It is no wonder that Lin Guanghua is so excited, since the second half of 1991, Tengfei Group has been looking for this rare metal deposit called rhenium in China.

Three full years have passed, and except for a very small number of derivative ores, no trace of rhenium has been found at all.

The problem is that the global annual output of this rare metal is not less than 500 tons, and the price is so high that even gold is beyond the reach of the dust, and the Tengfei Group has made great efforts to spend 150,000 US dollars to buy about 20 kilograms of rhenium metal in South America.

There is no other reason why Ascendas loves this rare metal, even if it is purchased by kilograms, but because rhenium is a key factor in the success or failure of Ascendas' second-generation 6 MW core machine.

Because rhenium, as a high-temperature resistant metal, in addition to the characteristics of high density, high melting point and high strength, which are generally high-temperature resistant metals, more importantly, this rare metal has strong oxidation resistance and has little change at any temperature.

This may not be specific enough, let's take an American test example, in the development of the high-power engine of the Delta heavy rocket, the American company Loma used rhenium-containing alloy metal to make the tail nozzle of the rocket engine, and the maximum temperature can reach 2200 degrees Celsius.

In the thermal cycling test of the traditional superalloy with a rapid increase in room temperature to 2200 degrees Celsius, the tail nozzle had to be scrapped after several repetitions.

However, the high-temperature alloy containing rhenium can withstand the thermal fatigue of 10 fifth-power heat-resistant cycles without failure in similar tests.

Draw a key point, not 10 times, but 10 to the fifth power.

It can be seen that rhenium's high temperature resistance, continuous stability, and strength and resistance are strong to what extent, and because of this, such rare metals are regarded as important strategic materials by the Americans.

Therefore, for many years, there has been no research on rhenium, a rare metal in China, so that many people are really unclear about what they can do except know that there is such a thing in the periodic table.

It was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union that some Soviet experts were hired in China, and the aviation industry knew that there was something called rhenium, which was added to superalloys such as nickel-based alloys, which would increase the thermal resistance temperature of such superalloys by 300 to 500 degrees Celsius, and at the same time increase the strength and life of the superalloys.

This has attracted the attention of the country.

It's just that the importance is attached, but the action is a little slow, this is not that the relevant domestic institutions have slack, the main thing is that the Soviets have not studied much in this area, and the Soviet Union has just disintegrated in an uproar, so that many smelting, proportioning, and making have just been a little eyebrow, and the entire research and development process has been interrupted because of the decline of the country.

It is equivalent to saying that China has taken over an unfinished project, and there is still a long way to go before the superalloy containing rhenium metal can be boiled out.

If that's the case, it's just that, at least it's not starting from scratch, saving a lot of effort, if you're willing to spend money, it's not difficult to come up with, the problem is that there is a hurdle that can't be bypassed, so that how much money is spent in the country is in vain.

And this hurdle is nothing else, that is, there are no rhenium ore deposits available for mining in China.

To be more precise, the domestic precision smelting technology is not up to standard, and it is impossible to extract rhenium metal from the derived rhenium ore, and there is no kind of aggregated associated rhenium ore, which makes the domestic aviation industry fall into an embarrassing situation where it is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice.

If it weren't for this, Tengfei Group would not have paid a high price of $150,000 for 20 kilograms of rhenium metal.

However, the money is worth the money Tengfei Group, because after more than a year of research and testing by the Institute of Aviation Materials of Tengfei Group, 9.7% rhenium metal is added to the nickel-based alloy with 6 MW core, and its maximum temperature is increased from 1020 degrees Celsius to 1382 degrees Celsius, and if it is combined with air film cooling technology, heat-resistant ceramic coating technology and other composite high-temperature treatment technologies, the high-temperature temperature will be further increased to 1547 degrees Celsius.

This is not the most critical, Tengfei Group is ready to apply the aluminum-titanium alloy to be applied in the third-generation 15-megawatt core machine, and the fourth-generation 27-megawatt core machine, because the addition of rhenium metal has finally broken through the technical bottleneck for many years and made substantial progress.

According to the latest experimental results of the Institute of Aeronautical Materials, the aluminum-titanium alloy with 16.7% rhenium metal not only increases the strength by 320%, but also increases the heat resistance temperature from 1100 degrees Celsius in the past to 1563 degrees Celsius, and the service life is 2.6 times that of the nickel-based alloy commonly used today.

And it is lighter and more efficient, which means that the fuel economy of aero engines using aluminum-titanium alloys will be higher in the future.

Such a good thing is Tengfei Group, which is eager to use it in its own aero engine immediately.

However, the smelting process of this kind of fused rhenium metal is very high, and it is okay in the laboratory, but the industrialization is far from reaching the mature requirements, not to mention that the addition amount of 6.7% is really large, and the cost is not worth it.

Of course, the most important thing is that the domestic rhenium metal ore cannot meet the demand for large-scale production, so Tengfei Group has been putting rhenium-containing heat-resistant alloys in the laboratory for various forward-looking experimental studies in recent years, and has not been put into production urgently.

This also makes Lin Guanghua's 5000 km extended range version of the TRJ-500, the TRJ-500NB unable to land, no way, the turbofan engine with a thrust of 6.5 can not be taken out, and the TRJ-500NB can only eat dust on the drawings.

Now, with a ten-year lease of two TRJ-500s and eight of the same type in exchange for easy-to-smelt associated rhenium ore, Lin Guanghua only feels that the deal is too worthwhile.

Not to mention these, even if it quadruples, Lin Guanghua feels that he has made a lot of money.

You must know that as long as the rhenium on this mine is mastered by Tengfei Group, within two years, the second-generation nickel-based superalloy that the Institute of Aeronautical Materials has been studying for several years will be mass-produced, and then the second-generation 6 megawatt core engine will be landed, and the 6.5-ton thrust turbofan engine will be put into production in the aviation power plant of cotton.

With the engine, not to mention the 5,000-kilometer TRJ-500NB, or the 10,000-kilometer TRJ-500ZB are all pediatric things, because the second-generation core machine landed, the thrust of 6.5 tons is just pediatric, and the 7.5-ton or even 8.5-ton large bypass ratio turbofan engine is like a dumpling from the production line of the aviation power plant.

At that time, TRJ-500NB and TRJ-500ZB can only be regarded as a younger brother, and the TRJ-700 and TRJ-900 with 80 to 120 seats are the crowning works that support Tengfei Group!

The metal element that is so important to Tengfei Group that it almost determines the fate and future, just got it in his hands, how can Lin Guanghua not be heartbeat, and how not excited!

But Lin Guanghua's unconcealable excitement fell into the eyes of outsiders with a look of envy, they didn't know the content of the agreement, let alone the rhenium ore involved, but they saw that the staff of the embassies and consulates of six countries were holding the moon and stuffing the contracts in their hands into Lin Guanghua's hands, and the positive appearance was like fans seeing stars, and they almost went crazy on the spot.

But this is not the point, what really shocked outsiders was the number of purchases from these countries, and the full purchase plus lease actually reached 118 aircraft.

The total amount reached a staggering $5 billion.