Due to the extremely urgent demand for explosives from all sides, the explosives factory launched trial production under the slogan of "production while construction". [No pop-up novel website]!.
Limited by the technical level and production capacity of the chemical industry, from the first batch of black powder was officially produced in 1629 to the beginning of 1631, the Senate only had three more types of explosives: maroon gunpowder and nitroglycerin. and mercury fulminate. Maroon gunpowder has only recently been put into production and is used as a propellant for the increasing number of forts and large-caliber artillery used by the navy. Maroon gunpowder burns slowly and is less likely to explode when used as a propellant for heavy artillery.
Generally speaking, the Senate's explosives industry has a complete range of products: gun propellants, detonating powders, and explosives. Although the technical level is not high, it can generally meet the current needs.
The biggest problem is that there is a large gap in explosives that are in great demand for military and civilian use. At present, the only explosive they can mass-produce is nitroglycerine that is passivated by diatomaceous earth adsorption - Dynamate explosives.
Because nitroglycerin itself requires a sufficient scale of glycerin industry, and the glycerin industry needs a sufficient scale of oil and fat industry as support. Moreover, the texture of glycerin needs to be quite pure - the chemical industry of the Works and Energy Commission mainly produces glycerol through the saponification method, which has a lot of impurities. Capacity is limited. Therefore, so far, Dynamite explosives are only used in small quantities in civil engineering projects. Black powder is widely used by the military to load artillery shells and grenades.
Although some people think that it is okay to use Dynamite to load grenades - it was very common in the old days to use Dynamite to load mines. The problem is, Dynamite cannot be used to load artillery shells. The g-force when the cannonball is fired is as high as thousands, and Dynamite explosives will inevitably cause the barrel to explode.
The detonation velocity of black powder is too low, there is a lot of residue, and the sensitivity is too high. As a propellant for a Mini rifle, it's pretty good. As a military explosive, it is really difficult. Engineers at the Works Energy Commission have been trying to find a suitable alternative to black powder's dominant position.
The requirements are that the manufacturing process is as simple as possible, the supply of raw materials is sufficient, the power is sufficient, there is a certain degree of safety, and it can be used to load artillery shells.
In response to this requirement, personnel from the chemical industry department and the military industry department proposed two plans: one is to use phenol, a by-product of the coal coking plant, to produce picric acid, and the other is a black powder power multiplication process.
The process of picric acid is relatively simple in the history of old time and space. The British synthesized it in 1771. Phenol is sulfonated with concentrated sulfuric acid or sodium sulfite, and finally nitrated with concentrated nitric acid. The difficulty is the preparation of phenol. If there was no coal coking industry, lipolysis process or wood tar refining would have to be used. They now have an existing coal tar industry that can provide phenol fairly steadily. Then making picric acid is a relatively easy thing.
The picric acid production work code is Project 0017 - because of the production process proposed by Xu Yingjie, the final yield was 17%.
Another project besides Picric Acid is the Black Powder Power Multiplier Project. This was proposed by Lin Shenhe. To put it simply, it is to improve the processing methods to double the power of black powder, so that it can temporarily replace part of the explosives.
Lin Shenhe's current workplace is in an earth and stone fence at the Explosives Factory. The fence is only over one meter high. A wicker fence has been planted around the perimeter, and seven or eight labor reform prisoners are filling in the middle with stones. The enclosure is surrounded by artificial forests and natural woods planted by the Forestry Department, making it extremely secluded. From the outside, it looks like just a forest, with an inconspicuous dirt road winding towards the fence. There is a ditch on the side of the trail, and a mound at the end of each bend to block debris and shock waves during evacuation. This path is only for walking. There is also a simple railway under construction for transportation, and only hand-operated rail cars and ox-drawn rail cars can be used for the time being. The official name of this enclosure is the First Research Center of the Specialty Chemical Complex. Lin Shenhe's project is codenamed Project 2300.
He was wearing a black cotton overalls at the moment, nervously watching several workers unloading an inconspicuous machine from the rail car.
The machine is not big and is simply wrapped in waterproof canvas. Workers carried it to the laboratory. Jiang Ye, who was responsible for installing and debugging machinery, jumped out of the car.
The two exchanged brief greetings and then entered the dedicated laboratory of the research center together.
The laboratory is surrounded by thick concrete walls with sandbags inside and outside the walls. The ceiling is a wooden lightweight structure, which is equivalent to a pressure relief panel. Outside the house, there are two deep explosion-proof ditches - if the people in the laboratory can escape in time, they can jump into them for refuge.
The laboratory is empty, except for the concrete base used to install the machine. There are only a few tanks of different sizes. The lighting uses natural light from the skylight on the roof - in order to reduce the temperature brought by the sun, the glass is covered with a black sunshade net. Rows of copper "radiators" were installed under the walls and floors of the house, but it was extremely cold - the homemade alcohol thermometer showed that the temperature in the room was only 12°C. What flows in the radiator is not steam but water cooled by a mixture of ice and salt. Because fireworks are strictly prohibited, their best refrigeration equipment, gas air conditioners, cannot be used, and the cooling effect of ground energy air conditioners may not be satisfactory. This forced cooling effect is used.
"It's cold enough-" Jiang Ye was sweating profusely and wearing a short-sleeved undershirt. He shivered immediately after walking in.
Lin Shenhe gave him a coat: "Wear it, the temperature here must be kept low for safe production."
The canvas was untied, and inside was a prosaic machine. If someone knows a little bit about mechanical equipment, they can tell at a glance that this is a hydraulic screw press.
"Made according to your requirements." Jiang Ye introduced while instructing the workers to install it. "It is a hydraulic screw type, with a simple structure and a stable stroke. It can be rotated and pressurized stably by hand. It fully meets the technical requirements you proposed. The dies, press heads and other areas where friction may occur are made of brass to avoid sparks.”
Lin Shenhe circled the machine several times: "You have to ensure that it fully meets the technical requirements, otherwise I will be wiped out when work starts tomorrow..."
Jiang Ye knew that making fire and explosives was all done with your head, and there was no exaggeration.
"Don't worry, we made it exactly according to the technical information you gave us. From the manufacturing of parts to the assembly of the machine, it was all done by the veterans themselves, and we didn't dare to let naturalized civilians do it."
Lin Shenhe nodded. He was still a little worried. His process is not difficult, but it has high requirements on the surrounding environment: the ambient humidity cannot be lower than 60%, and the temperature cannot be higher than 20 degrees. Otherwise it will cause an explosion - no matter how small the power of black powder is, it is still no problem to kill and injure a large number of people in such a room.
The temperature has been roughly solved by using water air conditioners. Humidity - the humidity in summer is very high, sometimes reaching more than 90%. Even so, he ordered an air humidifier from a machinery factory to humidify when necessary. He also prepared a naturalized citizen to monitor the thermometer and hygrometer.
Jiang Ye was a little curious: "You are so mysterious, what magic trick are you trying to play? 'Black gunpowder is twice as powerful', are you planning to mix nitroglycerin?"
"Black gunpowder mixed with nitroglycerine is used for suicide." Lin Shenhe said, "I will use black gunpowder without adding anything else."
"What method was used?" Jiang Ye's curiosity became even greater.
"You should always know that the greater the density of explosives in space, the more powerful it is when it explodes." Lin Shenhe said, "The power multiplication of black powder is based on this principle - to increase the density of black powder as much as possible."
The specific name of Project 2300 is black powder high-energy charging technology. Lin Shenhe had kept this technology secret in the past - he himself was not very sure about it. After D-Day, as the head of the military industry department, he privately conducted several small-scale experiments using laboratory equipment and raw materials. The plan was officially put forward after it was deemed that there were no problems.
Simply put, black powder high-energy charging technology is to press high-quality powdered black powder into a black powder column using a low-temperature wet pressing process. Create a high-density column of black powder. Due to the extremely high density of this explosive column, it can no longer be detonated by traditional ignition methods. A special detonator must be used to detonate it, which greatly improves safety.
Powerful, the low-temperature wet pressing method is used to suppress the black powder column, which can increase the filling density to more than 2.3g3. This kind of high-density grain requires the use of detonators to detonate, and the detonation speed can reach more than 2,600. The filling density of black powder in the traditional filling method is not higher than 1.7g3, and the detonation velocity is not higher than 00 - in fact, black powder deflagrates rather than explodes. In terms of power, it is no longer a doubling - this method of pressing the powder column can increase the explosive power of equal weight black powder by more than 60%. In terms of explosion speed, it is equivalent to 39% of tnt and 36% of the effectiveness of picric acid.
Lin Shenhe is very clear about what this efficiency means: that is to say, there is no need to spend a lot of resources to click new technology points in the technology tree, but directly "upgrade" the black gunpowder to double the power. The economy is far better than the 0017 project. This is very attractive to the Planning Institute and the Executive Committee.
To make picric acid, it means that a large amount of phenol is needed, a new production plant needs to be built, and additional sulfuric acid and nitric acid are needed. The power of black gunpowder is doubled. Simply by adding a few machines, the original black gunpowder in stock can exert greater power. To be continued. .
< >, reading is a kind of enjoyment, it is recommended that you collect it.
