Chapter 513 The Biggest Obstacle

Some units have to produce the list before their superiors, while some units have to do the opposite and produce it after their superiors.

This is not about following the footsteps of the superior departments, but quite the opposite. It is about avoiding the commendation and reward lists of the superior departments so that it can be distributed more evenly. That is, those who have been commended by the superiors will not be included in the commendation scope of this level, but will be replaced by those who come later.

On the one hand, it shows respect for the superior authorities, and on the other hand, it saves resources. Yes, rewards and commendations are also a kind of resource.

The two methods each have their own reasons. The Three-Plant chose the latter according to the practice of the Three Rolling Mills.

As for the confusing timing of these events last year, it was because the Liehuo Science and Technology Award appeared suddenly and no news of it was received before that.

As for the fact that the Fiery Science and Technology Award has not appeared this year, it is not because it is difficult to give birth, but because the 17th Ministry of Machine Building was held up by several things.

The first was the 6011 battle. Gao Zhendong, together with the Third Rolling Mill and Beijing Steel Plant, produced the first batch of results at an extremely fast speed. This made the comrades in other units secretly shocked, but they also held back their energy and rushed forward desperately. This hindered many judges of the Fiery Award as they also had battle missions.

Secondly, the 17th Ministry of Machine Building had an important special mission to participate in. Although they were not the protagonists, they had to cooperate fully. This delayed a group of people. These people were not the judges, but potential winners. If the awards were given out at this time, the venue might be quite empty.

The third reason is not very formal or serious. The 17th Ministry of Machine Building heard that the 12th Ministry of Machine Building also organized a "Lightning Science and Technology Award" and wanted to see who the 12th Ministry of Machine Building would give it to. If it was not given to Gao Zhendong, then the 17th Ministry of Machine Building would evaluate the projects related to the 12th Ministry of Machine Building this year, such as Gao Zhendong's projects.

It just so happened that this was the first time that the 12th Ministry of Machine Building did this this year, so the progress was a bit slow, which delayed the whole series of events.

But no matter how long it was delayed, by the end of February, starting from the third factory, this matter had to be done no matter what. By then, we would not have to worry about wasting resources, respecting superiors, or giving face to other ministries.
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Deep in the desert, at a testing ground, this place has been filled with rumbling explosions and smoke for years, every day, without stopping.

This is not about blasting mountains and splitting rocks to carry out construction, but about conducting explosion experiments continuously.

The little boy and the fat man who once burst out with great enthusiasm on the Japanese side, both of them have the same principle. Apart from the common neutron source in the center, both of them trigger the final explosion by allowing the charge to exceed the critical mass to form a chain reaction. This kind of charge may be "made" or "not", but the means of implementation of the little boy and the fat man are not quite the same.

Little Boy is of the gun type, which simply means the charge is split into two halves, and when detonated, the explosive is used to shoot one charge into the other, achieving the purpose of supercriticality.

The advantage of this configuration is that it is simple in structure and easy to implement. However, it has many disadvantages, such as low utilization rate of charge, low power, and can only be used for "by" charge, not for "no" charge, which will explode uncontrollably and prematurely.

The structure of this thing is so simple that it is not too exaggerated to say on the Internet later that as long as there is enough abundant explosive and neutron source, high school students can make big mushrooms with their hands.

Fat people are cohesive, which is much more complicated.

The cohesive charge can be roughly thought of as dividing a sphere into many pieces, surrounding the neutron source. Outside the charge is a neutron reflection layer, and outside of that is high-speed explosives. This thing sounds a lot more complicated than the gun type.

During detonation, the surrounding explosives explode together, squeezing the charge toward the neutron source to reach a supercritical state.

At this time, the purpose of the neutron reflector is to reflect the neutrons produced by the chain reaction back, thereby intensifying the degree of the chain reaction.

Such complexity naturally has great advantages. Simply put, the utilization rate of the explosive is high, the explosion is louder with the same charge, and it is suitable for a variety of different charges.

This is important for a variety of different charges, because "no" charges can be directly produced through nuclear reactions using other elements.

These things are public. Not only can they be seen everywhere on the Internet in the future, even in my country in the 70s and 80s, these principles were written in the " Whys" book for children.

Not to mention this, even the principles of two-phase bombs and three-phase bombs are on it. Their titles are probably like "Why does the atomic bomb explode", "Why is the hydrogen bomb so powerful", "Why is the three-phase bomb more powerful".

Without a doubt, our choice is naturally cohesive.

This is why this test site is always busy and rumbling all day long. They are conducting experiments.

The principle of cohesion may not seem complicated, but it is actually not that simple.

For example, there is something that seems simple but actually takes a lot of effort to achieve: making all parts of a spherical high-speed explosive detonate evenly and simultaneously.

Moreover, the specific configuration of the cohesive type had to be calculated. Fortunately, with the help of a large number of DJS-59 and DJS-60D developed by Gao Zhendong, the configuration was calculated two years in advance.

But it is not enough to just calculate it, we also need to experiment. There is a difference between theoretical calculations and actual conditions, so we need to conduct experiments, collect experimental data, and then make adjustments.

This is a job that requires a lot of time and cannot be accomplished overnight. Computers are not omnipotent, and even in the 21st century, they still cannot simulate and calculate everything.

It’s like even if we already have the NS equations proposed in 1845, combined with 21st century supercomputers, aerodynamic design still has to be done in a wind tunnel. Our wind tunnel group is designed to do this.

This test site is responsible for the detonation test of explosive configurations, so you have to hear the noise every day. In the early days, before the production of the Black Mix-60 increased, the production was basically all swallowed up by this test site. Fortunately, although computers cannot handle everything, they are good at assisting in data processing. For people, even if the formula is the same, only the data has changed, then each calculation is a new process.

But for computers, the trouble lies in programming. Once the program is fixed, changes in data will not be a big problem for them.

In a building next to the explosion test site, several scientists in charge of the experiment were standing next to the printer, waiting for the computer to output the results.

"This computer is great and it calculates quickly. I never imagined that after collecting data, it could calculate the results so quickly and write them down on paper for you."

"Haha, we are working hard, and other scientific workers outside the desert are also busy and are constantly contributing to our work."

Several comrades were chatting when the computer suddenly made a "beep" sound. At the same time, the printer began to make a "buzzing" sound, spitting out papers one by one.

Several scientists were quite anxious. As each piece of printing paper came out, they grabbed it and read through them one by one.

The printed paper was passed around among them for a while. Several people looked up and looked at each other, their eyes full of light.

"It's done!"

"No problem!"

“It works!”

Although the words are different, the meaning is the same!
The charge configuration is complete!
This charge configuration is not only the configuration of the external explosives, but also the configuration of the internal charges, which is related to how they move and aggregate under the impact of the explosives, etc.

The comrades at the test site have spent so much time, and their hearing is almost damaged, just for this day - the explosion experiment was successfully completed!
"Go, go, take this news to the main building."

Several people hurried to the main building with the test results.

Although it is called the main building, it actually does not conform to the later convention that the "main building" of a building must be majestic or taller. The main building is mainly for the people and work inside. In fact, from the outside, it looks similar to other buildings and is not very eye-catching.

Several people found an office and handed the test results to a comrade inside.

"It's done! The explosion was done."

The comrade stood up immediately, took the test results from them, put them close to his eyes and read them carefully.

After a while, the comrade slammed the table and said, "Well, we have killed the biggest obstacle!"

After saying this, he looked at the comrades who were coming over and said, "Now, the biggest problem left is the centrifuge group."

The core element of explosives has multiple isotopes, but in order to make it explode, only one of the isotopes can be used. However, in natural ores, these isotopes are mixed together because their chemical properties are similar.

The similar chemical properties also make it very difficult to separate isotopes, and chemical methods are no longer effective.

At that time, there was no multiplier reactor, and it was impossible to use other elements to directly obtain explosives.

However, the most high-end ingredients are always cooked using the simplest methods.

If chemical methods don’t work, then use physical methods and shake it up.

Use a centrifuge to separate different isotopes based on the principle that isotopes have different physical properties due to their different atomic weights.

However, this type of centrifuge cannot accomplish this task with just one or two machines. It requires a large group of them to collect enough materials.

This stuff is produced in large quantities, consumes a lot of electricity and is very expensive. If we can get the electricity consumption data, we can really calculate how much raw materials are produced.

Of course, in the 21st century, some people still say that they can use electricity consumption data to calculate how much raw materials we have produced and how many warheads we have. That is nonsense.

By the 21st century, this amount of electricity is not even a fraction of our electricity generation. The amount of power wasted due to frequency regulation and peak-valley differences is much more than this. Moreover, the raw material production technology at that time may not be limited to this one.

(End of this chapter)