Chapter 498 Iron? Steel!
Bifang worked hard the whole morning.
Not only did he want to lengthen the chimney, he also had to make a blower.
The final blower is shaped like a large sealed water scoop, with the fan blades located in the water holding area of the scoop.
Only the long rod connecting the air outlet and the fan blades, as well as the very bottom, are empty.
"The bottom is hollowed out, so that when the fan is damaged, it is convenient for us to replace the fan blades, and the blower is finally buckled on the ground, which is equivalent to using the earth as the bottom cover."
Bifang found three pieces of wood, inserted two of them in front of the blast furnace, and placed one across it, all tied together with hemp ropes.
In the middle of the bottom of the horizontal branch, Bifang dug a small hole and inserted the long rod connected to the fan, allowing the long rod to rotate freely while being constrained.
"We can apply some animal oil inside the pit to help lubricate it. Then we can make a bow string, which can be used in a similar way to make fire with a bow drill."
Take out a hemp rope, wrap it around a long pole, and tie the head and tail ends to another branch. Bifang holds the branch and pulls it back and forth. The rope immediately drives the long pole to rotate, and the long pole drives the fan to stir the airflow.
All the airflow was confined inside the blower and was ejected from the only exit into the blast furnace, instantly intensifying the fire!
[Now performing is Erquan Yingyue, performed by Mr. Fang himself! ]
【Lao Fang must have been a skilled craftsman in ancient times! 】
【Six six good luck】
[With these skills, if I return to primitive society, I will definitely dominate the world, and I can only have ten concubines! ]
[The power of ten concubines? So terrifying! ]
[At least he has to be a fire god priest, in charge of fire and tribal supplies. ]
【Physical turbine】
Bifang made a long curved spout, put it on the mouth of the bellows, and blew directly at the burning charcoal. The fire snake on the top of the furnace mouth gushed out instantly, almost half a meter high, and the high temperature could be felt just by visual observation.
Looking down from the top of the furnace cover , the flames were so bright that I couldn't see. It was definitely over a thousand degrees.
In the afternoon, after finishing his meal, Bifang put the previous iron ingot into a new pottery bowl, sprinkled it with wood ash, and placed it in the middle of the furnace bridge.
Success or failure depends on this time.
Chimneys over three meters high, charcoal, and blowers, even the ancients used such configurations when smelting iron.
A usable iron dagger?
Having come this far, Bifang is no longer satisfied with just making an iron knife, he wants steel!
steel!?
Bi Xiang revealed his ambitions to the audience.
Everyone was shocked. Since he had smelted iron before, they thought Bifang was like a god. Now they heard that he was going to forge steel?
It seems that the altar is higher.
In the eyes of ordinary people, iron and steel are almost two different things, and the difficulty of forging is incomparable.
Of course, I don’t know how to do it anyway.
“Is anyone studying engineering materials?”
Bifang sat on the ground, pulling the branches in his hands and blowing air continuously.
"The iron we are most exposed to is not the industrial pure iron on the left side of the iron-carbon phase diagram, but industrial pig iron, that is, hypoeutectic white iron, with a carbon content between 2.1% and 4.3%, while 'steel' refers to an iron-carbon alloy with a carbon content between 0.02% and 2.06%."
"We will add different alloy elements according to the needs to make alloy steel and stainless steel. Steelmaking is to consume the excess carbon in pig iron by reacting with oxygen under high temperature conditions!"
Not to mention industrial pig iron, the piece of iron in Bifang's hand contains so many impurities that it is not an exaggeration to say that it is iron ore.
A piece of iron grew in the impurities.
Modern steelmaking methods involve oxidizing and decarburizing pig iron in a liquid state to form molten steel, known as liquid steelmaking, which requires a high temperature of around 1,600 degrees.
In ancient times, it was not possible to reach such high temperatures, so only lower temperature processes could be adopted: such as block smelting of carburized steel, frying steel, etc.
"During the Western Han Dynasty, due to the improvement of blast technology, the flame temperature could stably reach over 1,200 degrees, and decarbonization from pig iron also requires such high temperature conditions."
"Although I have a blast furnace, a blower, and charcoal, they are still relatively crude and cannot reach this level. However, the temperature is definitely over a thousand degrees, so I want to try making hundred-fold steel."
Hundred-fold Refined Steel, this technology is not mysterious. It is to heat and forge iron repeatedly to remove carbon and impurities. The final product is called Hundred-fold Refined Steel.
The simplest way to turn iron into steel is also the most physically demanding.
"Of course, I'm not sure whether it will succeed or not. It all depends on luck."
Even if the steel forging fails, it will not affect Bifang's production of an iron knife. It is all a process of removing impurities and obtaining good iron.
"It's a pity that we don't have iron ore, otherwise we could try the steel-making method."
Steel making is an important technology invented by the Chinese.
However, this technology almost allowed the ancient Chinese to cheat, and for more than a thousand years thereafter, this technology was monopolized by the Chinese.
"The Han Dynasty's military reversal against the Xiongnu was not only due to the good horses that made up for the speed gap, but more importantly, the weapons were much more sophisticated than those of the Xiongnu. Steel was too advanced at that time."
Why are five Hu soldiers equal to one Han soldier? Their weapons are simple and blunt, and their bows and crossbows are not effective.
Now I hear that he has acquired quite a bit of Han skills, but it is still three times as good as one.
These are Chen Tang’s original words in the Book of Han.
This means that the reason why it took five Huns to defeat one Han army was because of their inferior equipment.
Not to mention copper, pig iron is nothing compared to refined steel. Moreover, according to research, the material used in large quantities by the Huns at that time was cattle and sheep bones.
How to fight this?
There is a Gundam across the street!
"So many experts in the study of the history of chemistry are still very curious. We Chinese were not the first to discover iron. Our iron use history was nearly a thousand years later than that of the Mesopotamian region. However, we have made such a great evolution in just two hundred years. The fundamental reason is still unclear."
[It's an alien! ]
【Huaxia is a lion in the East! 】
Asians are really smart, at least in math
【We are hardworking and brave! 】
"Hundred-fold steelmaking is the process before steelmaking. It involves repeatedly heating and folding the iron to allow it to react with oxygen in the air, consuming carbon. It can also make the steel denser, more uniform in composition, and reduce impurities, thereby improving the quality of the steel."
Bifang changed his hand to pull the bellows, and at the same time used a wooden stick to stir the bright orange iron blocks in the furnace to increase oxygen contact.
"But not all pig iron can eventually be made into steel. In addition to smelting technology, it also has a lot to do with the quality of the iron itself. It may contain sulfur, manganese and other elements. The same technology may work well or not."
"So when we read stories like Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, we often see that the swords were not forged successfully. This may be a true reflection of the ancient metallurgical technology, but the ancients would make up their own stories, such as punishment from heaven."
Whether it is the ancients or ordinary people in society, they basically don’t understand the different carbon content in iron and steel. They only know that the two are used differently.
That's what empiricism is all about.
The audience in front of the screen also looked like they had learned a lot.
[I learned it before, but I have forgotten the details]
[This is a real bullfrog, dreaming back to the classroom]
How much steel can be made from Bifang's little bit of iron?
The ancients also gave the answer early on.
In the section called "Weighing Weights" in the Xiahouyang Mathematical Classic written between the Jin and Sui dynasties, there are two arithmetic problems.
Question 1: Now there are 6281 pounds of pig iron, which needs to be refined into pyrite. The loss is 5 taels per pound. How much pyrite can be refined?
Answer: 4318.3 jin of yellow iron.
Question 2: There are 4318 jin 3 liang of pyrite now, which needs to be refined into steel. The loss is 3 liang per jin. How much steel can be refined? Answer: 3508 jin 8 liang 10 baht 5 lei of steel.
In ancient times, 1 jin was 16 liang, and yellow iron was wrought iron.
From 6281 kilograms of pig iron into about 3508.5 kilograms of steel.
More than half consumed.
There are more impurities in Bifang's hand, and the consumption is also greater. When calculated, it is exactly the weight of a steel dagger!
I don’t know if it was fate or something else, but Bifang, who originally thought he would get a knife for twenty cakes, was slapped in the face by reality. As a result, he could only get a steel knife.
Of course, that’s not necessarily the case.
The process of refining steel requires such a huge workload and high intensity that it is probably difficult to compare with other industries, right?
For this purpose, Bifang had prepared several stone hammers and lined them up next to him, ready to go all out.
If you do something, do it to the best of your ability.
Push yourself to the limit.
He opened the furnace lid, took out the pottery bowl, placed the fist-sized iron block on the stone slab, and raised the stone hammer.
The muscles of the forearms were twisted together like steel bars, and transparent sweat squeezed out of the pores like a stream flowing among the rocks.
The force is transferred from the ground through the thighs to the waist, and finally reaches the body, falling down hard!
pong!
Sparks flew in all directions.
The dazzling flames spewed out scorching light, the high temperature distorted the air, and heat waves rolled out.
In the violent explosion, a piece of iron scraped past Richard's ear, lifted his white hair, and spun into the wall tiles.
The explosion turned the surrounding lawn into scorched earth. The broken water pipes sprayed water, which was quickly burned into steam by the high temperature. The metal casing of the transformer exploded instantly, and brilliant electric sparks surged up to a height of one person like a fountain.
Richard stood there blankly, not sure whether he was frightened or shocked.
Jarrett, who was in the house, ran out after hearing the news. He saw the car twisted beyond recognition and turned into a huge fireball. He also saw Richard, who was like a piece of wood, flapping up and down, and hurriedly asked what happened.
Richard couldn't remember when he was helped into the house. He opened his eyes wide and looked at the large light that had just been installed on the ceiling.
The bright white fluorescent lights hurt people’s eyes, so much so that their eyes are bloodshot, as if the world has turned blood red.
A young man wearing a mask rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was hallucinating, walked into the station's toilet, and then locked the door.
There was already someone waiting for him inside. When he saw the man, he handed him an old suitcase.
The young man took the suitcase and grumbled, "Can't you even afford a suitcase?"
Opening the suitcase, the dazzling pattern was fascinating. The young man reached out to touch it and found the fine scales and thin leather, without any problems.
After making sure everything was OK, the young man closed the lid and said, "How come there's suddenly more stock? Fortunately I didn't leave."
The man who brought the box over laughed: "You guys care about this? We'll take as much as we can. That's what you agreed on in the beginning."
The young man pulled the corner of his mouth, knowing that he had said too much, but he didn't care. He took out his phone and swiped a few times: "Look, this number."
"One third of the market price?" The man was not very satisfied with the number. Even if it was smuggled goods, it wouldn't be so low, right?
"The python skin is a bit too destructive. Or you can go find someone else. If you agree, I'll transfer it. If you don't agree, you can take this box."
"Well, it's yours."
