On the same day, Lin Shenhe and Jiang Ye conducted several mechanical tests on the press - using inert powder with physical properties similar to black gunpowder, which proved that all the machinery was fully operating normally. Jiang Ye added additional pressure to all moving parts.
Apply enough lubrication to ensure there are no problems during operation.
This is not the first time that the mechanical department has manufactured a press specifically for pyrotechnics - it was used when manufacturing maroon gunpowder propellant cakes - but such high-pressure and high-density pressing has not been carried out in the past.
Early the next morning, Lin Shenhe and the naturalized migrant workers who volunteered to help him put on the explosion-proof clothing and special helmets provided by Panda and moved step by step to the front of the machine.
The temperature in the room is stable at 13 degrees, and the hygrometer shows that the temperature in the room is 90%.
"Everything is normal." A naturalized migrant worker who specializes in observing thermometers and hygrometers made a gesture.
Lin Shenhe took a deep breath and opened the sealed barrel containing gunpowder.
Inside the barrel is newly made powdered black gunpowder - Lingao's black gunpowder is generally granulated for storage: powdered black powder can easily cause components to precipitate and separate when stored.
He carefully scooped out the gunpowder from the gunpowder barrel with a copper measuring spoon, accurately weighed 1,000 grams on the scale on the table, put it into a large porcelain container, and then poured in an alcohol solution with a concentration of *gram*%.
, the naturalized migrant worker started stirring slowly with a wooden stick until it was completely uniform.
"75 grams of charge." Lin Shenhe instructed. So far, everything is normal - this is also the safest stage. Only after the knot is formed can the critical step be entered.
Following his instructions, the naturalized migrant worker took out the corresponding mold from the box and fixed it on the base. There are several types of molds, corresponding to different shapes and qualities of the pill pillars, and they are all made of copper.
The mixed black powder powder was accurately weighed and put into the mold. Lin Shenhe did not trust the workers and operated the press himself. The pressure device of the press drove the hydraulic cylinder through a manual wheel and slowly applied the screw.
pressure.
He turned the wheel slowly and evenly to ensure that the pressure would not be transmitted too fast - too fast and too strong could easily cause an explosion. It was stuffy and hot in the explosion-proof suit, and he felt very nervous, and he was sweating profusely after a while.
It was dripping wet, which gave him the illusion that the temperature in the room had risen.
"Check the temperature!"
"The temperature is 14.5 degrees and the humidity is 90%! Normal!"
He has specially calculated the size of the 75-gram pill column using a formula to ensure that it will not be over-squeezed. However, this is only a theoretical result. He is not fully sure whether the reality will be the same. Of course, as the sizes get closer and closer,
There were more and more beads of sweat on Lin Shenhe's forehead. He turned it a few more times until the medicine surface dropped to the mark line - the first medicine column was formed.
Lin Shenhe carefully took the medicine column out of the mold and placed it on a fixed plate - the next step was to wait for it to dry naturally.
The pyrolysis room has a special drying room. However, this is a trial product with unknown properties and cannot be mixed with mass products and dried together. Therefore, the laboratory has an additional drying room. The air humidity and temperature here are also controlled, and the powder column is at a low temperature.
Dry naturally at room temperature of 40 degrees.
"Then let's do the next one!" Lin Shenhe's confidence greatly increased. Since there were no accidents during the pressing process, it meant that there was no problem with the entire process.
He also suppressed explosive pillars of various sizes and qualities, including those intended to be used to load grenades - the current grenades are just large firecrackers in terms of power, and their lethality is not worth mentioning. They are what Americans call
"Shock Grenade".
Another use of the compressed drug column is to serve as propellant for rockets. A drug column with consistent shape and density is an important guarantee for the consistency of rocket trajectory, which is of great significance. According to his estimation, after switching to this new compressed drug column,
The range and accuracy of Hale rockets can be improved to a new level.
Of course, the biggest use of high-density black powder columns is to load artillery shells, bringing the power of grenades that were originally purely for decoration to a new level. Lin Shenhe believes that the current 12-pound and 24-pound smoothbore cannons widely used by the army
Although it has the advantages of being simple to manufacture, easy to use, and suitable for low-tech armies, in the long run the shortcomings of the smoothbore gun's low power and low rate of fire are insurmountable.
Year".
Large-scale manufacturing and equipment of rifled artillery is an inevitable choice for the Senate's military system. At present, only the navy and coastal artillery use some rifled artillery, both front-loaded and rear-loaded. However, they have not formed standard equipment and are only installed sporadicly.
, with an experimental nature. The main reason is not only the cost, but also because the chamber pressure of rifled guns is much higher than that of smoothbore guns. The fuze on the spherical grenade cannot be used on rifled guns, so all rifled guns so far can only use solid
Cannonballs.
The conical solid shells fired by the rifled cannon are far less effective than the spherical shells of the smoothbore cannon - the latter can also play a killing effect while beating and rolling after landing, and the conical solid shells are directly inserted into the ground. The advantage is that it penetrates
It has extremely strong penetrability and is very powerful against city defenses and battleships.
In order for the rifled gun to exert sufficient power, the fuze must first be solved.
Taking advantage of the time when the pill column was drying, Lin Shenhe found someone to make a fuse.
Lin Shenhe has always wanted to solve the fuze problem. The main problem he faced was: the state of the material branch in the Senate's industrial system was very bad. To make a safe and reliable fuze, springs were necessary.
Spring was an inconspicuous handicraft in the old time and space, but in Lingao, making spring is an out-and-out high-tech. The springs that can be used on rifled gun fuzes are the crystallization of industrial technology: including steel smelting, alloy materials and
Various specialized technologies for heat treatment. Lingao's industry can also produce springs, but from materials to manufacturing, they are extremely low-end products. They are barely enough for simple applications such as carriages and sofas - but their service life is shorter.
, just need to be replaced more frequently. When used on artillery shells, they may not explode when they land, affecting combat operations, or they may suddenly explode and cause major accidents.
Because of this problem, even though Lin Shenhe, Wang Ruixiang, and various veteran military enthusiasts all tried to solve this problem, none of them succeeded. No matter what they thought, they could not overcome the "qualified" problem in the end.
The threshold of "spring".
Fuzes are consumables, and the cost must be low enough to be used in mass production. At the same time, the level of workers in the mechanical processing industry of the Senate is generally not high, so the technical difficulty in processing and production must be reduced as much as possible to ensure uniform production quality.
Lin Shenhe read a lot of information on this issue, and finally decided to design it with reference to the fuze of Japan's Type 91 rifle grenade. This is a simple-structured explosive type that relies on the inertia of the projectile moving forward when it hits the target to overcome the resistance.
The resistance of the crawling spring achieves ignition. The insurance measure is the safety pin that is pulled out before launching. The entire fuze design only requires one anti-crawling spring and does not have high requirements on spring performance. It is very suitable for Lingao's current industrial capabilities.
In this fuze, the detonating signal tube is located at the bottom of the fuze, and the front end of the fuze is a long rod-shaped inertial body with a firing pin. The inertial body is isolated by an anti-crawling spring and the detonating signal tube, and is fixed with a laterally inserted safety pin. In order to ensure ignition
rate, the inertial body is a long rod-shaped structure with a crown pressure plate on the top. Before firing, pull out the safety pin, and the fuze will be released and enter the combat state. When the artillery is launched, the inertial body stays at the front end under the action of the anti-crawling spring.
This ensures that premature detonation will not occur; after impacting the target, the anti-crawling spring is compressed due to the inertia of the projectile, and the firing pin hits the ignition piece to detonate the fuze.
The machinery factory quickly manufactured a hundred fuses according to his design drawings - half of them were made by veterans and the other half were made by naturalized technical workers. Lin Shenhe wanted to know the qualifications of the naturalized technical workers during official production.
What is the rate.
The acceptance results of visual inspection and simple experiments are that the naturalized migrant workers have a pass rate of about 40%. This rate is generally acceptable to Lin Shenhe - now it is manual assembly, and a large number of specialized process equipment are used in mass production, and the processing
Once the workers become more technically proficient, the pass rate will be greatly improved.
Lin Shenhe believes that according to his shooting, the performance requirements of the fuze against the crawling spring itself are not high. The highest-grade spring currently produced by Lingao, the phosphor bronze spring, should be able to do the job. He used the phosphor bronze spring fuze in the laboratory to make
Dozens of tests were conducted - and each time the phosphor bronze spring responded correctly.
However, there is no special equipment in the laboratory that can simulate the high-temperature and high-pressure environment when the artillery shell is launched, nor can it simulate the high overload condition of the artillery shell in flight. A simple counterweight landing test cannot reflect the true performance of the fuze. Lingao's military engineers can only
Use the simplest method: live fire to test your design.
Lin Shenhe went to Ying Yu and borrowed a rifled gun - this was one of the earliest 70mm breech-loaded rifled guns manufactured by the military industry department for the four 8154 ships. It has been sealed since it was removed from the ship.
Since grenades had never been produced for 70mm rifled guns, Lin Shenhe first went to a machinery factory to make twenty rounds of grenades, installed them with fuzes, and used sand as weights.
He carefully marked and separated the cannonballs with fuses made by the senators and the fuses made by the naturalized citizens. Then he borrowed horses to drag the cannon to the shooting range and began experimental shooting.
Lin Shenhe personally acted as the gunner. The propellant used was maroon powder, which is safer to shoot. For the first shot, Lin Shenhe did not use a full charge, but only a weak charge.
The shooting ranges were located in hard soil, medium soil and wetland environments. The first round of shooting achieved good results. After eliminating the failure factors caused by the manufacturing quality of the fuze itself, the shooting range was on hard and medium soil.
, the fuze has achieved a firing rate of 90%, and has also achieved a firing rate of more than 70% in a wetland environment. From the actual combat effect, it is completely qualified - the current average detonation rate of grenades fired by smoothbore guns is only 70%. (To be continued)