about hovercraft. Let alone these days, even decades from now in the 21st century, not many people can name a "sidewall hovercraft," because it doesn't really look like a hovercraft; more people probably mistake it for a catamaran than a hovercraft.

These days, even fewer people can name a "sidewall hovercraft." At least the comrade from the Naval Equipment Bureau next to him, who was nodding in admiration, didn't quite understand what it was.

Engineer Zhang nodded and said, "It's mainly due to the characteristics of sidewall hovercraft. It doesn't have the advantages of most fully-cushioned hovercraft, so it doesn't feel as good."

The amphibious and all-terrain advantages of a fully-cushioned hovercraft are that sidewall hovercraft are completely free from contact with the ground.

Gao Zhendong laughed: "Although it's not perfect, it has two advantages that are still quite good. First, it's faster than ordinary ships, and second, it's less technically difficult than fully-cushioned hovercraft. It's still worth developing. Although it's not very useful in high sea states, it's still worth considering for inland waterway transportation, at least it saves time and fuel."

While sidewall hovercraft are indeed not very effective in high sea states, shipping is not limited to high sea states and maritime applications.

Gao Zhendong's affirmation made the comrades working on hovercraft very happy. Regardless of the outcome of the full-cushion lifting project, judging from the attitude of the comrades in the Marine Equipment Bureau towards him, it is highly likely that a sidewall hovercraft can be developed first.

"Inland waterway shipping? Chief Engineer Gao, now that you mention it, it seems like that's really the case," Engineer Zhang said with a smile.

Actually, those who make cushion foundations are not necessarily unaware of this matter. The key is that someone with sufficient influence needs to bring it up.

This Chief Engineer Gao is exactly that kind of person. He's got the clout and he knows his stuff.

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "Inland waterway shipping doesn't have such high requirements for materials. Fiberglass will do. The key is to get things working first."

Compared to fully-cushioned hovercraft, sidewall hovercraft have the advantage that many empirical formulas can be applied to traditional ships, at least for the propulsion system. Moreover, many of the performance indicators and handling methods of sidewall hovercraft can be almost on par with those of ordinary ships.

Because the power unit of a sidewall hovercraft can remain on the water surface.

This solves many problems. Compared to the fact that the forward propulsion of a fully buoyed vehicle must be above the waterline, there are many things that can be directly applied to the sidewalls.

Moreover, Gao Zhendong's words opened up a new way of thinking for the comrades: since the sidewall hovercraft is not good at high sea states, then we should just ignore high sea states and just run it on inland waterways.

The key point is that the high-speed capability of sidewall hovercraft is indeed the highest among the most common types of boats, if we disregard special boat types such as hydrofoils.

"So, in the past few years, have you had any new directions based on hard jet?" Gao Zhendong asked this question knowing the answer already.

Because he knew that his comrades had made improvements based on the rigid jet method.

If my comrades were able to improve in their past lives, then there's no reason why they can't improve in this life.

Sure enough, Engineer Wang added, "Sixty years later, we referenced John's invention in the West and incorporated flexible apron technology. Some of the effects were immediately apparent, but some aspects were still not very good."

John Bull invented the flexible apron for hovercraft 60 years ago.

Gao Zhendong knew that although they were all flexible aprons, there were still big differences between them.

"Now that you have flexible aprons, where is your problem? Flexible aprons should have an immediate effect."

Engineer Zhang said, "The main reason is the lack of theoretical guidance. Although our prototype was developed earlier than John Bull's, we have always been somewhat weak in this area. Currently, we can only follow the development of foreign countries step by step, and even this following is incomplete. After all, when foreign countries publish their relevant results, they cannot disclose all the underlying theories."

At this point, Engineer Wang added, "Take this flexible apron as an example. Some of the effects of the flexible apron are immediate, such as reducing the power required for lifting and improving obstacle-crossing ability. However, we can only explore the deeper aspects of stability and maneuverability little by little."

Gao Zhendong roughly understood what they meant; to put it bluntly, it all came down to trial and error, and theoretical analysis was insufficient.

"So you're still using the thin nozzle theory?" This is an early analytical method for solving rigid jets, and it's not even very effective for rigid jets.

"Not only that, there's also the exponential theory on solid walls. This theory was used by people from John Bull's side, and we felt they had a certain advantage in this area, so we followed suit. However, this theory is still based on rigid jets, assuming that the gas is inviscid and incompressible. In reality, it is not applicable under the condition of a flexible apron. The appearance of the apron directly destroys the prerequisite of this assumption."

Gao Zhendong roughly understood the current situation, but he still needed to figure out one last thing.

"What kind of apron are we using now?" This is a very important question, and it can even influence the choice of theory. That's the amazing thing about fluid mechanics.

“Initially, we chose to learn from the SRN1 extended nozzle apron from abroad, but we eventually found that its drag performance and stability were not very good. So now we have obtained new papers and materials from abroad and are preparing to switch to the ham-style apron.”

Gao Zhendong was not familiar with ham-style aprons because his knowledge of these things was basically fragmented. He knew a little about the earliest pioneering works because of their historical significance, and he knew even more about the final masterpieces because of their practicality, but he was not very clear about the development process in between.

“Draw it out so I can see it,” Gao Zhendong asked, mainly because he was afraid that “Ham Style” might just be another name for his final solution. After all, the time span was several decades, and it was perfectly normal for the translation and naming to differ.

Wang stood up. Although he was still not quite sure how such fluid mechanics issues could be resolved within the steel rolling mill's territory, since none of the comrades from the Naval Equipment Bureau had raised any objections, he confidently began drawing on the blackboard.

The ham-shaped apron structure is not complicated. In fact, apron structures are not complicated at all. Gao Zhendong shook his head as he looked at the diagram that was quickly taking shape on the blackboard.

"this is not OK!"

(End of this chapter)