The crane arm was broken during the static test of the prototype. Although no one was killed, it was still a major accident. Don't dare to sell this thing for takeout, otherwise the suspension of production will be light.
The machine tested statically had no wheels. In fact, it didn’t even have a car. It was just a heavy truck beam with added counterweights.
The working environment is definitely much better than that in the wild. It is impossible to complete a static hoisting experiment in this state, and it will be very difficult to sell it.
"I told you that the steel is not thick enough."
"It must be a quenching issue."
"Maybe it's a single defect."
The group responsible for the crane crane was somewhat divided on the cause of the problem.
The Phoenix Kingdom's steelmaking industry has developed to this point, and it is now clear that the same material will exhibit completely different material properties using different annealing and quenching strategies.
A good quenching strategy can turn steel with a compressive strength of 80 MPa into hundreds of MPa.
However, due to the lack of a systematic education system, relying solely on the experience summary of technical workers, progress is almost made by exhaustive methods. Even if the problem is known, it is difficult to complete improvements within a limited time, at least don't have high hopes.
As for the flaws... To be honest, no one really believes it. Even if this bending is really caused by the failure of a single boom, it has not been through static experiments, not actual operations. According to field operation standards, the pass rate is probably as low as close to single digits.
So we still have to go back to the old-fashioned thinking and focus on the thickness of the steel.
However, as soon as the boom is thickened, the weight of the remote end of the crane is increased, and many things that were originally calculated will be overturned.
After inspecting the broken crane arm for damage, it was decided to thicken it by three millimeters.
Three millimeters is the thickness of one layer. The boom is made of multi-layered steel like the car beam. Each layer is responsible for different performance indicators. To move one layer, several layers must be added together to meet the performance requirements. Reflected on the entire telescopic boom, the weight increased by almost two tons.
Such a large additional burden requires additional counterweight processing of the vehicle, and the gear system must also be reconstructed, and the work efficiency is -10.
In order to make up for the loss of work efficiency, the efficiency team had to turn to the upper management.
The factory director was very considerate and quickly arranged an engine unit to coordinate.
The engine is the core of the car, and the engine group is also a key department in the factory. Although it is called a group, it includes groups such as casting technology, gears, and clutches, with a total of thousands of people.
There are a few people missing here and I went over to take a look, okay, let’s increase the power.
Simple and crude, but effective.
Build a 15 kilowatt single cylinder and all problems will be solved.
The power difference between a ten-horsepower single-cylinder and a fifteen-kilowatt single-cylinder is doubled, but there is no difference in structure. It is just that the casting requires more effort, and the crankshaft needs to be purchased from a heavy industry with higher precision.
After the automobile factory completed the mass production process of the six-cylinder engine and the entire vehicle system, it was not idle while waiting for news about the tires. It also made some weird-shaped tires while digging into the skills of cylinder casting.
The result was that we went back and made a power-enhanced single cylinder, which was faster than the crane unit could make a new boom. Three finished prototypes were produced in less than ten days.
The crane team is also very helpless. They only have large parts and do not have pulse production equipment. Just fitting and riveting two U-shaped steels takes a long time.
Pulse production, like assembly line, is an officially guided mass production method. The principles are quite different. The former is suitable for large-scale manufacturing, while the latter is suitable for small-scale manufacturing. Car building is a typical pulsating production. For example, when installing car doors, the car has to stop and wait for the workers to complete the operation before it can continue to move.
The single-cylinder engine prototype obviously doesn't have an assembly line. It can be built quickly, because only one cylinder requires a sand mold, and the others are ready-made. Take the three broken crankshafts and take the shop manager's note to the heavy industry opposite the railway to ask for them, and the master will give them to you on the spot.
Throw the engine to the crane unit and you won't have time to take care of them. The big guys are here in the factory.
The rubber produced through the magic process provided by the Manufacturing Bureau was turned into tires by Rainbow Tire.
The Manufacturing Bureau did not have the production capacity to synthesize this thing. The people from Rainbow Tire sent the stuff and specifically warned: "Before Golden Chemical can make real rubber, there will be a maximum of 100, so you can take your time and use it."
Tubeless radial tires!
If it weren't for the help of others, the workshop manager would have hugged and kissed her a few times.
Getting the tires out in advance is mainly for the convenience of the car factory (this chapter is not finished yet!)
359 heavy truck prototype
While testing and improving.
Because the supply of magic synthesis was too small, Rainbow Tire itself was not willing to conduct finished tire testing. It only conducted wear resistance and strength testing on small samples, and sent twenty large tires as soon as they were made.
Twenty tires are actually enough for a prototype car.
In order to match the standard containers, the heavy trucks first went to the semi-trailers separated from the car and the container. Due to the long-head model selected, 42 is not easy to make, so to make 62, ten tires are needed at the front of the truck.
It's okay to design it with six tires, but at first I couldn't believe the level of rainbow tires, so I'd better be conservative.
The front of the car only takes up half of the wheels, so you can use less of the rear half.
There are also prototypes of skeleton container semi-trailers. A total of 12 tires are required for three axles, which is not enough. I can only temporarily recalculate the center of gravity and get a two-axle and eight-wheel model. It is good to have two extra tires as spares.
The automobile factory takes a long time to prepare for the heavy truck project, and there are other forms of trailers.
For example, they also have a two-section log transport truck, which is made into two sections because the relative density of logs is relatively low. In the future, if the engine is improved, the standard length of 12 meters will definitely not be enough.
The two sections of the log transport trailer together have three axles, but it only has eight wheels. The section hanging behind the truck has four single wheels, and the second section has a single axle and four wheels.
In short, this thing consumes a lot of wheels. Before Rainbow Tire came out with samples, the car factory used an enlarged version of the makeshift tires used on steam cars. They never passed the test and had no durability at all. People outside must not imagine that they wear off hundreds of pieces of cowhide just for tire testing!
Rubber is indeed the material promoted from top to bottom. As soon as these tires were installed and adjusted to 0.45 MPa, they passed all static tests.
When it comes to the mobile testing stage, the corners of several main freight lines and outbound lines in the entire factory area are filled with people.
Because there were too many onlookers and we were afraid of something happening, we decided to do an unloaded experiment first.
In fact, the no-load experiment was also done with makeshift tires, but now it is just done again with rubber tires.
The diameter of the tires of the heavy truck is more than one meter. It is the size of an average human body, and the head does not reach the soles of the driver's feet. The pressure of this thing's movement is much stronger than that of a steam car.
The person in charge of the road test was also the daring boss in the factory. Because the visual blind spot was too large, most people really didn't dare to start such a big thing.
The long-head truck towing the semi-trailer had a huge turning radius. The workers and their families who were used to seeing steam trucks thought they were standing in a safe place, but were pushed back continuously by people along the line.
Even so, at several of the corners, the trucks were still very close to people, and the melon-eaters had to retreat again and again. Gradually, those who were not brave enough ran away first.
I ran slowly for two days, and when there were fewer onlookers, I started to gradually increase the load.
Halfway through, the test driver was a little scared.
The weight of the front of this truck exceeds the full weight of a steam truck, which is more than six tons. The semi-trailer weighs nearly seven tons. With a ten-ton counterweight installed, it feels like it can't stop even if the speed is slightly faster than a person.
I temporarily changed people and started with an empty car, then changed back again halfway. It took half a month of repeated work before the road test in the factory was completed.
The tires had some wear, but the tread pattern was still deep enough. The engine with no problem was replaced for inspection and analysis, and the vehicle was fast-forwarded directly to the road transportation test.
359 heavy truck prototype
