plumnovel Chapter 70 Smith's Decision and Stephenson's Collapse
Chapter 70 Smith's Decision and Stephenson's Collapse
Chapter 70 Smith's Decision and Stephenson's Collapse
The ordinary members of the mission were still disembarking and waiting in the main waiting hall to board their trains.
The small waiting room was gradually enveloped by an increasingly heavy sense of anxiety.
No one spoke at the scene. Zheng Fuguang finally breathed a sigh of relief and quickly took a sip of tea to moisten his throat.
But at that moment, Smith discovered that Zheng Fuguang finally had some free time.
He quickly stood up and walked to Zheng Fuguang, and first introduced himself: "Hello, Secretary, I am Francis Smith. You can call me Smith."
"I am the patent holder for the British propeller propulsion device."
Zheng Fuguang looked up helplessly and casually replied, "Hello, Mr. Smith, what can I do for you?"
Smith immediately explained the background: "When I was at sea, I saw the propeller ship that the Great Han was testing."
"The ship may have malfunctioned, but I think it's normal for malfunctions to occur during testing."
"When things are first invented, they are always accompanied by various faults and problems."
"As long as it can solve the problem, it will eventually be able to play a role."
"Propellers are far more suitable for ships than paddle wheels, especially for warships that need to deploy trains."
Zheng Fuguang was certainly aware of these things, but according to the secrecy regulations and the emperor's orders, he could not reveal the propeller.
Furthermore, Zheng Fuguang didn't understand Smith's purpose in saying these things, so he bluntly asked him, "Mr. Smith, please speak frankly. What are your specific requests for me?"
Smith, oblivious to Zheng Fuguang's impatience, happily continued to explain his suggestion: "I hope that Dahan will not abandon the application of propellers because of the malfunction."
Zheng Fuguang found Smith's words rather strange, so he couldn't help but chuckle and say, "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. Smith. We will not give up on a new research project just because of a few malfunctions."
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Smith breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this, opened his briefcase, and took out a document: "That's great. This is a copy of my propeller patent application in Britain."
"This includes my propeller design concepts and blueprints, which propeller researchers at Dahan can use as a reference."
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Smith's initial idea in coming to the Han Dynasty was to take this opportunity to meet the Han Emperor and persuade him to adopt his design to build propeller-driven ships.
However, the Great Han now has propellers and has even built large ships for testing.
His own ideas were thus thwarted, so he could only turn around and use the fact that the Great Han was using propellers as a reason to go back and persuade the British Navy to adopt propellers in building ships.
Therefore, we really hope that Dahan can continue testing the propeller.
Don't give up just because of a small problem.
Smith also believes that there must be a problem with the design of the propellers in the Great Hans, which is why they are prone to failure during testing.
In order to help Big Han solve the problem and use it as a reason to persuade the Navy, Smith offered to provide Big Han with creative support.
Zheng Fuguang casually thanked him, took the document from Smith, glanced at it, and immediately couldn't help but frown slightly.
Zheng Fuguang almost blurted out, "You're saying this thing is a propeller?"
Smith's first-generation propeller design differed greatly from modern, mature propellers.
The inspiration for Smith's propeller design came not from modern fans, but from Archimedes' spiral pump.
(Archimedes screw pump.)
Regardless of who actually invented the Archimedes pump, Smith's design was inspired by such a pumping device.
Smith was supposed to secure funding in 1836 and successfully build the world's first propeller-driven steam-powered sailing ship, which was then named after Archimedes.
So in Smith's original patent, the propeller was indeed a spiral blade, the shape of an Archimedes pump lying flat in the water.
A slender plate, or rather a blade, is wrapped around the drive shaft three times, like a rope.
Like a flat snake coiled on a pillar, this was the original propeller.
As for how to use it on a ship, Smith naturally designed it to use three shafts and two sets of nine-degree gears to form a Z-shaped transmission path, avoiding the difficult problem of dynamic sealing.
(Smith's earliest propeller patent drawing, which is also the most primitive propeller.)
The steam engine is located above the water surface, and the drive shaft is parallel to the water surface.
A set of 90-degree gears is used to connect a drive shaft perpendicular to the water surface, extending deep below the water surface.
Then, a set of 90-degree gears is used to connect to a drive shaft parallel to the water surface underwater, driving the propeller to rotate and propelling the ship forward.
Smith's first propeller boat malfunctioned during sea trials, and the propeller broke in two.
Smith noticed that the ship's speed had increased.
So Smith modified the patent, shortening the propeller length to only one spiral, eliminating the need for two or three more turns.
(The improved propeller patent shortens to a single spiral.)
To solve the vibration problem, Smith tried to disassemble the complete propeller plate into two blades embedded in the drive shaft, which avoided most of the vibration.
It wasn't until that time that it finally became somewhat similar to a modern propeller.
Later, the dynamic sealing problem was solved, which gradually led to the development of the modern propeller.
This is a typical process of continuous updating and iterative upgrading of inventions and creations.
The Han dynasty did not have anything like the Archimedes pump; the craftsmen were inspired by windmills to design propellers, since the blades were naturally dispersed.
Liu Yulong then directly guided the craftsmen of the Han Dynasty to create a relatively mature propeller shape, which is similar to the shape of modern household fan blades.
If you compare the propeller that the Great Han is using now with Smith's early inventions, most ordinary people would not be able to tell that they are the same thing.
Therefore, Liu Yulong specifically instructed Zheng Fuguang not to tell the Europeans about the shape of the propeller.
Zheng Fuguang originally thought that the shape Liu Yulong was referring to was the various design details of the propeller, such as the shape, angle and size of the blades.
After seeing Smith's blueprints, Zheng Fuguang realized Liu Yulong's true intention: the general shape of the propeller should be kept secret from them.
Remembering the emperor's instructions, Zheng Fuguang forced himself to suppress his astonishment and doubt, and said with a smile, "Thank you for your generous help, Mr. Smith. I will pass on your idea to the craftsmen in charge, which should be helpful for subsequent design and improvement."
Zheng Fuguang was merely being polite verbally, a common practice among Eastern scholars.
But Smith felt that Zheng Fuguang was serious and breathed a sigh of relief: "If you find any problems before I leave Dahan, you can come and consult me directly."
"I am willing to help the engineers at Dahan solve the relevant problems."
Zheng Fuguang responded politely, somewhat helplessly, "Thank you, Mr. Smith."
Just then, a clear bell rang out from outside.
Zheng Fuguang thought to himself, "Finally, I'm free." He immediately put down his teacup, stood up, and said, "The routine pre-departure checks are over. Everyone, please follow me onto the train and wait there."
After listening to the translation, everyone stood up one after another, feeling a mix of confusion, worry, and curiosity, and followed Zheng Fuguang out of the waiting hall. Led by the interpreter from the Honglu Temple, they headed to the train platform.
If you exit the small waiting hall and turn a corner, you'll see the platform and the trains on it.
The first impression everyone had of the train was that it was enormous.
When Stephenson, the train designer, saw it, he instinctively exclaimed, "My God, how can the carriages be so big?"
"Compared to a typical British carriage, the width and height have increased by at least a quarter, and the length has more than doubled."
"Wait a minute—is this carriage also made of steel? Or perhaps wrought iron?"
Zheng Fuguang felt that the other party hadn't asked him, so he didn't take the initiative to answer his question. However, the translator next to him was a little surprised and started talking to Stephenson: "Are your British carriages so small? Half the length of the Han carriages? And also narrow and low?"
"The train's carriage chassis and frame are made of mild steel; without mild steel, they would be easily damaged. The panels are all made of wood."
Stephenson, having confirmed that the carriages were made of soft steel and already somewhat numb, sighed and replied, "Yes, British carriages are indeed that small."
"As you said, the huge wooden carriages cannot withstand continuous bumps and are very easy to damage."
"Britain cannot be made of steel."
"Therefore, we can only make it slightly smaller to reduce the impact on the carriage."
"By the way—the distance of the train tracks in the Great Han Dynasty—"
The translator casually replied, "The distance between tracks in the Han Dynasty should be four feet (1600 millimeters) in the new system and one step in the old system."
Stephen turned to look at the endless steel rails in front of the train and peacefully closed his eyes.
After seeing the actual trains and rails, Stephenson realized another important problem.
Differences in weights and measures, and in different unit systems, lead to problems with machining accuracy.
Before I came here, I thought that the Han Dynasty had no railways, no large factories, and no locomotives and rails produced by itself.
That would naturally allow the Han to directly use British standards, adopting British-style rails and equipment.
He used the money from investors to purchase a large amount of British machinery and tools.
But now that the Han Dynasty has produced a batch of steam sailing ships, a batch of steam locomotives, and built a batch of railways.
They must already have their own commonly used track specifications, as well as their own factory and processing equipment standards.
The key point is that it was clearly impossible to use British standards before working directly with Britain.
The tools, machines, and orbital data used by the two sides will inevitably have subtle differences.
He could use the British system of units to carefully measure the specifications of the existing products of the Great Han in feet and draw up blueprints in the imperial standard.
They then used imperial equipment to produce and process products according to the Great Han standard.
However, this forced conversion of units results in all data having both whole and fractional parts, and some data cannot even be divided evenly.
Just like the clean number eight inches, which is 203.2 millimeters in the metric system.
The Han dynasty measurement appears to be a complete four-foot unit, but after conversion to imperial units, it's unclear how many decimal places it would have.
The craftsman could only stare at a space of one inch and judge the difference between two decimal places by feeling.
We can only find a fraction of a similar position.
It is naturally difficult to precisely control the error range, and the error will definitely be greater than when using Chinese-made equipment.
If the Han Dynasty didn't have these things and simply used imperial units for production, there wouldn't be any problems.
However, the Han Dynasty already possessed a large number of its own manufactured machines and equipment.
From the perspective of the Han Chinese, this would suggest that the British equipment lacked precision, and they might not have purchased it.
Stephenson grew increasingly desperate and no longer knew how to face his investors.
The more Stephenson thought about the investment, the angrier he became, and he cursed in a near-breakdown: "Fuck you! You guys didn't know anything back then! And you dared to invest so much money all at once."
"They don't even allow gold or silver to be brought in, only equipment and materials!"
"You all fucking brought this on yourselves, and you can't fucking blame me for losing this money—"
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