Siheyuan: Game of Red Dust

Chapter 16 Converter Top and Bottom Combined Blowing Technology

Li Weidong led the people from the technical department into the workshop.

Without disturbing the production, he stood by with the technicians and engineers from the technical department, explaining to them the working principle of the equipment and the functions of the parts on the equipment. Then he took out the improved drawings of the corresponding equipment and continued to explain the theory of improvement.

For a day, Li Weidong led the technical team through the various workshops. Whenever a piece of equipment malfunctioned, he would have the technicians repair it using the principles he had just explained. After the repair, Li Weidong would provide feedback.

Time slipped by unnoticed, and it was time to leave. The workers handed over their shifts in an orderly manner. Li Weidong finished explaining another piece of equipment before reminding the technical staff that he would continue the explanation tomorrow and that it was time to leave for the day.

The technician from the technical department met Li Weidong separately with a look of gratitude and excitement on his face, then walked out of the workshop with his notebook full of notes, ready to go home.

Today's presentation was quite astonishing for the technicians and engineers in the technical department. They had never been taught this way before. They felt they had thoroughly understood Li Weidong's explanation. In the future, if this type of equipment malfunctioned, they would be able to identify the problem without disassembling it, and even replicate it.

Of course, during this period, Zhang also asked Li Weidong, "Based on Li Weidong's accumulated knowledge, he should be able to design more advanced equipment. Why bother to improve the equipment? Wouldn't it be better to just produce new equipment and replace it with new equipment?"
Li Weidong’s response was: There is no need for the time being.

First, the new equipment has very high requirements for materials. The new equipment produced with existing materials will not provide much improvement over the existing equipment and will also cost a lot of money.

Second, for the current steel resources of the flower growers, improvements are enough. It is useless to spend huge amounts of money to produce better equipment because there are only so many steel resources.

After a day of explanation, they were very grateful and trusted Li Weidong who taught them step by step.

They didn't quite understand, but they didn't ask any more questions. This wasn't something they should be thinking about; the most urgent thing was to understand what the director was saying.

Li Weidong sent away the people from the technical department, left the factory, and walked towards the courtyard.

I have to go to the black market tonight to trade the meat I agreed to buy! I'll also look for antiques, gold, jade, and other things to see if I can figure out why the space has expanded.

In the evening, Li Weidong went to the black market again, but apart from selling the agreed items, he didn't get anything else.

Over the next few days, he continued to give lectures in the workshop. When he finished explaining open-hearth steelmaking in the steelmaking workshop, Li Weidong remembered the name of the converter top-bottom combined blowing technology from his previous life. He then grabbed a notebook and began writing and drawing.

The people in the technical department stood by and looked at their director, not daring to speak for fear of disturbing him.

The converter steelmaking technology has appeared a long time ago, but the top and bottom combined blowing technology did not appear until the 70 years ago, and it was not until modern times that the technology gradually matured.

Just like open-hearth steelmaking, it only appeared in the 19th century and it was not until the First World War that the details of this technology were perfected.

Initially, converter steelmaking used converter top-blown oxygen technology. This resulted in a dead zone for molten pool stirring, causing uneven composition and temperature in the molten pool, and uneven erosion of the furnace lining. This was particularly pronounced in the later stages of the furnace life when the furnace capacity ratio increased.

What Li Weidong designed at this moment was the top and bottom compound blowing technique.

The top and bottom combined blowing process is a new steelmaking technology that has become basically mature after decades of experiments and practice.

That is, during the smelting process, the top blowing of the converter is combined with the bottom blowing of inert gas to evenly stir the molten pool, so that the reaction of the molten pool is balanced.

It not only improves the quality of molten steel and reduces the cost of steelmaking, but also increases the flexibility and adaptability of the converter and improves the converter's ability to melt scrap steel.

The amount of scrap steel fed into the furnace can be flexibly adjusted according to market scrap steel and molten iron price fluctuations, thereby achieving economic benefits. This technology can produce steel faster and better, and the steel has better performance.

Compared with the open-hearth steelmaking technology of current steel rolling mills, its output is much higher.

Moreover, a furnace of molten steel can produce up to one or two hundred tons, which is not comparable to open-hearth technology.

The point is, the technology isn't complicated.

Decades of accumulated successful experience, coupled with a little bit of improvement, have resulted in a technology that is mature and stable.

With Li Weidong's accumulated knowledge, his evolved and more intelligent brain, and his understanding of mechanical equipment.

Li Weidong also spent more than three hours, and it was around four o'clock in the afternoon before he drew the calculated drawings.

At the same time, some detailed details of the technology were written in the blank space of the drawings. The current annual steel production of the Flower Planting Family is about 5 to 6 million tons.

However, with the top and bottom combined blowing technology of the converter, it would be easy to increase the steel production of Zhonghuajia tenfold without increasing the current number of steel mills.

If a more professional large-scale steel mill is built, then in less than four years, the steel production of the Zhonghua family can exceed 100 million tons. You should know that the Zhonghua family did not reach 100 million tons of steel production until the late 1990s.

Now, as long as this technology is promoted, we can achieve a steel production of 100 million tons before the 1970s.

After Li Weidong finished painting, he noticed that this was in the workshop and the technicians from the technical department had been standing there for several hours.

"Sorry, an idea suddenly struck me just now and I wasn't paying attention. Everyone go back and review the instructions first. We'll be preparing to improve the equipment tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, so everyone go back and prepare! Engineer Zhang, Engineer Wang, Engineer Chen, and I will go to the factory director to discuss the improvement plan."

After Li Weidong finished speaking, he took Secretary Xiao Wang and three engineers to see the factory director.

I walked to Director Wang's office, knocked on the door, and was invited in by Director Wang.

After Li Weidong came in, he didn't waste any time and talked to the three engineers and Director Wang about the situation of the workshop equipment and the improvement plan. The four of them then discussed improving the equipment in that workshop first and experimenting with it. If successful, they would improve the remaining workshops one by one.

After finalizing the improvement plan, Li Weidong said to Director Wang, "Could you please go to the Ministry of Industry? I have a very important drawing here that must be handed over to the top leader." Then he handed the notebook recording the top and bottom combined blowing technology of the converter to Director Wang.

Director Wang's expression immediately turned serious. He looked at the notebook in his hand, which contained incomprehensible design drawings and densely packed instructions.

Director Wang couldn't understand it, but that didn't stop him from seeing some things. It was obvious that this was an extra-large equipment.

The dimensions were all marked in meters, and they were often tens or even hundreds of meters.

"Mr. Li, what is this?"

"This is a new steelmaking technology. If what I envision is successful, it could increase our steel production by about ten times. Director, please bring it to the senior leadership and have them find someone to see if it's feasible."

"Ten times! I'm going to the Ministry of Industry now."

Director Wang was shocked and walked out of the office with his notebook.

Li Weidong: ...

After leaving the office, Director Wang went directly to the security department and asked them to find a locked box. He placed the notes inside the box and locked it. He also fetched handcuffs and cuffed his wrists to the box. Then, he took two armed security guards to the Ministry of Industry.

Li Weidong took the three engineers back to the technical department, where they arranged the groups for tomorrow's equipment improvements and discussed the improvement plan for tomorrow. Then they prepared to leave work.

The working hours in this era are six days a week with one day off, and eight hours a day.

These days, overtime is rare unless it is a special case.

When he got off work, Li Weidong walked towards the courtyard.

Many workers greeted Li Weidong along the way.

Li Weidong's photo and some of his achievements were already posted on the factory's big-character posters. Furthermore, Li Weidong had recently led the technical department in the workshop to learn about the equipment, and few workers didn't know him.

Li Weidong also greeted everyone with a smile.

Some aunties even asked Li Weidong if he had a partner, and it seemed that they wanted to introduce him to someone.

Li Weidong politely declined on the grounds that he was still young.

(End of this chapter)