Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 231 Steam Engines and Boilers

Several people are checking the production progress of the glass factory, not only the flat glass, but also the glassware production line. The orders sent by the Guangzhou Station are mainly glass wine bottles of three different sizes.In modern glassware manufacturing, glass bottles are automatically blown into shape on an assembly line, and it is easy to manufacture hundreds of standard bottles of the same size every minute.The Bairen Glass Factory is still casting by hand—it should be said that the performance of the apprentices in this aspect is much better than that of some clumsy otaku crossing the crowd—the best record in a day is only about [-].

"It's best to design an automatic bottle-making production line." Zhan Wuya said, "How many workers are needed to meet the demand for such a handmade bottle?"

"After the plate glass is annealed, you can talk about manpower." Wang Luobin's face was brightened by the fire, "The grinding requires much more manpower than making glass bottles."

Just as he was talking, Li Di led the soldiers of the navy company, pulled the floating raft with a rowboat from Bopu, and brought more than ten barrels of things.

"The grinding materials are all here, please sign for them." Li Di exhaled, his body was dripping wet - when he crossed the shallows, he had to jump down and push the raft first, so as not to be crushed by the rocks.

"These things are all collected by the navy, and it takes a lot of work to dig out the sand. In the future, we will give us a discount for making things." Li Di did not forget to make an ugly appearance.

"Well, the sand has been graded?"

"Divided, from coarse to fine, sifted with the sieve you provided. There are three types in total, 3 buckets of each. It should be enough for you. There are also 3 buckets of diatomaceous earth."

When grinding glass, first use coarse sand, then fine sand, and then use the special very fine blue glass abrasive, which can not be processed by the traversing people themselves, so they use the finest sand instead.

After this series of grinding is completed, a roller with handles on both sides is used to wrap a layer of wool felt, and then sprinkle diatomaceous earth or corundum powder for final grinding and polishing-there are diatomaceous earth reserves in the local area.

The whole grinding is not only laborious and labor-intensive, so the glass factory is also one of the earliest users of Watt and Boulton's steam engine.In order to save manpower, the people across the world naturally had to turn to this industrial artifact.

"How is your steam engine going? Our mechanical team is going to copy one." Zhan Wuya finally openly made up his mind about Li Di's secret.

Li Di's steam engine is a small steam engine kit from the United States. In the United States, it is a toy for steam engine enthusiasts. It is the same nature as many people play with ultralight aircraft components.

"It works, but the horsepower is very small, only 12 horsepower." Li Di said that it took him almost three months to complete the assembly. The structure is small and light, and can be installed on large naval rowboats.

The mechanical team decided to refer to this machine, so all the staff went to Bopu together and saw the machine placed in the navy boat garage.

"I can't figure it out, let's start with the simplest Watt machine." Zhan Wuya said after looking at Li Di's machine.The entire steam engine has not surpassed their level of knowledge in terms of principle, but many processing methods and materials used in it are not supported by the time travel industry.

"This machine is very light, but unfortunately we can't make it." Billy Zhou said after looking at it, "Its boiler is very delicate, the pipes are all steel, and many parts are still welded..."

"Without welding, how to make a boiler? There are also high-pressure fire pipes and rubber seals—it seems that there are not many rubber parts, and there are no ready-made specifications available..." Li Di became distressed.

"Damn it, where did you hear the weird talk?! Steam engines never need rubber or seals!" Xiao Bailang spat, "Don't talk about Niu Komen and Watt, it's just how many years Rubber seals weren’t used in the era of expansion, did they?”

"It's really unnecessary," Zhan Wuya said. "As for the material, there is no need for any steel. There was no steel at all on the steam engine in the early days. It was either pig iron or wrought iron. It can be knocked by hand. Our materials and processing level Enough for Watts to straighten his eyes."

He sighed: "But we don't know how to play riveting. Without riveting, we have to weld—it can't be used." Zhan Wuya is not good at this either—he has a full set of welding equipment and some consumables, However, there is no place to replenish such things as welding rods and acetylene, so use a little less.

"Hehe, when it comes to this riveting, I'm not bragging. I'm probably the only one who can do it here." Billy Zhou said proudly.

"You will?" Zhan Wuya remembered that Zhou Billy was just a mechanical maintenance worker, and his specialty was sheet metal.Although it is engaged in aircraft maintenance, it belongs to a profession that looks beautiful, but it is not very useful to the traveler.

"There are still a lot of riveting in the aircraft. So I am a little interested, and I often try it myself." Billy Zhou said.

Riveting is the most widely used metal connection method in the industrial age. Compared with traditional forging, it is more convenient, reliable and strong enough.Especially in the field of shipbuilding, riveting was still the main shipbuilding process until World War II. Even giant ships like "Yamato" were connected by rivets one by one, and welding technology was only used in a few non-critical parts.

Since the 20s, welding technology has changed with each passing day, and finally replaced riveting in many fields, so that few people have mastered this technology in modern times.Zhan Wuya remembers very clearly that when the Waibaidu Bridge in Shanghai was demolished and renovated, it took a lot of trouble to find the workers who installed the rivets.

"It's all up to you!" Xiao Bailang patted his shoulder.

"No, I can't do the riveting work by myself. It takes 2-3 people to work. Special equipment is also needed." Zhou Billy gestured.

"Okay, I'll transfer a few mechanical workers to learn from you."

Zhou Billy immediately started a study class in the machinery factory shed, and Zhan Wuya brought some iron plates and beams over for him to demonstrate.

According to the list he made, the machinery factory first processed and manufactured a complete set of equipment for him: including hammers, toilet stoves with bellows, and rivets.

Generally, the material needs to be mechanically drilled first, and then the plates to be connected must be overlapped. Riveters are usually in groups of three, and a rivet heating worker first heats the rivet in the furnace until it turns red, and then uses pliers to remove the rivet. Pass it to the riveter, and the riveter will knock the rivet into the rivet hole and rivet.

Due to the poor portability of the stove, when building large-scale riveted parts, the heating workers use the method of throwing out the rivets when delivering them. Row.

No matter how big the object to be riveted is, even if it is a super home ship like Yamato, its hull is built by riveting workers hammer by hammer in this way.

"How many riveters do we have to train to do this?" Zhan Wuya sighed when he saw that it took them several minutes to finish the first riveting hole.

"Take your time, this is also technical work."

Li Di witnessed this scene, and he had serious doubts about his expectation of being able to board a [-]-ton battleship in his lifetime.

Zhou Billy probably saw everyone's disappointment, and said, "Don't we have an air compressor?"

"Correct."

"If there is an air compressor, the riveting work can save a lot of labor. This hammering process can be done with an air hammer driven by the air compressor. Only one riveter is needed."

"In the future, when the industrial level improves, hydraulic riveting machines can still be used." Billy Zhou said, "But this is difficult, so let's do it manually first."

The first riveting worker training class started. According to Zhou Billy's request, some children were selected from among the apprentices to be riveting heat workers - in the past, heat workers were the job of riveting apprentices.

Mastering the riveting technology means that the key component of the steam engine-the boiler can be manufactured.

Regardless of the form or principle of the steam engine, a high-efficiency boiler is obviously one of the core components of the steam engine.

The role of the boiler is not only to provide power for the steam engine, but also to provide the hot water, steam and temperature needed in the industry - the travelers can maintain a high standard of living, which is largely due to the boiler. The boiler, the traveler has to take a cold shower and eat a rice full of rice cooked with an open flame...

The principle of the boiler itself is very simple. The wagon-type boiler used by the Watt steam engine has been used for almost 150 years, and it was still playing its role until 1850.Of course its thermal efficiency is poor.

What the mechanical department intends to imitate is a relatively successful design at that time: the Lancashire double-flue boiler invented in 1844, which was then widely used. Served until the 20th century.

The Lancashire boiler has a large capacity and can provide a stable steam flow. It is an atmospheric boiler and cannot provide high-pressure steam, so its evaporation power is relatively weak and its use is relatively limited.However, its technology is simple and mature, and its manufacture is not difficult-it is riveted with low-carbon steel plates, but it can also be made of rolled wrought iron plates, which is of great significance for traveling with limited steel production capacity.

"Why not try to manufacture a fire-tube or water-tube boiler? This difficulty will not be greater than that of the Lancashire boiler. We can also use the boiler on the boiler machine as a reference."

The fire tube boiler was invented by the Frenchman Seguin and the British Stephenson Company in 1829, and was used on steam locomotives at that time.Fire-tube boilers, and later water-tube boilers, were able to generate very high steam pressures—important for large ships, locomotives, and even power generation.

"Several pot camel machines are running 24 hours a day, and they won't be disassembled for your reference."

"We don't need to disassemble the boiler, and we are also very clear about the structure of fire-tube and water-tube boilers." Wang Luobin said, "The key is whether the material can pass the test? This is a high-pressure boiler, and there is no reserve of high-pressure boiler tubes. performance--"

(End of this chapter)