Dreaming back to 1949, the great powers were there to deceive us

After the meeting, Hu Zhenhua followed Jiang Yunhai to Tongan Machinery Factory. He couldn't wait to visit the machinery factory's R&D projects.

On the way, Lao Hu got a general understanding of the machinery factory through chatting with Jiang Yunhai.

At present, the main building of the factory has been completed and the ancillary facilities are currently under construction.

The factory has recruited a lot of talents in the field of machinery.

Huang Jie, an expert in the field of hydraulics.

Shao Xiping, an expert in the field of electric motors, is currently researching stepper motors and servo motors.

Lan Mo, steelmaking expert.

……

All of them are returnees from overseas, with both profound theoretical knowledge and rich design experience.

Hu Zhenhua and Jiang Yunhai walked and talked, and soon they arrived at a huge factory building.

Even late at night, countless workers were still busy coming and going. Sparks from welding were everywhere, as well as the sounds of forging and hammering. Lao Hu even saw an electric arc furnace used for steelmaking.

The machinery factory currently has twelve workshops, namely steelmaking, cutting, casting, forging, welding, stamping, extrusion...

Since traveling through time, this is the first time that Lao Hu has been in a machinery factory.

He stroked the machine beside him and felt the beauty of industry.

This will be the cradle of Tongan's independent industry!

Suddenly, Lao Hu's eyes stopped on the hot-rolled piercing machine. A heat-treated steel ingot rotated into the piercing machine, and when it came out, a small inner hole had appeared inside.

Lao Hu grabbed Jiang Yunhai's arm,

"Dr. Jiang, we can actually produce seamless steel pipes?"

Jiang Yunhai shook his head.

“It’s not production, it’s experimentation. Even if we know the production principles, there’s still a long way to go before we can truly realize industrial production!”

Hu Zhenhua nodded.

Research and development is just the first hurdle. At this stage, you don’t need to consider the cost, you just need to develop it.

Mass production, however, is different. First and foremost, you must consider the maturity and stability of the technology. New R&D results may perform well in small-scale experiments or under specific conditions, but large-scale production requires ensuring the maturity and stability of the technology to cope with complex production environments and quality requirements. Any technical flaws or uncertainties could lead to delays or even failures in mass production.

Secondly, you need to consider the production process and equipment. New products and production lines often need to be customized, which involves new research and development.

In addition to these, you also have to consider a series of issues such as cost, quality, supply chain and market demand.

Hu Zhenhua watched for a while. After hot piercing, the workers began to send the billet tube to the next process: sizing and reducing.

This is followed by cold drawing, cold rolling and heat treatment.

These are basically the processes. However, any mature product must go through countless tests. Just the cold and hot tests are not easy to pass!

Lao Hu did not stay for too long. The experiment was not something he could interfere with, so he had to leave it to professionals.

Soon, Lao Hu was attracted by something else.

"Where did we get these lathes? They look very advanced."

Many machine tools are semi-automatic. With the development of electronic technology, they will soon enter the era of fully automatic machine tools.

Next up is the CNC machine tools!

Lao Hu is confident that with him around, Tongan will not make the wrong choice on the technology tree.

"The machinery factory has many mechanical experts who studied abroad in the United States. When they heard about the recruitment in Tongan, they returned without hesitation. These machine tools were purchased with their help."

"The US is willing to sell such advanced machine tools?"

Jiang Yunhai smiled and said,

"We bid high and acted quickly. To be prepared for any eventuality, we purchased the core components and had them airlifted back in batches."

Hu Zhenhua's eyes rolled around and he suddenly asked,

"If I give you some more money, can you buy more? I want a wide variety of products, books, drawings, machine tools, etc. As long as it involves high-tech content, I want it! But this must be done in secret!"

Jiang Yunhai heard this and after a moment of silence asked,

“How much funding can you provide?”

Hu Zhenhua was overjoyed. Jiang Yunhai dared to say such a thing, which meant that he had connections.

"One hundred million Mi Yuan, if that's not enough, I'll provide more!"

Jiang Yunhai was shocked when he heard the amount.

There was no joy on his face, only a sense of great responsibility.

"let me try!"

Hu Zhenhua shook his hand and said excitedly,

"Don't be afraid of spending money! If we rely on our own research and development, the cost will be even higher. I can still figure it out!"

Jiang Yunhai was very moved by the leadership who attached great importance to technology. He immediately said,

"I'll do my best!"

Next, Hu Zhenhua visited the fully automatic rifling machine.

The Thor Artillery Factory and Houyi Firearms Factory have a huge demand for rifling engraving, but this work is extremely complicated.

If it is done manually, it may take three to five days to carve one.

In fact, the principle of the rifling machine is not complicated. The technical difficulty lies in how to control it accurately.

Hu Zhenhua really had no suggestions in this regard. He thought about it and asked,

“Do you know what a CNC machine tool is?”

Jiang Yunhai looked at everyone and found that they were also confused.

"Chairman, what kind of machine tool is this?"

"A CNC machine tool is an automated machine tool equipped with a program control system. It is operated through a digital control system and can achieve high-precision and high-efficiency processing."

CNC machine tools involve multiple disciplines such as software, circuits, motors, and mechanics.

Especially software, which simply does not exist in this era.

Jiang Yunhai frowned deeply.

"Chairman, which country developed CNC machine tools? I've never heard of them!"

Hu Zhenhua thought for a moment and began to explain.

"Let me give you an example. If you want to cut an 85mm steel bar, with a traditional machine tool, you have to first adjust the machine tool so that the cutter stops at 85mm. Later, I need a 90mm steel bar, so I have to adjust it again."

"For CNC machine tools, the debugging work will be handled by the pre-set program. I only need to enter 85, and the machine will automatically cut at 85 mm. I enter 90 again, and the machine will cut at 90 mm!"

"The so-called program is a language, a language that machines can understand!"

Beside him, engineer Yan Ming suddenly laughed.

“How can a machine understand language?”

Lao Hu was silent for a moment and said,

"The so-called language that machines can understand is actually a kind of optical and electrical signal. For example, if I want to cut 85 mm of steel bars, the circuit board will convert the 85 I input into a specific signal. After receiving the signal, the motor will control the cutter to stay at the 85 mm position!"

Yan Ming suddenly realized,

"I see! Chairman, when you say programming, do you mean creating circuits in advance that can drive the machine tools to perform various actions?!"

Hu Zhenhua slapped his thigh and shouted,

"Mr. Yan, your understanding is close, but not quite accurate. The control system of a machine tool should be implemented by the coordination of software and hardware. Specifically, it is like installing a brain in the machine tool!"

A relieved smile appeared on Yan Ming's face.

"If you put it that way, CNC machine tools might be the future development trend! However, this requires the cooperation of multiple disciplines."

He looked at Shao Xiping, the motor expert, and asked,

"Lao Shao, can your motor control the cutter to stop precisely at 85mm?"

"It's very difficult, but I will overcome it!"

Hu Zhenhan immediately interrupted,

"Mr. Shao, what about the 85.3 mm?"

Shao Xiping's face turned red and he opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.

Hu Zhenhua understood that millimeter level was already difficult, let alone micrometer level.

"Mr. Shao, I don't mean to give you a hard time. What I want to say is that precision is also a characteristic of CNC machine tools."

Mr. Shao nodded.

"Chairman, this is also the direction I am working towards."

Yan Ming rubbed his eyebrows.

"There's no one among us who's good at circuits!"

A group of engineers looked disappointed when they heard this, and one of them sighed,

"Are Western machine tools so advanced?"

Hu Zhenhua laughed heartily.

"Of course not. When it comes to CNC machine tools, the West and we are at the same starting line. No, we are ahead because we already have a clear concept, while the West is still groping!"

"Really?"

Yan Ming grabbed Lao Hu's arm again.

"The concept of CNC machine tools was proposed by the Chinese?"

"Yes! But he is dead! Alas!"

Seeing everyone dejected, Jiang Yunhai shouted,

"Since we're ahead, there's no need to be discouraged. Let's start the project right away!"

Hu Zhenhua quickly stood up and waved his hand.

"Everyone, calm down! While project approval is essential, we can't launch it immediately. The core of CNC machine tools is the control system, which relies heavily on circuitry. We can first conduct theoretical and subsystem research, such as precise motor start and stop, and machine tool precision."

When talking about motors, countless memories come to Hu Zhenhua's mind.

There are four main types of CNC machine tool motors, including stepper motors, servo motors, DC gear motors, and AC gear motors.

In addition, there are brushless motors, asynchronous motors, synchronous motors...

Although Hu Zhenhua doesn’t know the names of some motors, he knows their principles.

After Lao Hu's explanation, Tongan's motor level is in the leading position, at least in theory.

After listening to Lao Hu's story and looking at his drawings, the engineers felt like they had found a treasure and started discussing it in great detail.

Although engineers specialize in specific fields, it does not mean that they do not understand other fields.

Some people are even all-rounders.

This whole process took more than three hours.

Although it was late at night, Hu Zhenhua was not sleepy at all and his spirit was in a state of high excitement.

Also in a state of excitement was Charlie from Huifeng Trading Company.

He has received news that the share issuance of Fog City Real Estate has been very smooth and has raised at least 4000 million pounds.

Just now, he reached an agreement with Zhao Zhi to acquire all the real estate held by him at a premium of 10% of the cost.

With this batch of goods, the major foreign companies will be able to drive down the prices of real estate early tomorrow morning.

After all, such a large sell order flooding into the market will definitely cause panic.

……