A month has passed.
Thirty renovated steam-driven canals were lined up and moored quietly on the shore. It is ready for use.
Yang Fan led everyone to work day and night for a month, and finally turned the inland watercraft into a reliable steam-powered ship.
These ships, which used the first generation of steam engines, were finally equipped with transmission gears and governors.
These gears are made from industrial gears selected from scraps received by Hyundai. It is relatively sturdy and durable, and it is simply trivial to use it on 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 lifespan 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 rapidly changing forces. Ordinary steel will suffer metal fatigue after 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 boiler water heating is unstable, the quality of 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 peak of coal combustion has passed, the heat has dropped, and when the steam has decreased, it will move at a low speed again.
After re-adding coal, 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 the peak power output.
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 way, this set of equipment will be like a patient with asthma, periodically running faster and slower. Very difficult to control.
Everyone who has driven a car knows that driving safety mainly depends on controlling the speed. The so-called yielding speed does not give way. Next is the steering wheel control.
If the speed cannot be controlled by oneself, no one would dare to drive this car.
This was also the reason why Yang Fan didn't want to take Xiao Niangpi and the others 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 come out this year.
There is no way, Duolun City has been besieged by the Mongols for a month now. Traffic was cut off in all directions and communications were almost interrupted. People are panicking, but it is still under control. After all, the repeated repelling of the Mongolian attacks has given the whole city confidence.
Fortunately, two children in Ansanxi came up with a good idea. They put the documents in hollowed-out wood and put them down the river at night.
These wood will float downstream, and eventually some will reach Zunhua area.
Through this method, Yang Fan can get detailed reports from Duolun City every day. But there was no way to pass on his orders.
The man-operated propeller-driven cannons had to be stopped because they had no armor protection and could not withstand the bows and arrows fired by the Mongolians on both sides of the strait. This resulted in a loss of traffic, and there was no radio communication in these days.
In order to reopen waterway traffic, it is necessary to install armor on the four sides and top of the canal.
The Mongols' arrows were of poor quality and they were severely deficient in iron. Most of the arrowheads used by herders to recruit soldiers were ground from bones and stones. Only officers have iron arrows.
Therefore, as long as there is a two millimeter thick steel plate, it is enough to withstand it. Even one millimeter of carburized and surface-hardened corrugated steel plate is no problem.
Yang Fan's Xincheng Iron and Steel Plant has installed three open-hearth furnaces and a steel rod rolling production line, all of which were collected by the idiots.
Many small steel plants in modern times have closed down. There are many such equipments that are treated as scrapped. It just takes some effort to change these equipments to water-driven ones.
These small plate rolling machines, which are only three meters wide, do not require much power.
Yang Fan transferred a large number of technicians and workers from Beitang Shipyard to refit these thirty watercraft.
It mainly installs steel frames on both sides and top of the ship and covers them with corrugated steel plates. There is no welding, but hot riveting technology is already very mature. For this job, riveting is enough.
Although hot riveting technology is simple, it is very reliable. It was not completely eliminated by electric welding technology until World War II. Warships in World War I were basically riveted. It's been used for hundreds of years.
Each ship has two improved Newcomen steam engines and paddle wheels installed at the stern. After an 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 sculls on both sides. Chinese hard sails are efficient in taking advantage of winds in different directions. These are insurance and backup measures for steam engines.
His reason was that these steam engines were not very reliable. If it turns off during a battle, something big will happen. Moreover, these ships are very clumsy to maneuver and have 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 sail will not work. At least the oar can be kept running at a minimum level. In an emergency, you can leave the battlefield without breaking down and being beaten passively in place.
After calculation, this is how to install the steam engine and paddle wheel, install the corrugated steel plate armor, install the mast and a Chinese-style hard sail.
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. River steamships became 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 serious.
In order to ensure speed, these ships were 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.
Even if you can't make a useful gearbox, you must first make a reliable speed regulator. First stabilize the output speed of the steam engine. Then add a transmission gear to control speed and reverse.
Governor Yang Fan chose the governor on the Watt steam engine because this principle is the simplest.
When the cylinder is output, it also has 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 lifted up. This is 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 the more complicated connecting rod. If the speed is too fast and the weight ball is swung too high, the air output of the steam engine will be reduced through the connecting rod.
This will slow down the speed.
In the same way, if there is less air output and the rotation speed is slow, the centrifugal force of the sphere is insufficient and it will fall, which will drive the connecting rod to move downward and open the air outlet valve wider. In this way, more steam will be released, and the cylinder will increase its movement speed. .
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 was cured.
This principle is very simple. Chen Xi quickly mastered it and led the students to make some improvements. The experienced craftsmen polished the parts by hand and then installed them. The trial effect was 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.
During the trial voyage, I finally found some feeling of a modern ship, which almost brought tears to Yang Fan's eyes. This period of time was finally not in vain.
Yang Fan decided to send this boat to Duolun City first. Boost people's morale.
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 Xincheng 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 there is enough coal in the city.
There is plenty of food in the city and there are wells for drinking water. The livestock have also come to 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 either. The adobe house is warm in winter and cool in summer, and it also has an iron stove. If you are willing to spend money, you can buy briquettes for burning. They are half low-quality coal powder and half lime and clay. They are very cheap.
I don't want to spend money, I have straw, enough to burn for a whole winter.
Some industrious people also cut weeds, shrubs, and firewood on the ridges of the fields. There are stacks of firewood and hay piled high in the yard. No matter how you look at it, you are not afraid of freezing in winter.
If navigation is restored, everyone will be more confident.
