Super Chief

　　 In the history of iron smelting, coke, iron ore, and limestone were listed as the three major raw materials for iron smelting. The West, which opened the history of modern ironmaking, believes that coke, like steam engines, iron and steel, is one of the four main factors that contributed to the accelerated development of the first industrial revolution.

　　The position of coke in the history of iron smelting is unshakable.

　　 In later generations, modern iron smelting was marked by the construction of large blast furnaces. The use of large blast furnaces to smelt iron must be based on the realization of mechanized coking and steam blast technology as a prerequisite.

　　 Although Shixiong knows how to make coking and also knows what a blower is, according to his current conditions, he can never make a mechanized coking and steam blower.

　　 Therefore, Shixiong can only use the most primitive earth method for coking and wooden bellows as the blowing equipment.

　　 These things are all learned when working in museums in previous lives, and they are all the knowledge that the ancestors of China have mastered thousands of years ago.

　　 Although the history of iron smelting in China predates the West, modern iron smelting originated in the Western United Kingdom, and mechanized coking also originated in the United Kingdom.

　　 In the UK in the seventh century, the capitalist economy developed rapidly, which greatly stimulated the demand for steel, but a huge obstacle plagued the development of steel in the UK, that is, the shortage of iron smelting fuel.

　　 In that era, whether it was China or foreign countries, it was a general consensus between the East and the West to use charcoal as fuel to smelt iron.

But long-term charcoal smelting has resulted in a large number of trees being cut down and vegetation destroyed. Iron smelting needs to be developed, and the heat and temperature generated by the burning of charcoal are not enough. Therefore, in the seventeenth century, an urgent problem was Development of new fuels.

　　 At that time, some people used coal instead of charcoal, but the sulfur contained in the coal would cause the hot brittleness of pig iron, making it impossible to forge it into shape. Later, someone used coke instead of charcoal and finally succeeded, but this success took more than 80 years.

　　 The man who solved the coke problem for Britain was called Abraham Darby.

Mr. Darby was born in 1678. In his early years, he worked as an apprentice in a maltose factory in Birmingham. After his apprenticeship expired in 1699, he moved to Bristol, where he started a company with others to make household copper pots. Later, due to the high cost of copper, Darby decided to try to cast the pot with iron and succeeded, and also applied for a patent.

　　 The cast iron pots used in the Gaoshu tribe are most likely produced by Mr. Darby’s company...

　　The cast iron pot has brought a huge profit to Mr. Darby, but again, a large amount of pig iron is needed to produce a large amount of cast iron pot.

　　 So Darby founded his own iron factory and conducted experiments on coking iron.

　　In the experiment, Darby found that coke is not as easy to burn as charcoal. It is necessary to improve the blast facilities and adjust the furnace structure to obtain more sufficient wind power so that the coke can be fully burned. Therefore, he improved the inner diameter of the blast furnace to adapt it to coke ironmaking, and installed a new blasting facility for the blast furnace. The improved blast furnace successfully used coke for ironmaking in 1709.

　　 The coke ironmaking was successful, but the hydraulic blast of a water turbine was used. This kind of wind is only suitable for small blast furnaces. For large blast furnaces, the wind generated by hydraulic blast is too small.

　　 This problem was not solved until 1776. In that year, the steam engine replaced the hydraulic blast in the blast furnace ironmaking. At this point, the ironmaking industry not only got rid of its dependence on wood, but also got rid of its dependence on water power, thus obtaining sufficient room for development. However, the ironmaking at this time is not yet the realization of modern ironmaking. The advent of this process still needs to wait until 1904.

　　In other words, now including the most developed Britain in the world, iron smelting only uses earthen blast furnaces. It is equivalent to the kind of earth blast furnace used in China's large-scale smelting of steel after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

　　 No matter what blast furnace is used to smelt iron, it is inseparable from coke.

　　 But if you want to make coking, under the current situation, you can only use the earth coke oven to make coking.

　　 Although the big pit that the stone bears had dug out by the tribe can also be used for coking, the big pit is not a clay coke oven, but it is enough for coking and burning refractory bricks.

　　 Ishikuma intends to wait for the coal in this pit to be smelted into coke and fired enough refractory bricks before starting to build a new earth coke oven.

　　 Earth coke oven, also called earth kiln, is an invention of the Chinese people. An earth kiln can't be built by just digging a large pit. It takes many processes to build an earth kiln that can fully coke.

　　Like this big pit that has not been dug out for a long time, put 10,000 catties of coal in it, and it would be pretty good to be able to produce three thousand catties of qualified coke. Had it not been for the simultaneous firing of refractory bricks, Shixiong would not have adopted such a backward coking process.

　　 In the past, Shixiong once saw many coking earth kilns built in the early twentieth century in the Northeast. Although these coking earth kilns look very backward, the actual coking efficiency is still good.

Almost all of these coke-making earth kilns are open-air earth kilns. This kind of earth kiln first digs an earth pit with a depth of more than one meter and a diameter of seven or eight meters in the ground. Adding the height of the building ~ www.NovelMTL.com ~ the height of the earth kiln can almost exceed two and a half meters.

　　The flue is a key procedure for building a kiln, and two layers of flue must be built.

　　 The first layer of flue is built with lump coal in the center of the kiln, and coal is packed around the flue. These coals are all pulverized coal. When it is installed to a certain height, step on the coal and build a second layer of flue.

　　 The second layer flue is much more complicated than the first layer flue. This layer of flue also has a center. Around the center, sixteen or eighteen flat flues with a width of 60 to 70 cm and a height of 20 cm are built around the center, and each flue is connected to the center. Then add coal for the second time, covering all flues with pulverized coal to a thickness of half a meter.

　　 started to ignite at this time, ignite the easily combustible wood chips and throw them into the central flue and fall to the bottom flue. The coal blocks burn and the pulverized coal burns. When burning to the central flue of the second floor, throw in wood chips to support the combustion. Then it was the third time to add coal, still pulverized coal, almost 70 to 80 centimeters thick.

　　 When burning, the central flue will collapse, and the flame will spit out from the small flue to the outside. As it burns, it will show through to the outside.

　　 When the fire is here, the coking people surround the kiln with stones or brick fragments. When the flame penetrates the bricks and the flame has blue smoke, it is a sign of scorching. At this time, the hole needs to be plugged immediately and then covered with sand.

　　 After the sand is covered, start to spray water to cool down, wait for it to cool down, take it out, and complete the coking process.

　　 This kind of earth kiln requires more than 30 people to make coke in one kiln. Two kiln coke can be made in one day, and one kiln can produce almost 50 tons of coke!

　　 Therefore, the coking efficiency of this kind of earth kiln is actually very good.

　　 Shixiong intends to use this earth kiln to make coking in the future. But now, he needs to first smelt the coal in the big pit into coke, and at the same time burn the refractory bricks.