Thirty renovated steam-driven canals are lined up and moored quietly on the shore. They are ready for use.
Yang Fan and his crew worked day and night for a month, and finally turned the inland watercraft into a reliable steam-powered ship.
These ships using the first generation steam engines were finally equipped with transmission gears and governors.
These gears are made from industrial gears selected from scraps received in modern times. They are relatively strong and durable, and it is simply trivial to use them in such a low-power steam engine transmission system.
After all, the gears need to be wear-resistant and must be cast with manganese steel. Currently, Yang Fan's steel plant does not have a special steel workshop, so this problem cannot be solved yet.
Ordinary steel has a short service life and wears out quickly. The working environment of gears is too harsh.
After all, the transmission gear is constantly subjected to forces in multiple directions, different sizes, and sharp changes. Ordinary steel will suffer from metal fatigue in a short time.
Either the teeth are missing, broken, or worn out.
A big problem with the Newcomen steam engine is that it cannot adjust the speed and cannot guarantee a stable speed.
Because the boiler's water heating is unstable, the quality of the fuel cannot guarantee that the calorific value is always consistent.
If the combustion heat is high, there will be more steam, and the cylinder piston will move at high speed. After a while, the coal combustion peak will pass, the heat will drop, and when the steam decreases, it will move at low speed again.
After adding coal again, the new coal will suppress the flame. At this time, the temperature will further drop and the steam will decrease sharply.
After a while, the newly filled coal will burn and the steam will increase. When the combustion reaches its peak, the cylinder will reach its peak power.
At this time, crazy work may even damage the machine.
It is not possible to directly connect the connecting rod of the piston to the crankshaft and use it to drive the paddle wheel.
In this case, this equipment will be like a patient with asthma, periodically going fast and slow. It will be difficult to control.
Everyone who has driven a car knows that driving safety mainly depends on controlling the speed. The so-called yielding speed and not giving way. Secondly, steering wheel control.
If the speed cannot be controlled by oneself, no one would dare to drive this car.
This is also the reason why Yang Fan didn't want to bring the girls with him during the trial voyage.
The reciprocating steam engine is still under trial production. After all, it involves too much equipment being developed and manufactured. It will definitely not be released this year.
There is no way, Duolun City has been besieged by the Mongols for a month now. Traffic is cut off from all sides, and communications are almost interrupted. People are panicking, but it is still under control. After all, the Mongolian attacks have been repelled many times and the whole city has been
people confidence.
Fortunately, two children in Ansanxi came up with a good idea. They put the documents in hollowed-out wood and lowered them down the river at night.
These wood will float downstream, and eventually some will reach the Zunhua area.
Through this method, Yang Fan can get detailed reports from Duolun City every day. But there is no way to pass his orders over.
The man-operated propeller-driven canoe had to be suspended because it had no armor protection and could not withstand the bow and arrow fire of the Mongolians on both sides of the strait. This led to a cutoff in transportation. There was no radio communication in this era.
In order to reopen waterway traffic, it is necessary to install armor on the four sides and top of the canal.
The quality of the Mongols' arrows was very poor, and they were seriously short of iron. Most of the arrowheads used by herders to recruit soldiers were ground from bones and stones. Only officers had iron arrowheads.
Therefore, as long as a steel plate with a thickness of two millimeters is enough to withstand it. Even a corrugated steel plate with one millimeter of carburizing and surface hardening is no problem.
Yang Fan's Xincheng Iron and Steel Plant has installed three open-hearth furnaces and a set of steel rod rolling production lines, all of which were collected by the idiots.
Many small steel plants have been shut down in modern times. There are many such equipment that are treated as scrapped. It just takes some effort to change these equipment to water power.
These small plate rolling machines with a width of only three meters do not require much power.
Yang Fan transferred a large number of technicians and workers from Beitang Shipyard to refit these 30 watercraft.
It mainly installs steel frames on both sides and top of the ship, covering them with corrugated steel plates. There is no welding, but hot riveting technology is very mature. This can be done by riveting.
Although hot riveting technology is simple, it is very reliable. It was not completely eliminated by electric welding technology until World War II. The warships in World War I were basically riveted. It has been used for hundreds of years.
Each ship has two improved Newcomen steam engines and paddle wheels installed at the stern. After the improved design, the Newcomen steam engine version 2.0 has greatly reduced the weight and provided more power. Now two units are enough.
Chen Zhijian insisted on installing a mast and a pair of Chinese-style hard sails in the middle of these canal ships, and installed some rocking oars on both sides. Chinese-style hard sails are highly efficient in taking advantage of winds in different directions. These are insurance and backup measures for steam engines.
His reason was that the reliability of these steam engines was not good. If they stalled during battle, big trouble would happen. Moreover, these ships were very clumsy to maneuver and had extremely poor maneuverability.
If there are a certain number of oars, it can be convenient to adjust the direction, turn around, turn, etc.
Even if the steam engine breaks down and there is no suitable wind direction, the sails will not work. At least the oars can be swayed to maintain a minimum level of operation. In emergencies, they can leave the battlefield and avoid anchoring and being beaten passively in place.
After calculation, the steam engine and paddle wheel were installed, the corrugated steel plate armor was installed, the mast and a Chinese-style hard sail were installed.
Coupled with the weight of the oars, personnel and weapons, the load capacity of a ship dropped sharply from two hundred tons to one hundred tons.
However, after such a modification, all aspects have indeed been taken into consideration. The inland river steamship has become practical.
Although Yang Fan receives battle reports from Duolun City every day, Duolun City is currently able to repel several attacks every day with the rammed earth walls it built previously.
But the situation is still quite serious.
In order to ensure speed, these ships are all started to be refitted at the same time. The above-mentioned solutions are not technically difficult and can be realized with existing technical reserves, but the biggest problem still lies in the ship's transmission system and speed change.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Even if you cannot make a useful gearbox, you must first make a reliable speed regulator. Stabilize the output speed of the steam engine first. Then install the transmission gear.
Control speed and reverse.
For the speed regulator, Yang Fan chose the speed regulator from the Watt steam engine because this principle is the simplest.
When the cylinder outputs, it also carries an upright shaft, and two counterweight spheres are installed on this shaft. When the cylinder power is high and the rotation speed is fast, the two spheres will be pulled up due to centrifugal force.
There is a connecting rod on the sphere, and the upward movement of the sphere will drive the valve of the steam engine outlet through a relatively complex connecting rod. If the speed is too fast and the counterweight ball is swung too high, the output of the steam engine will be reduced through the connecting rod.
Capacity.
This will slow down the speed.
In the same way, if there is less air output, the rotation speed is slow, and the centrifugal force of the ball is insufficient, it will fall, which will drive the connecting rod to move downward. Open the air outlet valve wider, so that more steam will be released, and the cylinder will increase its movement speed.
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Therefore, as long as the speed regulator is set correctly, a fixed power can be output stably. In this way, the asthma of the steam engine is cured.
This principle is very simple. Chen Xi quickly mastered it and led the students to make some improvements. The old craftsmen polished the parts by hand and then installed them. The trial results were very good.
The gearbox is completely assembled from modern waste materials. These parts and gears cannot be made under current conditions.
Anyway, it is only for small-scale use, and it can be used by piecing it together with scrap parts. As for localization, we will wait until it is used on a large scale in the future.
After the first sea trial with the governor and gearbox installed, no problems were found in forward, backward, steering, and stable power output. Because we were in a hurry, the transmission gear was made with two forward gears and one reverse gear.
block.
During the trial voyage, I finally found some feeling of a modern ship, which almost made Yang Fan burst into tears. This period of time was finally not in vain.
Yang Fan decided to send this ship to Duolun City first to boost the morale of the people.
The arrival of this ship will definitely be very exciting.
Their biggest pressure now is the psychological pressure deep in the Guxuan Grassland. If navigation is restored amid the heavy siege of the Mongols, and Duolun, Zunhua, and the new city can travel freely, then people's hearts will immediately settle down.
Because everyone knows that it doesn't matter whether the Mongols besiege the city or not. Anyway, the crops have returned to the warehouse, the livestock have enough straw to eat, and the city has enough coal.
There is plenty of food in the city, and there are wells for drinking water. The livestock have also moved into the city. In the butcher shop, everything from pork to beef and mutton, and even game are available. It is close to the river and there are also fish.
Don’t be afraid of winter. The adobe house is warm in winter and cool in summer, and there is an iron stove. If you are willing to spend money, you can buy honeycomb briquettes to burn. They are half low-quality soil coal powder and half lime and clay. They are very cheap.
I don't want to spend money, I have straw, enough to burn it all winter.
Some industrious people even cut weeds and shrubs on the ridges of the fields to add firewood. There are stacks of firewood and hay piled high in the yard. No matter how you look at it, you are not afraid of being frozen in the winter.
If navigation is restored, everyone will be more confident.
