Great Power Heavy Industry: Rise

Chapter 152 "Bad News"

Time soon came to the summer of 2017.

This year's midsummer came very early, it was only June, and the weather was already very hot.

6 month 14 day.

The various projects of the Suzaku fighter are progressing smoothly, but Zhong Cheng still feels inexplicably irritated.

Maybe it has something to do with him being born on the [-]th day, he likes the cold rather than the heat!
He came out of the production factory of Houyi's electromagnetic gun and confessed a few words to Jiang Yan against the sun.

Two months ago, under his suggestion, Jiang Yan adopted the automatic principle of the Gatling machine gun to improve the firing frequency of the Houyi electromagnetic gun.

That is to use a set of transmission mechanism to make several gun barrels rotate around a common axis, so as to complete continuous shooting.

At present, the firing frequency of the Houyi electromagnetic gun has been raised to 1000 projectiles per second, which Zhong Cheng thinks is enough.

A 50-gram projectile weighs 1000 kilograms in 50 pellets, and a 1-ton alloy projectile can be poured out in one minute of continuous shooting. The Suzaku fighter's load capacity is also limited.

Of course, there is currently no target in the world that can withstand the 10-second continuous shooting of the Houyi electromagnetic gun.

Fully able to meet the requirements of those 'insufficient firepower phobia patients'.

He had just pulled the car onto the main road when his cell phone rang.

Seeing that it was Ye Wenxin's call, he quickly parked the Alloy Fortress to the side of the road and connected the call.

Ye Wenxin's tired voice came from the phone: "Zhong Cheng, are you not busy now?"

An ominous premonition floated in Zhong Cheng's heart, "It's okay, I parked the car on the side of the road to answer the phone."

The phone was silent for a few seconds, and I heard Ye Wenxin's crying voice: "Zhong Cheng, the controllable nuclear fusion has failed, and we have confirmed that the research and development direction of the super tokamak is a dead end!"

"what?!"

Zhong Cheng was taken aback, he couldn't sit still in the car anymore, he opened the door and got out of the car, taking a long breath.

"Wen Xin, what's going on, can you explain it more clearly?"

"In the past four months, we have continuously adjusted the parameters and conducted tens of thousands of controllable nuclear fusion experiments in the Taixu experimental system."

Zhong Cheng was startled, tens of thousands of tests, even if it was done every 5 minutes, including the time to adjust the parameters, it would be almost sleepless.

"It started very smoothly. In less than two months, the fusion reaction time increased from 95 seconds to 512 seconds. We were all very excited and thought that success was in sight!"

"and after?"

Zhong Cheng knew that there must be something wrong in the future.

"But after 512 seconds, it was like being cast a spell, and then the experiment lost control, the magnetic field lost control of the reactant, the experimental device was burned, and even exploded. Fortunately, it was a simulation experiment conducted in the optical brain. Otherwise, the consequences would be disastrous."

"How could this be?"

Zhong Cheng couldn't believe it, the result was much more serious than he imagined.

"We then conducted a detailed analysis and found that the main reason is that the heat generated by nuclear fusion cannot be fully released, and the more it accumulates, the more it becomes uncontrollable."

"Isn't there a condensing tower to export heat to generate electricity?" Zhong Cheng is also very familiar with the super tokamak equipment.

"It was fine at the beginning, but the speed of exporting heat later could not keep up with the speed of heat generated by fusion. The heat generated by fusion in a sealed space is too much and too fast."

Zhong Cheng came to his senses, "You have already "ignited" nuclear fusion, forming a chain reaction, which is equivalent to detonating a small hydrogen bomb!"

(PS: The chain reaction here is different from the single-event chain reaction of uranium nuclear fission, which is a multi-event chain reaction.)
(Small science: The reactants of nuclear fusion are two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, but tritium is the rarest element on earth, and they are all produced by bombarding lithium ions with neutrons, so the raw materials for nuclear fusion are actually deuterium and tritium lithium.)
(Deuterium reads "knife", also called heavy hydrogen, tritium reads "chuan", also called super heavy hydrogen.)
"You're right, we're building a slow-exploding hydrogen bomb! We then performed thousands of tests to prove it."

"Controlled nuclear fusion is a joke, how could we create the sun!"

There was despair in Ye Wenxin's voice, which made Zhong Cheng's heart ache.

"Wenxin, are you okay, is Aunt Zhao okay, it's all my fault, if I don't come up with this Taixu experimental system, at least you still have hope!"

"How can I blame you, we are scientific researchers, we don't need that kind of blind "hope", Zhong Cheng, thank you for waking us up from our dreams as soon as possible, we are fine."

Zhong Cheng asked unwillingly: "Super tokamak is not enough, there are stellarators, and anti-field pinch magnetic confinement, if the magnetic confinement method really doesn't work, you can also try inertial confinement!"

"Well, we're building other experimental models, let's try again!"

Zhong Cheng felt that this didn't sound like Ye Wenxin's tone at all. It seemed that this incident had hit her too hard, and he had to do something.

Now he can't wait to fly to the capital immediately and rush to Ye Wenxin's side.

But what's the use, are the two hugging each other and crying?
No, that's not his character.

"Wenxin, listen to me, don't bother with this matter, leave it to me, and I'll take care of it!"

To be honest, Zhong Cheng didn't have any confidence in saying this, but Ye Wenxin was still very moved.

"Zhong Cheng, thank you, don't force it, I will adjust my mood, don't worry about my mother, she is stronger than me, and now she is by my side."

……

After hanging up the phone, Zhong Cheng was in a state of confusion, instead of feeling warm under the sun, he felt cold all over.

The failure of controllable nuclear fusion is a huge blow to Zhong Cheng. Human beings will be bound forever in the solar system, and the vast sea of ​​stars is just an unattainable dream!

Ordinary people may not care, but those who care about the fate of mankind will be heartbroken.

Don't think about it in such a big way, at least Zhong Cheng hopes to solve China's energy shortage problem in a short time is hopeless.

The country will re-examine the development plan of hydropower and thermal power, and even consider accelerating nuclear fission power generation, but these are only temporary solutions, and there will be endless troubles.

He has already developed electric vehicles, and will launch large aircraft, robots, mechs, and electric flying cars in the future. These are all very power-hungry things, which will aggravate the power shortage in the country.

Then he is not doing a good thing, but doing a disservice.

Leaving aside the Suzaku fighter jets that are used for military purposes, is it still necessary for him to engage in the development of civilian technologies in the future?

In his research and development route, he never considered the use of traditional chemical fuels from the very beginning. Should chemical fuels be used again?

Perhaps he should focus on the research and development of photovoltaic and wind power technologies.

However, the inefficient collection of solar energy by photovoltaic and wind power cannot solve the urgent need for China's huge demand for electricity.

Geographic distribution, seasonal changes, and alternation of day and night will seriously affect the power generation of solar power generation devices. When there is no sun, the power generation cannot be generated or the power generation is very small, which will affect the normal use of electrical equipment.

The energy density is low, and when it is used on a large scale, it occupies a very large area, and it will be affected by the intensity of solar radiation.

The cost of photovoltaic system is relatively high, the system cost is 40000-60000 yuan/kW, and the high initial investment seriously restricts its wide application.

……

Zhong Cheng stood blankly under the sun for an hour, felt dizzy, and then woke up.

He turned around and got into the car, and drove back to the R&D office.

Controllable nuclear fusion can't just give up!

(PS: The development of controllable nuclear fusion is just the author's personal conjecture. Please note that this is just science fiction. Don't take it seriously. Discussions are welcome.)
(End of this chapter)