Chapter 485 336. Steam Tank (a bit boring)
(Pictures are fun, I won’t write about this next time)
The question was sent by Alatar, who has been presiding over Lauren Loren’s excavation activities. Darkus watched it before All the sketches were drawn by her, and she is currently the one who knows the most about steam engines among the sorceresses.
Darkus leaned over, picked up the sketch and looked at it. The entire steam tank looked like a rectangular box. Although it could accommodate five members inside, the space was very narrow, and all crew members had to cooperate with each other to share the space.
An artillery piece is placed at the front end. However, this artillery is not a common front-loading cannon, but a rear-loading steam-powered cannon. It requires two crew members, a main weapon operator and a main weapon loader, to operate the gun. The rear part of the gun can be disassembled. Like a pressure cooker with handles on both ends.
Put the gunpowder into the bottom of the pot, then put the barrier plate and the cannonball. Finally, install a barrier plate in front of the cannonball so that the cannonball is sandwiched between the two barrier plates. At the same time, connect the lead to the internal gunpowder. After everything is done, , combine the pressure cooker with the front muzzle by tightening bolts, but this is only the first step.
While steam-powered cannons require gunpowder, they also rely on steam or water-driven systems. After the ammunition is loaded, the main weapon operator needs to hold the grips at both ends of the cannon body, adjust the fixed joint between the power cannon and the body to aim, and ignite the fuze. At the same time, steam is also added to the cannon body, filling the cannon bore with pressure. Under the influence of gunpowder and steam, a cannonball is launched.
It seems quite bluffing, but in fact, that’s all. Whether it’s the steam gun in the turret above the tank or the power cannon at the front of the body, steam assistance is needed. Once these two weapons are taken out of the steam tank, or the boiler of the steam tank If you can't work, you won't be able to do it well. Steam guns cannot fire at all, and rear-mounted power cannons will become even weaker without steam pressure assistance. These weapons themselves are designed on steam tanks and belong to specific models, so these weapons are usually lighter and shorter than serious artillery weapons of the same type, which also results in the range and power of these weapons being less than ideal.
In order to cope with this weak situation, the weapons have been continuously upgraded and become various in the five hundred years since the emergence of steam tanks. Leonardo designed a total of twelve tanks, and finally eight survived. When a steam tank is destroyed or disappears in battle, the wreckage is recovered and meticulously repaired at all costs, and the surviving tanks gradually become unstable and inefficient. It is very rare for eight tanks to go out together, or they are divided. The departments are in different places, either undergoing maintenance and repairs.
These eight steam tanks are known as the Eight Wonders of the Empire. Each of them has been repaired, modified and rebuilt many times. They are very different from the original Leonardo design. Many have been renamed to commemorate a certain person. A victory in a war or an improvement brought about by a genius engineer.
The Conqueror used conventional steam-powered cannon and steam gun turrets. The same is true for the Redeemer, but an additional boiler pylon is installed, which is like the connection between the coal and water injection carriage mounted on the locomotive and the steam tank. The boiler pylon contains a connected water tank, allowing the steam tank to consume more More steam power can be used to operate more powerful weapons and equipment, so the Redeemer's cannon is more powerful than the Conqueror.
The Emperor's Fury and Old Man were equipped with triple Hellblaster cannon and steam gun turrets. The Merciless is rather strange. It adopts an open-top design, and the entire fighting room is exposed. It is equipped with a mortar and two revolving guns. The Indomitable does not have any weapons, and it is more like rushing a car when fighting.
The Miragliano was equipped with a Bazalguet-type revolver, which acted like a hedgehog and attacked enemies close to the front and sides of the steam tank. The Von Zippel's hull did not house steam-powered guns. Inspired by the design of horse-drawn war wagons, the combat platform established a defensive ring around the top edge of the steam tank. In addition to providing cover, some firearms can also be set up to prevent the soldiers on top from falling when the steam tank moves.
Darkus has no interest in the so-called Eight Wonders of the Empire. In his opinion, these are just products that the Empire cannot help. An Ankylosaurus covered in Keith steel external armor and equipped with a solar engine on top is no worse than a steam tank. The problem is that the Empire has no Ankylosaurus, only ghosts and monsters that are not used by the Empire. It only has steel, gunpowder and faith that the Empire trusts. For There is still magic that has not yet appeared.
In addition to the two crew members of the main weapon operator and the main weapon loader, the steam tank is also equipped with a commander. The so-called commander must not only be able to command, but also have relevant thresholds, such as senior engineer qualifications and understanding of operation and maintenance. That bad-tempered steam boiler must be operated by the commander, because the driver cannot drive and operate the boiler at the same time.
In battle, the engineer commander who directs the steam tank battle will transport steam to the parts where it is needed, such as the pistons that drive the wheels or steam-driven weapons. Since the steam tank does not have the function of displaying the pressure intensity of the boiler, the commander Judgment must be made by the screeching sound coming from the boiler, the hissing sound escaping from the imperfectly sealed pipes and the cloud of vapor building up around it.
This is a superb and subtle art. If the pressure is not enough, the steam tank will stall at the most critical time. If the pressure is excessive, the boiler will be at risk of rupture. This consequence is very dangerous, and there are many theories.
Turning off the flame is just the smallest mistake. After all, it can be re-pressurized to start. The higher the intensity, the higher the intensity. If the pressure is wrong, a shaking vibration will cause the steam tank to shake, and then the power system will overspeed, or it will crash into a Insurmountable obstacles will either crash into unsuspecting allies or travel in the opposite direction of the battlefield, while erratic operation can cause gear damage and lead to even more horrific things.
The steam tank's pipes will violently eject a small, uncontrolled stream of water vapor from the closed system, causing significant steam damage to those inside. Of course, there is not only steam, but also water. The hot water gushes out from the boiler, and the steam formed instantly suffocates the members inside the tank. This is also one of the reasons why young engineers are reluctant to join the steam tank crew. After a battle, no one knows whether they will be blown into pieces or steamed alive, and their skin will be stained by steam or heat. The scars caused by water erosion are all good results.
Once the pipe connecting the steam tank's weapons and boiler is cut off, the members will suffer damage and the steam-driven weapons will malfunction, so the steam tank will lose its combat capability. When a small-scale explosion occurs in the boiler, the steam tank will come to a screeching halt. In the event of a breakdown, the vehicle cannot move. Repairing such an accident usually requires several days of work in a specialized workshop. If you are lucky, you will have a high commander skill point and If there are response parts in the vehicle, a solution can be pieced together on site to allow the steam tank to return to combat, but the probability is very low.
The most terrifying thing is a meltdown. The loss of control of the boiler will cause a catastrophic explosion, submerging the members in boiling water vapor. With luck, the steam tank can be brought back to the workshop for repair, but the members are definitely hopeless. Unlucky enough, it exploded, creating a cloud of superheated steam and scattered metal shards.
The other two members are the turret weapons operator and driver. Of course, these configurations are common. Some steam tanks without weapons at all do not need the commander and driver. The driving experience of the steam tank is not that good. Whenever the main gun fires, the vibration and noise caused by the recoil impact the body and the organs and structures of the crew members.
This also caused many commanders to lean out of the top of the turret to stay away from the narrow and uncomfortable interior after adjusting the boiler. Although this vantage point would be attacked by a hail of bullets, it would also provide them with a broad field of vision, allowing them to There is an opportunity to use firearms to attack enemies climbing on top of the vehicle.
In addition to the weapon system, a steam tank also has a power system and an engineering system internally used to drive the tank. These two systems complement the weapon system and maintain and ensure the combat effectiveness of the steam tank at an intermediate value.
In Darkus' view, some problems can be solved by elimination. Weapon systems and engineering systems are just that. The problem still lies in the power system. Perhaps this is the reason why the empire cannot continue to imitate it? But this doesn’t make sense. Every part of a steam tank can be modified. If a tank has been used for five hundred years, every part will definitely be replaced with a new one. So is this still the same steam tank? Ship of Theseus? No... that's too far.
However, what Darkus didn't know was that the Empire had regained the ability to recreate steam tanks five hundred years later. In AD 2499, the Imperial Engineering Academy in Nuln built the tank since they attempted to restore Leonardo's design. The most successful imitation since, but the entire academy was razed to the ground along with their prototype in an accident that occurred when Gotrek and Felix fought the Skaven in the sewers of Nuln. occurred in. Despite this, the engineers at the Imperial Engineering College did not give up. They built another prototype called Old Red, and then... the end was coming. Darkus believes that the biggest problem with steam tanks lies in the power system. He doesn't know much about this aspect. He only knows that the ideal evaporation power of the boiler is infinite, and the engine consumption, friction, heat loss, and air leakage etc. The ideal state is infinitesimally small. If the friction is small, the gap between the piston and the sliding rod will be large. If the gap is large, the air tightness will be poor, and the boiler evaporation capacity must be large. Therefore, air tightness and friction are the biggest keys to determining the boiler power.
However, this is just a thought. The evaporation capacity of the boiler is not infinite under ideal conditions. The evaporation capacity of a boiler is affected by many factors such as its design and fuel efficiency, and there are certain physical limitations. The ideal state is an assumption that is usually used to simplify the problem, but there will be various practical constraints in actual engineering.
Secondly, mechanical factors such as friction, piston and slide rod clearance do affect the efficiency of the engine. Low friction helps reduce energy loss, but it is not always better because ensuring proper sealing between the piston and slide rod is crucial. A gap that is too small may cause air leakage, while friction that is too large will increase energy loss.
Steam engine is just a noun, a general term. Just like guns, there are front-loading guns and breech-loading guns, and various guns were later derived. The same is true for steam engines. Except for those experimental, formal theoretical or conceptual steam engines, the first steam engine that could actually be used was not invented by Watt. Little Watt was observing when his grandmother was boiling water on the stove. He discovered that the steam lifted the lid of the kettle, so he invented the steam engine when he grew up. This story should be heard in early childhood education.
The first practical steam engine was invented half a century before Watt was born, and Watt's steam engine did not rely on steam pressure to work.
An English blacksmith named Thomas Newcastle combined a boiler, a piston cylinder and a beam transmission structure to create the Newcastle steam engine. He did not produce any major components, and there was no need for innovation, but his steam engine was a true innovation. This kind of innovation is called integration. The steam engine he invented was targeted and could only be used in mines. Before the emergence of the Newcomen steam engine, water accumulation in mines had always been a headache.
If Darkus had come a few hundred years later, he would have discovered that Lauren Loren's bombed silver mountain was being mined by humans. Those mines did not have atmospheric steam engines, only bucket teams. These miners were responsible for Transport the buckets to the conveyor belt so that the standing water can be dumped onto the surface. Larger mines used water pumps, either by constructing waterwheels located near nearby rivers and or waterfalls, or by a team of horses pulling huge gears. The mechanism powered pistons and pumped the water to the surface, where it was then pumped through wooden pipes and The ore waste was then transported to nearby streams or ponds, which would have been prohibitively expensive in any world before the Newcomen steam engine.
However, the Newcastle steam engine is not that good. It consumes a lot of steam when working, which causes the steam engine to require a large amount of coal. This kind of steam engine has been widely used in the north, because there are coal mines there, and some stagnant water has been flooded for several years. Coal mines that existed for centuries can be mined again because of the emergence of steam engines. Mine owners can use unsold pit coal to power steam engines, but this cannot be done elsewhere. Apart from coal mine prices and water transportation, etc., the root cause lies in utilization. The efficiency is low, resulting in huge coal consumption. It is said that the utilization rate is only 0.5, and other energy is consumed in vain.
James Watt made a major improvement half a century later by diverting the waste steam into a separate vessel for condensation. This improvement increased the efficiency of the steam engine, driven by air pressure that pushed a piston into the partial vacuum created by the condensed steam. Not the pressure of the expanding steam. He then further developed the steam engine, modifying it to provide a rotary valve actuation suitable for driving machinery, which allowed factories to be moved away from rivers.
These early steam engines had limited efficiency, but were safer because their pressure was lower and the machines would collapse inward in the event of damage rather than exploding outward. The efficiency of a steam engine is limited by external air pressure, cylinder deformation, combustion and boiling efficiency, and condensation capacity. The theoretical maximum efficiency is limited by the relatively low boiling temperature of water under ordinary atmospheric pressure.
The use of high-temperature and high-pressure steam has greatly improved the efficiency of steam engines, but this type of steam engines is more dangerous. Explosions of boilers and machines have caused many major accidents. With the progress of the times, more and more steam engines and supporting water tube boilers have been developed.
It is said that Leonardo invented the steam tank because he was obsessed with the dwarves' iron-clad steamships. After that, he built one of his own, and then it exploded during the trial. He drowned but did not lose his ambition and passion. He made his own The idea moved to land. Thus, the steam tank was born, taking the basic design of the armored steamer and modifying it.
A large high-pressure boiler channels superheated steam through a series of pipes and pistons to power the steam tank. In the first steam tanks, engineers had to tell how much pressure was building up inside the boiler by the intensity of the whistle and the amount of steam escaping from the imperfectly sealed pipes surrounding the boiler.
Darkus feels that the steam engines in the sketch are roughly divided into two types, namely pressure type and compound type. Although they look different, the core design concept is to use high-pressure steam to reduce the weight of the engine and improve its efficiency. He felt that there were problems with this design idea. First of all, the forging process was not good. Even if it was a cylindrical boiler, the air pressure was unevenly distributed. Although it was small in size, it was a bit forced. There were also problems with mathematical formulas such as air pressure, which relied more on metaphysics. and engineer feel.
If the wheels of the steam tank run on the rails, the reliability of the steam engine will be greatly improved. Once it goes off-road, it will not work, and the reliability will drop off a cliff, especially when it is necessary to provide steam for weapons during combat. To put it bluntly, the steam engine starts from the technology When it comes to design, from theory to practice, it doesn't work. If you zoom in to the whole, there is a problem with the entire steam tank design idea.
Perhaps the steam engine and car body should be enlarged and made into something similar to a crawler fortress. The fortress does not need dozens of tons, as long as the defensive outer shell is slightly hard enough. If it really doesn't work, just refer to the gear fortress of the next era, a serious land battleship, with a steampunk aspect.
"Copy a copy now." Darkus felt his head hurt a little. He just put down the sketch and rubbed the root of his nose with his fingers before saying. He arrived early. The steam tank was still in the drawing stage. Leonardo was always seen wrapped in bandages, covering various burns. The steam tank was blown up right after it was built. Maybe it was because of his arrival. , the college that Stephen Franz funded during his lifetime will be shut down by his nephew. After all, it has not produced any results, and now it is causing such a big trouble.
It still needs to be returned. What if the academy was not banned and was built by those engineers? Something is better than nothing, how do you say that? Steel, gunpowder and faith!
Forget about the advice from the elves. Darkus knows that the sorceresses around him don't have the ability to go from zero to one, because zero has no concept for these sorceresses. It's a bit difficult to make something from scratch. Steelmaking The system came out because Druchi itself has a mature casting system. With a little inspiration, it can be upgraded on the original basis.
As for this steam engine, Darkus felt that the road was still a bit far away, but it would be good to have more references. His requirements were actually very low, as long as it was stable and could drive the celestial axis. He does not require that the locomotive that has been fully formed in his previous life can be made into a complete 4-6-0. The main purpose of the current design is to transport goods, and it does not pull any big things, such as placing the war hydra in Transported on a trolley.
I'm so stupid today
(end of chapter)