The refractory bauxite pit killed the big shopkeeper of the capital, but for Zhu Shun, it was the first precondition for solving the industrial steelmaking method.

Refractories.

The second precondition is to find a way to increase the temperature of the boiler.

The iron ore begins to soften at about 1100 degrees Celsius, and melts into molten iron and liquid slag at 1400 degrees Celsius, which are stored in the furnace.

Generally, the method of manual fire, whether it is soft or hard, the maximum temperature reached is only 1250 degrees Wenlv.

At most, it can soften the iron, but it is almost impossible to melt the iron into molten iron.

In order to achieve a temperature of 1400 degrees Celsius in a steelmaking furnace, industrial means are required.

Xu Jixin already has an eyebrow for this kind of industrial means, and has drawn the drawings, and after a lot of experiments, it has been finalized.

We are waiting for the regenerator to be built, and the final experiment will be carried out to test whether the regenerator, which has raised the temperature sharply, can reach the expected temperature of 1400 degrees Celsius.

Zhu Shun came to the Daming Institute of Metallurgy and walked to the most important steelmaking laboratory in the entire college.

Walk along the concrete road through an arch and come to a flat clearing.

Here, Xu Jixin is instructing the workers of the Infrastructure Department to make some final stringent requirements for the construction of the iron melting furnace.

Hearing the metallurgical student next to him say that the mountain chief was coming, Xu Jixin immediately handed over the matter at hand to the metallurgical student next to him, and walked over quickly to greet him: "The disciple has seen the teacher. ”

Zhu Shun waved his hand, signaled that Xu Jixin didn't need to be polite, and asked, "How is the heat storage room built?" ”

Xu Jixin heard his mentor ask about the situation of the regenerator, Rao was in his style of doing things and never looked at the process and only looked at the result, and he couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "Teacher, melt iron into iron juice in one sentence." ”

"Bringing the temperature to 1,400 degrees Celsius is easy to say, but of course the process is too difficult."

Zhu Shun understands Xu Jixin's grievances very well, Daming has no foundation for industrialization at all, everything is starting from scratch.

A precondition for steelmaking, which melts iron ore into iron liquid.

The precondition for melting into iron liquid reaches a temperature of 1400 degrees Wen.

Take the precondition of this precondition as an example, it really starts with the most basic refractory materials.

First of all, build an iron melting furnace that is enough to melt iron, and ordinary bricks in the Ming Dynasty must not work, so refractory bricks must be used.

After the material of the refractory brick was solved, Zhu Shun looked at the brick not far away, which was also a refractory brick fired from refractory materials.

This kind of refractory brick used to make steel is also different from ordinary refractory bricks, which is a kind of lattice brick full of small holes in the middle like a honeycomb.

After solving the material problem of refractory bricks and the shape of refractory bricks, the next step is to build a regenerative chamber that raises the temperature to 1400 degrees Celsius.

Zhu Shun and Xu Jixing's master and apprentice chatted for a while, and walked together to the side of the regenerator on the flat ground of the steelmaking laboratory.

Zhu Shun took a few steps closer and carefully examined the regenerator.

The blacksmith shop in Daming generally has an iron-making furnace, and there will be a bellows under the iron-making furnace, and when the bellows is pulled, air will be continuously sent into the iron-making furnace from the bottom.

The charcoal fire in the iron-making furnace burns violently in an instant, and the temperature will reach more than 1,000 degrees Celsius.

This temperature will only soften the iron, and cannot turn the iron into iron juice, that is, the steel of the Ming Dynasty.

The bellows used in the blacksmith shop blows ordinary air into the iron-making furnace, which Xu Jixin named cold blast.

For the improvement of the steelmaking method, the biggest root cause is to change this cold blast to a hot blast.

After the calculation of the data, Xu Jixin and the students of Daming Metallurgical Institute repeatedly calculated for a long time, and finally came up with an accurate figure.

By turning a cold blast into a hot blast, the temperature of the furnace can be increased to more than 300 degrees Celsius.

The cold bone wind method used by the Ming Dynasty has reached the limit of raising the temperature to the point of softening the iron, and it is extremely difficult to rise even 1 degree.

Xu Jixin led the students of Daming Metallurgical Institute to overcome this difficulty, a major technological breakthrough, and the temperature raised reached more than 300 degrees.

With this 300 degrees, you can easily reach 1400 degrees Celsius, or even 1600 degrees Celsius.

The key point of converting the cold blast method to the hot blast method lies in this regenerator.

On both sides of the furnace, a regenerative chamber was built, made of refractory bricks.

However, the refractory bricks of the regenerator are different from the refractory bricks of the molten iron furnace, and the refractory bricks of the regenerator are honeycomb lattice refractory bricks.

The two rectangular regenerators were built directly together with refractory bricks and a molten iron furnace, each with an iron pipe at the bottom.

The iron pipes of the regenerator on the left and right sides are connected together in a U-shape, and in the middle of the U-shape, there is a valve that can be rotated.

At the bottom of the valve is a smoke outlet that is used to vent the exhaust gases from the molten iron furnace.

There is also an iron pipe above the valve, the lower one is used to exhaust the exhaust gas, and the upper pipe is used to transport fresh air.

In order to increase the speed of air delivery, a blower is connected to the other end of the pipe, which is driven by a Daming steam engine.

The current Daming steam engine has been turned into a high-pressure steam engine, and it is obviously overkill to drive a blower, but this is only an experiment to experiment with the effect of the regenerator.

When it comes to building a steel mill, the high-pressure steam engine next to the melting furnace is not only used to drive the blower, but also the overhead crane above the smelting workshop, through which the dumper is driven.

Zhu Shun looked carefully for an afternoon, determined that there was nothing to improve, and took Xu Jixin and the students of Daming Metallurgical Institute to continue to go back to discuss the details.

After five or six days of continuous discussions, on the seventh day, the two regenerators of the furnace were officially completed.

Zhu Shun immediately took Xu Jixin and the students of Daming Metallurgical Institute and hurried back to the steelmaking laboratory to start the experiment of molten iron.

Zhu Shun stood in front of the molten iron furnace and gave Xu Jixin next to him a look, signaling that he could start.

Xu Jixin personally walked to the side of the Daming steam engine and began to add charcoal fire to the steam boiler, so that the Daming steam engine began to drive the blower to run.

With the 'boom' sound of the Daming steam engine, thick smoke came out of the boiler room, and the blower rotated rapidly under the drive of the crankshaft connecting rod system.

Fresh air is transported from the pipe to the top of the valve, through which it enters the regenerator on the left.

Next, what will happen in the regenerator, Zhu Shun, Xu Jixin, and the students of Daming Metallurgical Institute are not clear.

After all, what is inside cannot be heard or seen.

But they knew exactly what was going to happen inside.