Siheyuan: Craftsmen of a Great Country

"Jia Dongxu, lend me your pliers. Mine is broken and hasn't been repaired yet."

"Dongxu? Jia Dongxu?"

As the workers shouted, Jia Dongxu tried to cheer up: "Ah, what did you just say?"

The worker said, "I asked you to lend me your pliers. By the way, you haven't been in a good state of mind these past two days. What's wrong?"

Jia Dongxu handed over the pliers: "My wife is not giving birth anymore. She is not sensible. She cries all the time at night and doesn't get a good rest."

The worker said: "You are not in the right state. You are always prone to accidents. If it doesn't work, just take two days off to take care of your wife and children."

Jia Dongxu shook his head: "That can't be done. My mother has been taking medicine for a long time and the family life has been very stressful. Now that she has a child, how dare she ask for leave."

Currently, employees in the factory who take personal leave are not paid wages.

This point will not be adjusted until June this year. After the adjustment, workers who take leave for less than two days in a quarter will still be paid, and those who take more than two days will not be paid for the extra days.

So now if Jia Dongxu takes one day off, he will lose one day's salary.

This will make the already stressful life even more stressful.

Yi Zhonghai wants to wait until the Jia family runs out of ammunition and food before appearing as a savior to make help more valuable, so now he has deliberately reduced support for the Jia family.

So now he can't eat well during the day and sleep well at night, but he doesn't dare to ask for leave.

Otherwise, at the end of the month, the family won’t even be able to eat whole grains.

The coworker nodded: "Isn't your mother here? Let him take care of his wife and children. You can have a good rest at night."

Jia Dongxu shook his head: "Huairu is not neat and has given birth to a girl. Her old man is very angry, how can he take care of them."

This coworker had a good relationship with him, so Jia Dongxu did not hide anything and told the situation at home.

The worker nodded: "Okay, then you should pay attention to yourself and take a rest when you are really tired. With Master You here, no one will dare to cause trouble for you."

Jia Dongxu nodded, cheered up and continued working.

On the other side, Su Changming and several workers from the steelmaking plant were studying the converter construction plan with Jiang Chen and Lu Yuehua.

Su Changming looked at the drawings: "Director Jiang is really a person with strong execution ability. He drew such a detailed schematic diagram of the converter in half a day. I don't know much about this steelmaking method, but I have a question."

"Why are you blowing the oxygen in from above? There is thick molten steel below. Then the oxygen you provide can only reach the surface and cannot penetrate deep into the molten steel. I'm afraid it won't have the desired effect, right?"

Jiang Chen said: "Gong Su, you are overestimating the bottom pressure of molten steel and molten iron."

"The pressure at the bottom of 1 meter deep molten iron is less than 0.8 atmospheres, so the blowing pressure required is not high. The air pump used to inflate a bicycle can easily reach 3-4 atmospheres."

"So, oxygen is blown in from the top, which not only eliminates the disadvantages of side blowing, but also allows for better contact between oxygen and molten iron and molten steel, making the effect better."

Su Changming was stunned: "Ah, is that so? It seems that this thing still requires professionals, and empiricism is not necessary."

This result was completely beyond his expectation, but Jiang Chen gave accurate data, and with his trust in Jiang Chen, he chose to believe it.

Su Changming added: "I think your furnace is not small. One furnace of steel must weigh hundreds of tons, right?"

"We are just doing experiments now. Is it necessary to build such a large converter?"

Jiang Chen waved his hand: "This furnace has a designed output of 30 tons of steel per furnace. As for why it is built so big, it is because only a large furnace can discover problems that may be encountered in the steelmaking process. Only when they are discovered and solved can we truly determine Is this method feasible?”

"You are professionals in steelmaking, so you should know this better than me."

After that, Jiang Chen explained his ideas to everyone.

After listening, everyone nodded.

Lu Yuehua said: "There is no problem with the theory, but I did some calculations when I went home yesterday. When a 30-ton furnace is refining, the reaction between the charge and oxygen will release a huge amount of energy."

"This energy is no less than the explosion of several tons of TNT explosives. I'm worried that if we can't tame this energy, the steel-making furnace will become a bomb."

This was the question he raised yesterday, and he raised it again after doing some calculations at home.

Jiang Chen said: "That is just a theoretical energy release, and it will definitely not be that violent in actual production."

"Moreover, we can suppress this violent burst of energy by controlling the purity of oxygen and adding inert gases to the oxygen, so that it can be controlled and used by us."

Lu Yuehua slapped his forehead: "Why didn't I think of this? Adding inert gas can effectively suppress the reaction speed."

"And if we can use the amount of inert gas to keep the reaction speed within our control, we can avoid safety accidents."

"And when we separate oxygen, by controlling the temperature, we can create some inert gases, just enough for them to work."

Jiang Chen nodded: "Well, that's the theory. But now we need to verify whether the converter steelmaking method is feasible first, and then find the gas ratio through experiments."

"However, I estimate that the inert gas obtained when separating air alone is not enough to support steelmaking needs. We also need other replicating methods to prepare inert gas."

Lu Yuehua waved his hand: "This is not simple. We refine more gases and allocate oxygen based on the amount of inert gas. The excess oxygen is used for other purposes."

"There are many places that need pure oxygen now. It can be used as a product for other industrial manufacturers."

Jiang Chen nodded: "Yes, the idea is feasible."

"Then let's start the specific preparation work and prepare various raw materials."

Su Changming said: "Besides oxygen, Shi Jingshan has other materials. You can ask the Ministry of Industry to approve them, and I will transfer them when I go back."

Lu Yuehua said: "I will be responsible for the oxygen. I will also ask the Ministry of Industry to approve the note, and I will go back to Qingbei to get the relevant supplies."

"Of course, this can only be a small amount of oxygen used in preliminary tests. For mass production, imported oxygen concentrators will be needed."

Su Changming said: "Import is a troublesome matter. Even if we can find channels, our country's current foreign exchange reserves are too small. I don't know if we are willing to use it to introduce oxygen concentrators."

Jiang Chen smiled and said: "If you don't want to give it up, then you have to look at the value of converter steelmaking and the ratio of production capacity increase. As long as the value is enough, the higher ups will definitely support it."

Lu Yuehua nodded: "Yes, if it can double the steelmaking production capacity, let alone oxygen generators, even Jinshan and the others can find a way to get it for you."

Jiang Chen smiled slightly: "Sure, I'll go find the leader and open a note. You guys will study this diagram carefully and try to do every detail well to ensure the success of the experiment."

Who are you looking down on by doubling steelmaking capacity?

The current steelmaking method, which is dominated by open-hearth furnaces in large factories and small blast furnaces in various places, is not a problem if it can be doubled tenfold.

You know, it takes almost ten hours to practice a furnace of steel in an open-hearth furnace, including preparation time.

And what about the converter? It only takes 25 minutes to make a furnace of steel. Even if some special steels take longer, it only takes 45 minutes. Including the preparation time, it only takes an hour.

And no additional fuel is required.

Just these two points can increase steelmaking capacity tenfold.

Even if it is not possible to build a converter of too large a tonnage yet, it is not a big problem to increase the production capacity by half or five times.

Moreover, the top-blown converter was not Jiang Chen’s real goal.

After the converter is successfully developed, he will immediately start the research on the steel-making method of the compound blowing converter, so that the flower growers can complete the steel-making method in one step and lead the world.