Chapter 1362 Xuanping Eighteen Years New Steam Patrol Ship
Although Lin Hui said that due to technical limitations, the shipboard steam engines they can currently design and produce cannot be too large. When the steam pressure reaches a certain level, if you want to increase the power, you naturally need to make the steam engine bigger.
Larger. However, if you want to make a steam engine larger, the demand for processing and production capacity is also very high. Larger and higher-end equipment is needed. For example, when casting parts, the larger the parts, the higher the processing equipment.
The requirements are getting higher and higher. For example, the current ship-based steam engine requires the use of a 500-ton hydraulic press, which is currently very rare in the empire. If you want to manufacture larger parts, you may need a thousand tons or even three to five.
A thousand-ton hydraulic press.
Therefore, Lin Hui also said that the power of building a steam engine, with a single unit of 80 horsepower, is basically the limit of existing technology. If you want to make it bigger, you need to upgrade the manufacturing process on a large scale, especially for large-scale
Manufacturing Equipment.
A single 80-horsepower steam engine is naturally much more powerful than the previous low-pressure steam engines, but it is still unable to propel those thousand-ton battleships.
But the admirals who came to see the steam engine didn't think so.
Especially Zhang Xiaotian, director of the Shipbuilding Department of the Ministry of Ship Affairs, Vice Admiral of Naval Technology, and the main designer of many battleships and cruisers of the Imperial Navy, who said that battleships can only be equipped with one steam engine? As long as the hull is large enough, then it can be completely
Can install two or even three or more steam engines!
Moreover, in his opinion, this kind of steam engine can still be improved. The current various mechanical equipment is lacking, but it can be upgraded and improved. For example, the hydraulic press, if the current 500 tons is not enough, then build one.
Thousand tons or even three thousand tons, five thousand tons.
It didn't exist before, just because there was no demand. Now that there is demand, then build it. Although it is difficult to develop new mechanical equipment, there are always difficulties, but as long as we continue to invest, we can always solve them.
When production equipment is available, the steam engine can be built larger, so that the power of a single steam engine will also increase.
With the addition of multiple steam engines being used in parallel at the same time, it will be possible to propel thousands of tons of warships!
They were extremely optimistic about the future. When they saw the prototype of the ship-based steam engine, they were already planning how to stuff larger and more steam engines into the thousand-ton battleship to create a real steam battleship.
The Navy was stimulated by this carrier-based steam engine, which only had a basic design and did not even have an experimental prototype!
After returning home, many leaders of the navy discussed and suspended the construction of the navy's existing capital ships!
Because in their opinion, it would be foolish to continue to build a pure sail warship when the ship-based steam engine is almost ready. Now that it is built, the hull will have to be modified in the future before it can be equipped with a steam engine.
If this is unnecessary, otherwise we should suspend the construction of new ships now, directly change the design, and directly build steam warships!
Of course, this change in design does not mean that warships will no longer be built. In fact, they will continue to be built. They just changed the hull design and continued to retain the sail system.
Because even if a ship-based steam engine is developed, no one can guarantee whether the steam engine can operate stably for a long time. If the sails are canceled and the steam engine fails again, then you will really have to wait for death on the sea.
In addition to preventing unstable performance of the steam engine, it is also to increase the sailing speed!
If sails and steam engines are used at the same time, greater sailing speeds can be achieved under tailwind conditions!
At the same time, this change in design of the warship under construction is also to explore the future steam engine modification plan of the existing warship!
When the navy generals saw the successful operation of the high-pressure steam engine at the Royal Institute of Technology and the basic design of the shipboard steam engine, they realized that the era of steam battleships had arrived.
When the era of steam engine battleships arrives, although it is said that new steam engine battleships will be built in the future, the large number of existing sail battleships cannot be simply thrown away.
You must know that the Tang Empire currently has more than 70 main battleships above frigates, and the number of various types of patrol ships, communication ships, and transport ships has reached more than 100.
As for river battleships, let alone that.
It is impossible to abandon so many sailboats directly. The Tang Navy has spent countless military expenditures to build them over the past ten years. It is not allowed to throw them away directly.
Therefore, subsequent sailboats will definitely undergo steam modification, but how to modify them requires detailed planning.
After discussing with the senior generals of the Navy and the technical officers of the Naval Ship Administration Department, they have finally come up with a preliminary steam plan for the next five years!
First of all, the Navy has considered that if a warship uses a steam engine, it will need to add coal, so it must build coal reserves in advance at major naval bases and many ports. At the same time, steam engines are not yet very stable and mature, and subsequent maintenance of warships will definitely be very difficult.
It was troublesome, so it was also required to set up steam engine repair institutions in major naval bases.
And based on the application of steam engines, we began to train specialized talents, especially mechanical engineers. After all, if there is any problem with the steam engine of the battleship during the voyage, we have to take it back to the shipyard and hire a mechanical company to repair it, right?
The Navy plans to directly assign engineers to steam battleships to solve some minor problems, which is the same concept as previously assigning carpenters to ships.
Cultivate talents and set up coal stations to prepare for the large-scale use of steam engines in the future.
The design changes of the warships under construction are to prepare for the smooth installation of steam engines after the subsequent steam engines come out, and also to prepare for the modification of a large number of existing sailing warships in service.
This kind of modification design will naturally retain the sail system.
Considering the immaturity of steam engines, the navy will tend to retain sails and adopt a power system that uses both sails and steam engines for a long time to come.
However, these modifications are still modifications. What the Navy wants more is a battleship designed based on steam battleships from the beginning.
At this time, Li Xuan also gave the navy a few words of advice to prevent them from going astray!
After all, even if Li Xuan was not a fan of the navy in his previous life, he still knew the general appearance of a battleship. He knew that a steamship first used a paddle wheel for propulsion, and then a propeller for thrust.
Li Xuan had already asked the Navy to test propeller technology before. Unfortunately, the technology is not perfect yet, so Li Xuan said that at this stage, paddle wheels can be used for propulsion, but the future development direction must be propellers, so
The Navy must find a way to transition to propeller propulsion as soon as possible.
In addition, the Navy is also trying to wrap the outer shell of the battleship with steel to improve the battleship's protective capabilities.
But Li Xuan also knows that these reminders of his are actually of little value, because if you want to realize the propeller propulsion, steel hull, pure steam engine propulsion, and large-caliber artillery warship that Li Xuan said, it is not a three-to-five battleship.
What can be done within this year will take a long time to perfect.
Now, it is better to stick to steam-sail hybrid power. At most, the steel is just to wrap some iron sheets on the hull, and a paddle wheel is used for propulsion.
After all, although this is not perfect, it can be made.
Under the guidance of Li Xuan, designers from the Shipbuilding Department of the Navy's Department of Naval Administration consulted the Department of Shipbuilding and Mechanical Engineering of the Royal Institute of Technology and the opinions of several major shipyards to design a real steam warship.
This warship is called an epoch-making warship by internal designers of the Navy. What’s interesting is that it is just a patrol ship!
Why? Because this is just a technology verification ship. The Navy plans to build one first to see the effect, and then build a large warship!
Therefore, the design codename of this "new steam patrol ship of the 18th year of Xuanping" is very unoriginal. Its displacement is only 200 tons.
But the reason why it is said to be epoch-making is because this patrol ship is also equipped with a steam engine in the sail system. It is expected to use a single steam engine with a power of 80 horsepower and a rear-mounted paddle wheel for propulsion. At the same time, in some key parts
The hull of the ship is covered with a layer of steel.
Li Xuan didn't feel much about the so-called epoch-making design produced by the Navy. Anyway, it was not the first time that the Navy had developed a steam engine test piece. In fact, in the past many years, the Navy had used the original low-pressure steam engine to produce more than a dozen
This was a steam engine test ship.
Not to mention this hybrid-powered, paddle-wheel propulsion, experimental ship with key parts covered in steel.
In the past, the Navy had even built pure steam engines, propeller propulsion, and all-steel test pieces. Well, although the power was seriously insufficient, they could not run at the speed of the river. Moreover, during the second trial, they were hit by a small wave, and then...
…and then the boat capsized!
In short, over the past few years, the Navy has actually built all kinds of messy test ships.
However, why this time is epoch-making, because this time the test ship is actually the predecessor of the mass-produced warship, and the design takes into account subsequent mass production, while paving the way for the subsequent construction of large-tonnage steam warships.
Li Xuan is also accustomed to the navy's troubles, and he also supports them in all kinds of troubles. Without trouble, there will be no technological progress!
If the Navy had not bothered, it would not have been able to repeatedly test the traditional system of steam engines, paddle wheels, propellers and steel battleships. The Navy's years of trouble have also led to the fact that steam engine battleships have everything ready and only need the east wind!
Now the navy has prepared all kinds of things, except for a steam engine.