In Zhu Hongyu's eyes, the status of the institute is very important.
It is precisely because of this that the research institute was placed in Zhenyuan City, not far from the Jianguo mansion.
On the one hand, it is convenient for Zhu Hongyu to inspect at any time and even guide the conduct of research.
On the other hand, it is convenient for security work!
Zhu Hongyu came to the entrance of the research institute wearing regular clothes.
With a creak, the Liberation Army soldiers guarding the door opened the door, and Zhu Hongyu led the people inside.
Master and apprentice Wang An, together with a group of researchers and craftsmen, came forward.
Everyone said in unison.
"See His Royal Highness the Supervisor!"
Zhu Hongyu waved his hand and said.
"No gift!"
"Just take me to visit the steam engine!"
Wang An accepted the promise, and then began to lead the way and explain at the same time.
"The structure of the steam engine we developed is based on the suggestions of His Highness Jian Guo!"
"Mainly composed of cylinder, base, piston, crank connecting rod mechanism, slide valve steam distribution mechanism, speed regulating mechanism and flywheel."
"The specific principle is that in a steam boiler, water boils into steam through the combustion process, and the steam is sent to the cylinder."
"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 speed of current steam engines can reach 70 to 80 revolutions per minute..."
Don’t look at this number as inconspicuous!
But what you need to know is that at the end of the 18th century, the speed of the steam engine improved by Watt was only thirty or forty revolutions per minute.
Now that the steam engine developed by the research institute can achieve such a speed, Zhu Hongyu feels very satisfied and even feels unusually surprised.
Listening to Wang An describing the specific performance data of the steam engine, Zhu Hongyu kept nodding.
Along the way, the smile on his face never disappeared!
Under the leadership of Wang An, the group entered an open-air testing site.
At the very center of the testing site, there is a steam engine that can be described as silly, big, and black.
Zhu Hongyu strode towards the steam engine, reached out and groped on the machine, feeling the cold temperature coming from the steel.
Zhu Hongyu's face was full of smiles!
The emergence of the steam engine is of epoch-making significance!
Even if we don’t mention that steam engines can open the door to the industrial age, the role that steam engines can play in the military industry is unimaginable.
Steam engines can provide a stable source of power for machine tools!
And machine tools are the key to finishing!
For example, take rifling a musket!
If the rifle is rifled manually, even the most experienced master craftsman cannot guarantee that there will be no accidents during the rifling process.
Once something unexpected happens, a musket will be useless!
This is why, from beginning to end, the main equipment in the Liberation Army has always been smoothbore guns, and the reason why rifled guns are only equipped in small quantities.
However, as long as we can ensure that the machining accuracy of the machine tool will not cause too much error.
With steam engines powering machine tools, rifling muskets in large quantities will no longer be a problem.
It is even possible to directly mill the cannon's castings, rifling the cannon, and complete the transformation from a smoothbore cannon to a rifled cannon!
Zhu Hongyu looked at the steam engine in front of him carefully, and the smile on his face could hardly be concealed.
He nodded to Wang An and then spoke.
"Let's run!"
Wang An nodded in agreement, and then began to operate it himself.
The boiler is ignited, and as time goes by, the cold water gradually heats up until it is boiled...
Gudong! Gudong!
Water vapor continues to expand during the boiling process, and the pointer on the steam engine pressure gauge begins to move slowly.
After the pointer moved from the white area to the green area, the steam engine began to run slowly.
The piston drives the crank connecting rod and flywheel to slowly rotate!
As the pointer moves from the green area to the yellow area, the steam engine starts to rotate faster and faster.
Wang An opened his mouth to explain.
"The pressure gauge is divided into four different colored areas!"
"White represents the charging stage, green represents normal operation, yellow represents normal operation, and when it reaches the red area, it is a danger warning, indicating that the furnace may explode at any time!"
Zhu Hongyu watched the steam engine running silently and asked.
"Is the power supply stable? How about the running time?"
Wang arranged his chest and said.
"Power supply is absolutely stable!"
"In terms of running time, in the initial test, the steam engine ran without failure for three days."
"Then there was some minor problem with the piston, so we stopped the operation and checked and replaced the parts!"
Due to Zhu Hongyu's emphasis on standardized production, every part of the steam engine is unified and can be replaced at any time if there is an operation problem.
In this era when the steam engine had just been invented and could not operate for a long time due to technical limitations!
Accessories are standardized and damaged accessories can be quickly replaced at any time, which is a very important thing!
In this regard, Zhu Hongyu could only admire the ingenuity of these craftsmen.
Touching his chin, Zhu Hongyu asked again.
“When can steam engines be put into large-scale production?”
Steam engines alone are not enough. If you want to open the door to the industrial age, steam engines must be put into practical use on a large scale.
The first step is to make steam engines mass-manufacturable, not just laboratory products!
Wang An opened his mouth and said.
"Report to His Royal Highness the Supervisor!"
"The institute is already preparing tests for mass production of steam engines!"
"The machine tools that produce steam engine parts are being transformed, and researchers are trying to find ways to adapt the machine tools to steam engines as the power source, instead of continuing to use water power or animal power."
"When relevant tests are successful, mass production of steam engines will no longer be a problem!"
The Liberation Army has begun to use machine tools!
Machine tools sound very high-end. They are industrial mother machines and the brightest jewel in the crown of an industrial country.
But this is about those high-precision CNC machine tools!
If you don't pursue precision, hand-making a simple machine tool, such as a lathe, boring machine, milling machine and other basic machine tools, is actually not as difficult as you think.
Anyway, after Zhu Hongyu took out the drawings, the craftsmen of the institute made the actual object.
And the machine tools made are also used in military production and steam engine parts manufacturing.
The machining accuracy is indeed not very good, but it is not ridiculously bad!
Where precision processing is required, a simple frame is usually made with a machine tool and then finely processed by a skilled craftsman.
All in all, it works!
Moreover, after a long period of improvement, the processing accuracy of the machine tool has been guaranteed to a certain extent.
When steam engines are put into large-scale production in the future, the machining accuracy of the machine tools should be improved a lot by using parts manufactured by machine tools using steam engines as the power source to assemble a machine tool.
Zhu Hongyu nodded with satisfaction, patted Wang An on the shoulder and said.
"keep it up!"
Immediately afterwards, Zhu Hongyu announced the rewards to all members of the steam engine research team in public.