In fact, the iron-making technology recorded in "Tiangong Kaiwu" is not outdated in this era. It can be said to be a very advanced iron-making technology at that time. Even compared to the iron-making technology of the same period in the West,
It is also much more advanced.
"Every iron is divided into raw and cooked. When it comes out of the furnace, it is raw without frying, and when it is fried, it is cooked. When raw and cooked are mixed together, it becomes steel when it is smelted. All iron furnaces are made of salt and built with mud.
Most of the furnaces are built near mountain caves, or surrounded by huge logs. After that, the furnace flows out from the hole in the waist of the furnace. The furnace hole is first plugged with mud. Every six o'clock in the day, one iron is drawn out at a time. Once it comes out, it is ready.
Fork the mud plug, blast it and melt it again."
"The method of making steel is to beat wrought iron into thin slices as wide as a finger, about half an inch long, tie them tightly with iron sheets, and place pig iron on top. Guangnan Pig Iron's name is Zhuozi Raw Steel, which is very wonderful. It is also covered with broken straw shoes.
If there is mud on the top, it will not melt quickly. Apply the mud on the bottom. Use the furnace and drums to discuss. When the firepower is up, the raw steel will melt first and seep into the wrought iron. When the two are in harmony, take it out and hammer it. Then refine it and hammer it again.
There are many. The common name is Tuan Gang, also known as the one who pours steel."
Lin Jing read out this paragraph from the Hardware Chapter and said with emotion: "Chang Geng, the iron-making technology recorded in your "Tiangong Kaiwu" is indeed very perfect. It not only includes the methods of casting pig iron and wrought iron, but also the methods of casting pig iron and wrought iron.
There is also the process of casting steel. If it can be produced on a large scale, this alone will basically be enough."
Indeed, Lin Jing does not need to make any major adjustments to this set of processes. It uses piston blowing technology, which is more advanced than European bladder blowing equipment, and also uses ring copper alloy.
Special chemical heat treatment processes and metal composite materials technologies such as sounder molding, anchor forging, steel needle drawing and 'pig iron pouring' are still in use even today.
After hearing Lin Jing's praise, Song Yingxing showed some gratitude on his face. His whole life's efforts were tied to this book, so every text in it has been repeatedly verified. However, it is a pity that there are not many in the world.
He was originally a little disheartened that people valued this book, but now that he heard the prince's praise, he was naturally quite happy.
"I... I just do what I should do!"
Lin Jing nodded slightly and continued: "However, there are some areas that can be improved, especially the steel-making method that can be further improved."
The steel-making method currently used in "Tiangong Kaiwu" is mainly the traditional steel-filling method. It puts the pig iron below and the wrought iron on top. When the temperature is high, the pig iron melts before the wrought iron, and then it infiltrates until the wrought iron is cooked.
On the iron, this fusion zone can be used to tap steel. This method can not only produce good carburization, but also produce violent oxidation, which separates iron and slag and produces steel with less slag and uniform composition.
.
Although this method is very good in this era, it also has its own shortcomings. You must know that molten pig iron is not a good carburizing agent. It is viscous and cannot handle carbon and many impurities and remains inside. This treatment
The final steel filling can only carburize the surface layer of the internal wrought iron. Once it cools down, the solidified molten iron on the surface will become a part with high carbon content. The result is uneven carbon content.
The filled steel made by this method is prone to be hard and brittle on the outside and soft on the inside, and when the role of forging is ignored, it is not particularly suitable for making gun barrels.
As for the steelmaking method Lin Jing wants to use, it is the Bessemer converter steelmaking method. This technology originally appeared in the 19th century. It is a steelmaking method invented by the British inventor Bessemer.
The opportunity that directly led him to find a new steel-making method was the need for armaments and war.
At that time, during the period of industrial leap forward, the handicraft industry turned to the large-scale machine industry. The large-scale invention and widespread use of machines, coupled with the emergence of various new weapons, greatly increased the demand for steel in various countries, and the new steel-making method was
Its outstanding advantages became a bright spot in the industrial leap period.
This Bessemer converter steelmaking method uses a one-meter-two-meter-high furnace, which is a fixed vertical container with 6 tuyeres at the bottom, which can add molten metal at one time.
The melted pig iron is about 350 kilograms. This design was not favored by people at the time. Many people believed that just blowing air without adding coke would cause the molten iron to solidify.
But when the converter actually started to be used, it was found that the effect was relatively good. The manganese and silicon in the molten iron were oxidized, forming brown smoke and escaping, while the carbon was oxidized into carbon dioxide. More importantly, the furnace temperature dropped within half an hour.
When the temperature rises to 1,600 degrees Celsius, it can even be used to make another furnace of steel. Therefore, as soon as this iron-making method came out, it quickly attracted the attention of various countries.
However, Lin Jing knew that the Bessemer converter steelmaking method was not without its shortcomings. When refining some ores with high phosphorus content, it was prone to the problem that the steel produced was too brittle. It took Bessemer a long time to solve the problem.
This problem could not be solved, so in ironmaking, only pig iron containing less phosphorus was used.
But the problem is that the quality of China's iron ore is not very high at the moment. The iron content of the ore is low and the impurities are high, especially the phosphorus content. This is also the reason why China's iron-making technology is advanced but the quality of the iron is generally not high.
The reason is that compared to those high-grade iron ores in Europe, it is much more difficult to mine iron ore in China.
Fortunately, as a time traveler, Lin Jing naturally knew that later generations would have a solution to this problem. Twenty years after Bessemer invented the converter steelmaking method, Englishman Thomas discovered that after the phosphorus in pig iron is oxidized by air, it can
It was reduced to phosphorus by the siliceous furnace and re-entered the molten steel. It was found that limestone can dephosphorize the molten iron.
To realize this process is actually not complicated. Thomas mixed clinker dolomite and tar at high temperature and burned it into an alkaline refractory brick, which replaced the original acidic silicic acid lining of the Bessemer converter.
Change the furnace lining to an alkaline furnace. During the converter smelting process, limestone is added to make the slag highly alkaline, and finally dephosphorized steel can be produced.
After listening to Lin Jing's brief introduction, Song Yingxing couldn't help but be a little stunned. He really didn't expect that the prince knew so much about iron-making technology. Although he had not yet practiced the technology that the prince mentioned, a strange idea came to his mind.
Even these methods may be effective...
"Your Highness, please forgive me for being rude. I want to resign now and then try my dream of working in the iron industry."
Song Yingxing bowed deeply and saluted. He looked at Lin Jing with a little uneasiness. Tang Ruowang and Bo Jue on the side also showed a bit of expectation. Obviously, for them, nothing is more exciting than this.
People care.
Lin Jing smiled slightly, waved his hand, and said, "Let's go to the Beijing Iron Works now to try out the new technology!"