Chapter 355 Engine and Dura Aluminum

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On the bank of the Qijiang River, a river boat slowly approached the wharf, and the porters waiting on the shore immediately rushed in, carrying oxen on their shoulders and shouting deafeningly.

In the distance, more than a dozen tall chimneys continue to spew black fog into the sky, and the brand-new railway embankment shoots radially towards Chengdu and Yibin at the same time, and from the beginning of the national defense army's vanguard regiment entering Sichuan to occupy Chongqing, Sichuan's second largest city has entered a rhythm different from that of China.

After nearly two years, thousands of ships came and went, and a large-scale industrial base finally appeared on the bank of the Qijiang River, special steel mills, military factories, machinery factories, engine factories, boiler factories in planning, special vehicle factories, etc., if you can also find Zigong hydrochloric acid plant, natural gas plant, caustic soda plant, Qijiang coal and iron base, Meishan lead-zinc mine, Qingchuan bauxite and so on.

If you add the eight skilled worker training schools set up in Chengdu, Chongqing and other places, all merged into a complete Chongqing industrial company, although its construction is only completed one-tenth, most of the workers are in training, most of the lack of machinery and equipment is not to mention the lack of technology, the control of the mine is also due to the lack of equipment mining volume, but no one can deny that under Yang Qiu's forward-looking gaze, the industrial skeleton has begun to appear little by little.

Industry burns money, this is a fact that no one can deny (). According to Yang Qiu's estimates, it will take at least 50 million US dollars to complete the initial construction, and it will take three to five years to introduce and train 50,000 technical personnel and skilled workers, and this is only the initial establishment, not to mention the Ruhr area of Germany, just to build an industrial complex similar to Austria-Hungary Skoda, it will take at least ten years and invest no less than 200 million US dollars!

Although it has not yet been completed, and even the railway has not been repaired, for Sichuan people who have never experienced the influence of the industrial age, no matter who stands here, they will feel small!

Since the Sichuan Manufacturing Bureau introduced the first foreign machine, people with lofty ideals in Sichuan have dreamed of establishing their own industries, but the faltering pace of the Westernization movement has completely shattered the dream. When the Baolu Movement was about to destroy Sichuan's century-old prosperity, the strong arrival of the Wehrmacht changed everything, especially later

After thousands of bandits and bullies who endangered the local area were killed, tens of thousands of robes and private armed forces were exterminated, and a large amount of land was confiscated and converted into collective farms or distributed to the poor, the Wehrmacht was not only not blamed, but was more popular with the people of Sichuan, and Sichuan is also the province with the largest number of members of the National Socialist Party, with more than one million registered National Socialist Party members, and many foolish couples even offered Yang Qiu's immortal tablet at home.

The ensuing industrial construction made the whole of Sichuan firmly stand on the side of Guoshe and Yang Qiu.

As Feng Ru, who has seen the earth-shaking changes here, also feels that he has finally come to the right place this time, no one knows whether Yang Qiu will make up his mind to really complete the construction here, but the base that changes every day makes everyone who works here stand up, even those talents imported from Austria-Hungary, Russia and other parts of the world sighed that they did not expect that the Chinese with the impression of wearing a "pig's tail" actually had the courage to build such a large industry.

After burying his head here with Yang Qiu's top-secret information and partners, Feng Ru's mind was all on aviation research, just to put a pair of wings for the motherland that is proud of the sky.

One after another partners from China, Nanyang and even Europe and the United States joined in, all kinds of experts invited by Austria-Hungary and Russia will send planes and engine factories as soon as they propose, Yang Qiu's investment in engines and aircraft is almost blind, and even many people inside feel that it is a bit excessive, because only these two factories have burned hundreds of thousands ()! Other factories that were red-eyed once sent people to Hubei to find the "boss" theory.

In fact, the two factories are not without a little output, and over the past year or so, the aircraft factory has used American-made engines to build nearly 40 Curtiss racing planes and handed them over to the air force and aviation schools, and also used them to build two-seat training planes. The engine factory also built a 75-horsepower inline six-cylinder gasoline engine under the guidance of Austro-Hungarian technicians, just because it is not as good as Europe and the United States in terms of fuel consumption and reliability, and has not yet been put into formal production, but if it is replaced by Austria-Hungary skilled technicians to build it by hand, there is no such problem at all, so even Daimler came to visit the internal combustion engine engineers said that this is just a defect in processing, after all, skilled workers can not be pulled up by anyone, which requires several years of training.

In the engine building built with red bricks and arched wooden beams, dozens of milling machines rumble, and more than a dozen Austro-Hungarian and Russian skilled workers are personally instructing nearly 100 young people who have just come out of technical schools and followed them to learn from their apprentices. What's more, I don't feel any difference here except for the slight restriction of personal freedom, and even in order to keep these people, the factory also sent people to Shanghai to learn how to make bread and cook in Europe, all in order not to let these treasures run away.

The difficulty in engine manufacturing lies in the fact that its main body is milled out of a piece of nickel steel ingots that have been repeatedly forged, and the slightest error is not enough power, and the cylinder is broken and destroyed, so in the past year, there are hundreds of steel ingots sent back to the furnace by these young people, and even Feng Ru is distressed, but fortunately, Yang Qiu not only did not blame after learning about it, but urged him to continue to practice, even if he sent back tens of thousands, he must train a group of skilled technical workers.

There was a screeching noise on a milling machine, which was obviously an operation error when opening the milling cylinder block, resulting in the sound of the cylinder being damaged by the tungsten cutter and the precision fixed valves of the machine tool hitting together.

Feng Ru seemed to be accustomed to this kind of picture, and he didn't even bother to look at the reprimand of the hot-tempered old Hungarian guy, while biting the steamed bun and holding the research experience, he kept walking towards the open experimental plant in the distance, and the soldiers with loaded guns at the entrance of the experimental area showed that the level of secrecy here was very high.

As soon as I walked into the test area, the noise went crazy and drilled into my ears, and several engines were fixed on the shelves for operation tests, and a technician with goggles next to me was carefully observing the subtle changes in the engines (). "Bang." One engine probably ran too long and exceeded the conformity, and the black smoke came out of it and stopped completely after a few clicks, and the technicians immediately opened the cylinder block as fast as possible to check in detail what the problem was.

At present, the main work of the test area is to imitate and test two new engines, the eight-cylinder star-cooled piston engine and the V-type eight-cylinder water-cooled engine.

After greeting his colleagues, Feng Ru put on his goggles and walked to the V-engine being tested, the piston moved up and down at a speed visible to the naked eye, it seemed that the sealing of the cylinder and piston junction was still problematic, and when it was driven to maximum horsepower, the sparks overflowing from the edge could be clearly seen.

The internal combustion engine seems to be simple in principle, but it is really difficult to build it, the most important of which is that there is an extreme lack of high-precision machine tools in China, this kind of thing is very strict in Europe and the United States, and Yang Qiu also relied on mortars and other technologies to attract Krupp to buy more than a dozen. After increasing the throttle, the engine began to have obvious wheezing, and the fire was fired for ten minutes at full load, and the engine was scrapped after a burst of black smoke came out of the engine "as desired".

Feng Ru and almost everyone sighed, a young Chinese mechanic who came back from the United States also slammed his foot holder to vent his frustration, dozens of tests, the longest time to run at full capacity is only 30 minutes, how can this achievement be worthy of millions of scientific research expenses a year.

"Deflated?"

Just when everyone was most discouraged, a somewhat familiar voice suddenly sounded behind them, and turned his head to see that Yang Qiu, who had just been newly married for a long time, actually took Miao Luo and came to the test area accompanied by Zheng Tingxiang, the general manager of the company.

"Vice President, how are you?" Feng Ru glanced at Miao Luo, who was as glamorous as a peach blossom, and originally wanted to say why he didn't cultivate his marriage well, but he changed it again: "Why did you come here?" ”

Yang Qiu didn't seem to see the two scrapped engines that were still emitting black smoke, and said with a smile: "What? Afraid that I'll rob you of your credit? ”

"Even if the vice president wants to rob it, there's nothing to grab here." Xue Muhua spread his hands and smiled bitterly among Feng Ru and other mechanics, he is now a teacher at the aviation school and the chief test pilot of the aircraft factory, and he recently returned to Chongqing to concentrate on training new pilots after the war, because he is the oldest qualified pilot in the air team, he knows the actual engine problems best, so he is also one of the people who can freely enter and leave the test area.

"Technology is not something that can be mastered in a day or two, and foreign countries have been developing internal combustion engines for more than ten years and are still exploring this new structure, so you want to become fat in one bite?" The damaged engine not only did not make Yang Qiu angry, but was extremely excited.

You know, it's the prototype, it's Espano Siza!

When it was introduced in Spain in 1917, it was immediately considered the best aero engine in the world. The main reason is that the new structure makes it have very little frontal wind resistance, and the power-to-weight ratio can reach 13.5. Although its limelight was later overwhelmed by British and American engines such as Nikko and Venus, what is little known is that it was later carried forward in Germany, and after World War I, the German Mercedes company learned about this engine and conducted a thorough study, and developed an inverted V-shaped water-cooled piston engine based on it, which led to the famous BF109.

Of course, Yang Qiu couldn't let Feng Ru and them learn to run without walking steadily, but he still used his engine knowledge to make improvements to Espano-Siza, the most important thing is to expand the cylinders to increase the displacement, because the original engine only had 180 horsepower, and he wanted to increase it to at least 250 horsepower.

After looking at the engine, Yang Qiu didn't say anything, he was not a technical expert after all, but a finger-thick metal pipe next to the engine caught his attention, and when he picked it up, he found that the tube was actually very light.

"Huh? It's so light, it's not like a steel pipe. Miao Luo also felt a difference after weighing it a few times, and his eager eyes immediately turned to Yang Qiu, but "Boss Yang" didn't know, so he had to go to see Zheng Tingxiang.

"It's made of Dura."

Zheng Tingxiang smiled, he is a legend. When the young boy in the United States was called back to China because he was dissatisfied with his studies, he quietly hid in a foreign ship to prepare to steal it to the United States, and happened to meet his classmate Tang Shaoyi to take him to North Korea, and from there he transferred to Japan to return to the United States to complete his studies, and became an outstanding engineer, after graduation, he felt that he could not use what he had learned when he went back, and he was afraid that he would be wanted by the Qing government when he came back, so he simply stayed in the United States to work ().

During his work, he was most praised for his participation in the design of the famous Brooklyn Bridge in the United States, and also invented the Zheng's coupler for trains and was promoted by Zhan Tianyou, and after the bridge was completed, he was hired as a mechanical designer by Westinghouse in the United States.

It took a lot of thought to be able to invite him back Yang Qiu, when Chongqing began to look for people all over the world after the planning, Zhan Tianyou immediately recommended him, but at first Zheng Tingxiang didn't believe that such a big industry could be done in China, until Tang Shaoyi came to the southwest and personally wrote a letter and sent him the new photos of Hanyang and Chongqing that he changed his mind. First, I was grateful for Tang Shaoyi's kindness back then, plus the photo caption, after thinking about it again and again, I came back to France, not only came back by myself, but also brought back my eldest son who also worked in Westinghouse and several Chinese students in the United States, and became the head of the Chongqing company.

"This is Dura aluminum, which is made by the aluminum mill itself." Zheng Tingxiang said: "The last time I purchased a sintering furnace from the United States, I thought that the steel mill still had a surplus of power generation, so I added a metal aluminum processing plant. ”

In fact, the Dura aluminum synthetic formula is no secret in this era, the United States has already realized the use of it to manufacture aluminum tubes and other industrial products, and no one is particularly secret, because the Dula aluminum in this era has not reached the strength of manufacturing aircraft, and it is currently the era of steel speaking, and the aluminum that needs to consume a lot of electricity is also affordable in a few countries, so the price is more expensive than steel.

Another major reason why it's so refreshing is that there is no quenching process in the United States! Only after quenching will the toughness and hardness of Dura's aluminum increase significantly, and at present, only Germany in the world has mastered this top-secret technology and used it to make the skeleton of the Zeppelin.

But this section of aluminum tube in hand is obviously quenched! How is this possible?

Seeing Yang Qiu looking at him, Zheng Tingxiang hurriedly waved his hand and said with a smile: "Vice President, don't lift me up, Tingxiang has never dabbled in material synthesis technology, this is an Austrian engineer who thanked you for taking his daughter to contribute, listen to him himself, he once learned this technology in Germany, and was originally going to go back to Austria-Hungary to build an airship, but he didn't think that he was framed and put in prison as soon as he finished his studies." ”

Yang Qiu really wanted to laugh for three days and three nights!

This is Dura's aluminum quenching technology! After 20 years, the technology of large-scale laminators will take shape, and you will be able to easily build an all-aluminum aircraft by yourself!

Well, though, the engine is still fast.

After Yang Qiu instructed to continue to improve the synthesis formula and quenching technology, and to enhance the level of secrecy, he also instructed that the Austro-Hungarian expert should be immediately transferred back to the Hanyang Material Experimental Center, and then Feng Ru was brought in to ask about the current problems of the engine.

Feng Ru and others also knew about Dula Aluminum, but they didn't expect it to be so important that it was worth raising the level of secrecy to the same position in the engine factory. But he can't be blamed for this, after all, in an era when the whole world is hovering around 150 horsepower, it is simply unthinkable to let all-metal fly into the sky.

"The main problem is the process, because the original design expanded the cylinder to increase the exhaust volume, resulting in a lot of processing difficulties." Feng Ru was full of embarrassment, because this point was technically unsolvable, but he was still confident in the end that as long as there was another half a year, he would definitely be able to manufacture qualified products.

Although it is sure to fight with Japan, the current Curtis aircraft is enough to deal with the twin-mounted synchronous machine gun being developed in Hubei to deal with Japan, so Yang Qiu does not want to put too much pressure on them, but proposes to mass produce the 75-horsepower inline gasoline engine used in the vehicle as soon as possible, to meet the needs of armored vehicles and self-produced trucks on Hubei special vehicles, and finally before the end of the inspection, he also instructed Zheng Tingxiang not to be afraid of spending money, and to ensure the needs of the engine factory as much as possible in terms of financial resources.

After saying goodbye to Feng Ru, Yang Qiu went non-stop to visit the aluminum factory and the steel factory.

According to Zheng Tingxiang, at present, the aluminum plant can produce 10 tons of qualified Dura aluminum per month, and the steel mill has not yet risen in capacity, and it will not be until the end of 15 years at the earliest to achieve the design capacity of 150,000 tons of ordinary steel ingots and 100,000 tons of special steel per year. On the contrary, the arsenal has made the fastest progress, in addition to the previous light equipment such as grenades, grenadiers and ammunition, it has begun trial production of Type 12 rifles and two light and heavy machine guns of the Wehrmacht standard, and trial production of mortars and various howitzers will begin in October.

Don't look at him in his fifties, but his eyes are red when he introduces the development prospects. According to his plan, in 16 years, Chongqing will form a manufacturing capacity with an annual output of 350,000 tons of various types of steel, 200 tons of dura aluminum, 50,000 rifles, 1,500 machine guns of various types, 600 cannons (including mortars), 5 million shells of various types, 1,000 engines of various types, 500 aircraft, and 1,500 pieces of machinery and equipment, and strive to break through the 200 million yuan mark in total output value.

This old man, who was obviously in a frenzy, also lost no time in proposing to make additional investment, purchase tungsten steel, manganese alloy steel and other equipment, increase the number of technical products, in a word, at least take tens of millions to the bottom.

Of course, Yang Qiu couldn't be fooled by him, it didn't matter if he had the money to smash into it, but now was the time when he was the poorest, and he was afraid of dampening his enthusiasm, so he simply took out the Bailey Bridge technology that had been prepared a long time ago and gave him research.

Zheng Tingxiang, who designed the Brooklyn Bridge, realized the importance of Bailey Bridge technology at a glance, and the angle and I-beam steel pre-built standard fixings and assembled them with rivets! The ancestors are on top, which greatly simplifies the difficulty of bridge manufacturing!

China's land is deep and vast and the water network is dense, and the bridge construction has been lagging behind the demand, but with the Bailey Bridge, it is different, although the large bridge also needs the traditional steel structure, but China is not only building a bridge, like the last time the 103 Brigade had so many trucks in the face of the embarrassment that the Shandong water network could not move forward, if there was a Bailey Bridge, it would also be necessary to take the risk to force Yuan Shikai to let go.

Later, Yang Qiu learned what kind of effect the Bailey Bridge played in the hands of Zheng Tingxiang. By 1930, a total of 20,000 sets of Bailey Bridge steel structures ranging from 5 tons (traffic capacity) to 50 tons had been manufactured by several steel mills alone, and they became an important force in promoting the rapid development of road and bridge construction across the country.

While Zheng Tingxiang was holding the Bailey Bridge technology and couldn't wait to lock himself in the laboratory, Yang Qiu also got a telegram from Nanjing.

At the end of the peace talks between the north and the south, Duan Qirui struggled for more than ten days and finally signed under pressure, not only on behalf of the Beiyang group to completely lay down its arms, but also to announce that China, which had been chaotic for two years, had finally achieved great reunification.

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