Chapter 314 The Aircraft Carrier is in Sight

Ye Chen now has two most urgent tasks, one is to get the aerospace plane, and the other is to get the ship. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Our country wants to build a blue-water navy, and it wants to go to the deep blue, and it can't do without a strong navy; To build a strategic air force, it is impossible to do without advanced fighters.

Through Ye Chen's efforts, the new aviation engine, superalloy materials and composite materials needed by the aerospace aircraft have been completed, which can be regarded as solving the problems of the strategic air force.

However, the problems on the part of the Navy are not yet resolved. The new gas turbine and superalloy materials are solved, and there is only one ship material left. In the past, Ye Chen didn't have the time and energy to do this, but now that he has solved the composite materials, it has become inevitable and the most urgent task to solve the ship materials.

"When I solve the ship materials, our country can start building more advanced warships, such as supercarriers and super large warships. When these advanced warships are put into service, our country's naval strength will increase dramatically, and at that time, our navy will be able to become a real blue-water navy, and it will be able to truly go deep blue, and it will be able to protect our 'frontier of interests'. Ha ha! What a wonderful prospect! The more Ye Chen thought about it, the more beautiful it became, and his eyes were shining.

Our country has proposed to build a blue-water navy and go to the deep blue, but because of the constraints of our country's conditions, we cannot do this, and it will take some time.

If Ye Chen solves the ship materials, it will definitely boost our country's strategic plan to build a blue-water navy, and will speed up the pace of our country's navy to go deep blue, and our country's "interest frontier" can be maintained as soon as possible and better maintained.

As a military fan, as a patriotic and indignant youth, Ye Chen thought of this, he became excited, his eyes were full of wonderful little stars, and he couldn't wait to do it immediately.

"Oh, by the way, how much is the contribution worth? How long will it take for ship technology to arrive? "Ye Chen has long wanted to get his hands on the ship technology in the system.

Our country's army is in a period of metamorphosis, where does this metamorphosis come from? The main thing is the Navy and Air Force.

As for the Army, our country's Army has always been world-class, was, is, and will be. We are not lagging behind any country in terms of land, if not even ahead.

However, the Navy and Air Force have always been the weak point of our country, and our country is now vigorously developing the Navy and Air Force. Once this plan is realized, our country's military strength will grow unprecedentedly, and our country's military will be unprecedentedly strong. At that time, will the United States still dare to flex its muscles around our country? Do you still dare to do things around our country?

If we can give some help to this great transformation of our country, it is incumbent on the patriotic and indignant young Yechen.

If it can be exchanged for ship technology, it will definitely be of great help to our country's blue water navy plan, Ye Chen has long wanted to exchange it, but Yu Yu's contribution value is not enough, so he has been dragging it out.

Now, Ye Chen is ready to start solving the problem of the navy, and this matter is about to be put on the agenda.

Ye Chen immediately started the system, only to see that the contribution value displayed on the system was already more than 13 million, and it was still more than 6 million short of 20 million.

"Well, the commissioning of the laser material factory this time has increased my contribution value by more than six million, which is good! Very good! Ye Chen was full of joy and said, "If you do it again, you will almost be able to exchange the ship technology." ”

Aircraft carriers have always been a giant at sea and a sharp weapon in naval warfare, and even if our country realizes the blue-water navy plan, it will still be difficult to rely on the aircraft carrier battle group to deal with the United States. If this technology is in hand, and then a new type of aircraft carrier is designed and manufactured, it will be a different matter.

The aircraft carrier in the system is nearly three times larger than the largest aircraft carrier in the United States alone, and if nothing else, this head alone is enough for the American aircraft carrier to drink a pot.

What does it mean to be big?

It means that the ability to resist attacks is stronger and more difficult to deal with. Moreover, it can carry more weapons, and the continuous combat capability is greater, and it can sail on the sea for a long time.

For such an aircraft carrier, one will have to top several of them.

Well, the most powerful aircraft carrier of the United States now is no match either.

If it is combined with more advanced weapons systems, such as missiles, then the US aircraft carrier will not be enough.

"Unfortunately, we have to wait." Ye Chen had some regrets.

"However, a new aircraft carrier is already in sight." If the contribution value of more than six million was in the past, it would be really difficult for Ye Chen to make up enough. Now, it's not that hard.

Turning off the system, Ye Chen came to the laboratory and began to verify the ship's materials.

No matter what you do, the material is always the foundation, and this is true for airplanes, and it is also true for warships. Our country cannot build a supercarrier of the Nimitz class, it has a lot to do with the ship.

According to the development history, ship materials can be roughly divided into four stages.

The first stage was that after the mid-19th century, European countries began to build steel ships, that is, ironclad ships purchased by the Beiyang Fleet. At that time, the steel used in the structure of ships was a typical medium and low carbon steel (0.13-0.2%), with low strength, and was called "mild steel".

The second stage uses high-strength steel. In the early stages of steel boats, the riveting process was mainly used rather than welding. With the improvement of the requirements for the structural performance of warships, the welding process dominates, and the use of high carbon content and high-strength steel, which has little impact on the riveting process, has become a key condition for the weight reduction of the warship structure and the ability to make it bigger and bigger.

The third stage is also the high-strength alloy stage. After entering the thirties and forties of the 20th century, the welding process replaced the riveting process as the mainstream way of warship structure manufacturing. Due to the poor weldability of high-carbon and high-strength steel, the higher the carbon content, the more unreliable the welding performance, and the weld is very unstrong and very sensitive to notching.

Once a small opening is made due to fatigue or other reasons, it can easily lead to catastrophic brittle fracture of the structure.

After World War II, high-strength and high-toughness alloy steel has become the main development direction of the world's powers. The HY series steel of the United States, the AK and AB series steels of the Red Empire, and the 9XX series of steels of the Celestial Empire all belong to this category.

This kind of alloy steel mainly relies on the addition of nickel, chromium, molybdenum and other elements to greatly improve the performance. For example, the HY80 steel used in the United States to build submarines has 2.93% nickel and 1.43% chromium.

The biggest problem with this type of steel is that as key properties such as strength continue to improve, expensive and rare alloying elements such as nickel and chromium are increasingly used, which are expensive and difficult to weld.

The fourth stage, which only the United States has. These alloys are very expensive, and the welding performance is poor, and the processing is difficult, resulting in a large increase in manufacturing and processing costs, the United States abandoned these expensive alloys, and instead developed new high-performance steels with moderate strength and performance, easy to weld, and low manufacturing costs for warship structures.

The ship materials that Ye Chen wants to develop have excellent performance, good machinability and low cost.

Of course, alloys are also used. Ye Chen started the experimental equipment, began to verify, added various alloys, changed the alloy structure, and greatly improved its performance.

Through Ye Chen's efforts, he finally completed the first verification.

Ye Chen took out the materials and couldn't wait to test them.

The first thing to do is to perform a crystalline phase analysis. Ye Chen started the testing equipment, put the material in, and soon, the results of the crystalline phase structure came out.

Ye Chen looked at it, his brows furrowed together, although the crystal phase structure was good, it was a great improvement compared to the existing ship materials, but it was still far from Ye Chen's requirements.

The second test was carried out on the yield strength, and the result was more than 7000Mpa.

"Amazing results." Ye Chen looked at the data and shook his head, very dissatisfied.

Now, the yield strength of ship materials reaching 1000Mpa is already amazing, and if the results are announced, it will definitely cause a global sensation.

However, Ye Chen knew very well that the yield strength of this ship material given by the system was amazing, and it was not a problem to reach 10,000 megapascals.

Now that it is only 7,000 megapascals, Ye Chen is definitely not satisfied.

Next, the welding experiment was carried out, and the results made Ye Chen more satisfied.

In general, this ship material is very suitable for welding, which makes the machinability very good, which will greatly reduce the cost.

The abandonment of high-strength alloys in the United States in favor of the development of alloys with moderate properties has a lot to do with welding.

For example, HY80 needs to preheat the structural parts to be welded to 90-150 degrees Celsius, while HY130 needs to be increased to 100-175 degrees Celsius. In many cases, heat treatment is required after welding.

This makes manufacturing and processing too costly.

If it is an airplane, it is not too big after all, and although the preheating will increase the cost, it is not unaffordable. But on warships, it's terrifying.

How much does it cost for a large warship to be thousands of tons, and the welding is all heated?

If an aircraft carrier is built, it will be even more terrifying.

Even if it is a light aircraft carrier, it is tens of thousands of tons, and there will be a lot of structural parts that need to be welded, and the cost of heating is too terrifying.

Heavy aircraft carriers, supercarriers, not to mention.

Therefore, weldability and ease of processing have become a very important indicator of ship materials.

This ship material developed by Ye Chen is easy to process, can be welded at room temperature, and does not need to be heated, which is a very good news, which makes Ye Chen smile.

After a series of tests, although the results were good, there was a big gap between them and Ye Chen's expectations.

"It's my first time doing it, so it's normal to have all kinds of shortcomings because I have no experience. I believe that we will do better in the future. Ye Chen summed up the lessons learned.

After doing these tests, Ye Chen had to carry out the last test, that is, the corrosion resistance test.

The corrosiveness of seawater is terrifying, and there are strict requirements for the corrosion resistance of ship materials. If this one is not up to standard, no matter how good the other performance is, it is useless.

This test will take a long time, and after Ye Chen put the materials in, he did not rush to do it again, but calculated it.

What to calculate?

The cost, of course.

Few countries can afford modern aircraft, not only because the technical threshold is too high, but also because of the high cost. For example, the F-22, which costs up to $150 million, is too expensive. Even the United States is struggling to raise, let alone other countries.

However, this is far from the same as a warship.

A modern warship is much more expensive to build than the most advanced warships of today. If it's an aircraft carrier, then it's even more expensive. If it's a supercarrier, it's unbearably expensive.

For example, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, the cost of one is about 4.5 billion US dollars, if it is in service for 50 years, the maintenance cost will need 20 billion US dollars, why is it so expensive?

Materials are expensive, and a lot of materials are used. This kind of supercarrier, the alloy used is tens of thousands of tons, how much money is needed, you can calculate it with your fingers.

The numbers must be staggering.

"How much does it cost?" Ye Chen began to calculate.