Chapter 364: The ABS is there, but not all of it

When Gao Zhendong went to work on Monday, he first called Factory 1274 and asked them to summarize the current research status of integrated circuit technology and send it to him. At the same time, he asked them to suspend the research work on integrated circuit technology and wait for his arrangements.

This gave Factory 1274 a big shock. What?

"Chief Engineer Gao, has this project been affected? Why has it been suspended?" Chief Engineer Lu asked with some concern.

Could it be that my progress is too slow, which makes people unhappy?

If it were an ordinary person, once a project was launched, he would basically not be able to influence its survival, unless there was a clear problem with the project. But Gao Zhendong was different. He really had the ability to influence its life and death.

To take a step back, even if it does not affect life or death, it can definitely affect whether the specific executor should be replaced. For 1274, this is no different from the death of the subject.

In his previous life, Gao Zhendong, an electronic junkman, had a famous saying: "It is more painful to see netizens making money than to lose money yourself." Although Factory 1274 is not like that, losing money yourself is something you absolutely cannot tolerate.

Seeing that his incoherent words scared the other party, Gao Zhendong quickly explained with a smile: "No, no, I have recently thought of some new ways in this direction and have achieved some new results. So I want to see your current progress and direction to see if they can be combined with yours."

Chief Engineer Lu finally felt relieved. Why didn’t you tell me earlier? My Chief Gao is such a scary person. He’s so scary.

As soon as he let go of his worry, he immediately realized that this was a good thing. Chief Engineer Gao said there was a new way, so it must be the work of God, it must be extraordinary!

He immediately agreed happily and went back to arrange the work.

After arranging this matter, Gao Zhendong began to slack off. He took out an interesting science book related to physics and started to revise it.

The main reason is that I really love Wang Dezhuo's two children on weekends, and I always feel that I should do something for them. It won't take much time to edit a book.

As for why physics came first, it was mainly because mathematics these days is a bit floating around and can’t produce results as quickly as physics.

Moreover, some physical phenomena are more intuitive and can arouse more interest among children. Mathematics, on the other hand, is a bit abstract. It is really abstract, and I am not criticizing it.

You know what, the original author wrote this thing really well. Even though Gao Zhendong knew most of the knowledge in it, as he was revising it, he became interested in it and was quite fascinated by it.

"Jingle Bell"

Just when Gao Zhendong was having a great time slacking off, the phone rang.

Gao Zhendong picked up the phone. It was Mr. Xiang on the other end, the person Gao Zhendong had entrusted to deal with optical plastics and disposable ABS launch tubes.

Finally there was news. The time limit had not yet arrived and Gao Zhendong didn't want to rush others, so he just kept waiting.

"Hello, President Xiang. Is there any good news?"

President Xiang smiled and said, "There is good news and bad news."

"Then tell me the good news first. I'll be happy first."

"We have already developed the material you want. After testing, the mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, weather resistance, weight, etc. basically meet your requirements. The optical properties of the optical plastic are also fine."

It was indeed good news, and Gao Zhendong was very happy. Although President Xiang used a more conservative term, "basically", this kind of wording is understood by researchers.

He was a little worried at first. In his previous life, in the 70s, the semi-disposable rocket launcher still used a metal tube. There must be a reason for this.

If there is no plastic tube, the weight and cost of the metal tube will make "disposable" and "mass war" out of the question, and the advantage of not taking up space in the establishment will also be lost. As a result, the promotion and use of this thing will be greatly affected.

Take the new Type 40 rifle as an example. In fact, the research on this thing was basically completed before 69, otherwise it would not have become the first equipment completed in the "823" battle.

However, this thing was not introduced into the army until it was discovered that the old Type 40 firearms could not break the Russians' turtle shells. It was not until the beginning of the "70" battle in 823 that it was finalized. This was because the positioning of this equipment was very similar to the old Type 40 firearms, and the huge production and equipment volume of the old Type 40 firearms made it difficult for people to make a decision.

As for the disposable barrel, it is necessary to start with differentiated empowerment, focus on new tracks, upgrade new strategies, focus on new pain points, create new scenarios, break down application barriers, blur user boundaries, vertically sink to the masses, and horizontally expand to the entire army, striving to achieve full-scenario and multi-dimensional offensive firepower application in which everyone has a barrel and everyone fights against turtles.

Now Mr. Xiang's words put his mind at ease. No matter what the bad news was, at least the good news was good enough.

Gao Zhendong said cheerfully, "This is great news, President Xiang, thank you, you have solved my big problem. So, what's the bad news?"

Mr. Xiang’s answer made him deeply realize what it meant to be in heaven or hell in one thought.

"The bad news is that it's difficult to mass produce." Hmm? This makes people nervous: "Mr. Xiang, what's the reason for the difficulty in mass production? Is it too costly?"

Not really. ABS is not something too troublesome. Once it is finalized and rolled out, the cost will not be too high. Even if there is not enough oil now, we can still afford to make some plastic tubes.

"Well, the cost is too high, or the direct reason is that the processing is difficult and the yield rate is too low, which leads to high costs."

President Xiang explained the reason to Gao Zhendong.

The problem is that the ABS that Gao Zhendong wanted focused on strength, toughness and high temperature resistance. After research, President Xiang finally found the right balance point. The ABS he produced does not stand out in these three aspects, but all three are above Gao Zhendong's demand line.

But this brings up a problem. As a thermoplastic, what does high strength, high toughness and high temperature bring? It is difficult to process.

Let alone injection molding, just these three things mean that this thing can only be extruded, which simply means shaping by applying pressure.

Then Mr. Xiang discovered that the problems were serious. The mixing was uneven, the heating was uneven, the extrusion speed was difficult to control, the discharge was uneven, the reflux was large, and the plasticization was poor.

Moreover, due to the long residence time of the material in the extruder and the uneven heating, the processing temperature cannot be raised at all. Otherwise, the high temperature and long-term local high temperature will make the product completely unusable.

Those tubes used for the test were all lucky ones that Mr. Xiang had picked out from a pile of waste products after great efforts. They were used for testing and to verify their feasibility, but if you want to use them for mass production, that would undoubtedly be wishful thinking.

Gao Zhendong listened to Mr. Xiang's introduction in a daze and realized the seriousness of the matter.

As for materials, whether or not they exist is one thing, which only solves the problem of 0 to 1. The difficulty of obtaining and processing them is also decisive, which involves the issue of whether they can be used on a large scale.

In addition to titanium, another example that is well known in this regard is aluminum. Aluminum was discovered quite early, but it was difficult to refine in the early days and had to be replaced with potassium. Its value far exceeded that of gold. Napoleon III was very pleased with this and was proud of having a set of aluminum tableware.

According to gossip, the "mithril" often mentioned in Western fantasy novels is based on aluminum.

Gao Zhendong didn't expect that after solving the problems of the charge liner, the high-energy charge, and the propellant, he was blocked by an outer casing. It was so confusing.

Wait, what was I thinking? Propellant.
Gao Zhendong was lost in thought. Mr. Xiang on the other side heard him speechless for a long time and thought that he was too frustrated. He comforted him on the phone: "Director Gao, you don't have to worry. Anyway, we have the materials. I will study the processing problem and improve the screw extruder. I think there is a way."

Screw? Gao Zhendong remembered!

In the solid rocket engine textbook, he saw this sentence about the propellant process: "In modern propellant charge molding, twin-screw extruders are beginning to be widely used to replace single-screw extruders. The former has better performance than the latter."

For this purpose, he also went to read the relevant content about screw extruders in this textbook. Well, it was quite counterintuitive.

It's no wonder that he couldn't remember it just now. It's mainly because the propellant and plastic seem to be quite different at first glance. He didn't expect that these two things could be processed with the same machine.

Gao Zhendong, who felt that there was some hope, asked anxiously on the phone: "Boss Xiang, is the extruder you use a single-screw one?"

President Xiang didn't expect that Gao Zhendong also had experience with this thing, and replied, "Yes, this is the most suitable machine for extrusion processing now."

Gao Zhendong laughed happily: "Haha, I understand, I understand."

After all this time, even in Mr. Xiang’s unit, the top research institute in the country, they are still using single-screw extruders. I still don’t fully realize the difficulty of the technical environment at that time.

What Gao Zhendong didn't know was that the twin-screw extruder used for processing thermoplastic plastics was invented in the country of leather shoes in the 30s, and began to develop rapidly in the 60s. Thinking about it this way, it doesn't seem too surprising that the country didn't quite understand this thing at that time.

Mr. Xiang was confused on the other side. What did you understand? I have been working on it for so long and still don’t understand it.

But he knew that Gao Zhendong would not speak nonsense. Maybe he really discovered something, which made him very happy. Don't think that he is an amateur. At the very least, Director Gao is also a material expert, and his scope of knowledge is very wide.

At least he could tell us that he used a single screw, which is something that ordinary people would not know.

There is a way. With excitement and a hint of remorse, President Xiang asked Gao Zhendong anxiously: "Director Gao, what did you find? Tell me quickly."

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "It's just an idea, but it may not be accurate, but it's worth a try. Mr. Xiang, shall we try replacing the single screw with an intermeshing twin screw?"

President Xiang was stunned: "Is there any difference? It's just that the feeding speed is increased within the same length, but it still can't solve the problem."

(End of this chapter)