Chapter 211 Turnaround

Without the experience and mature technology developed in previous lives, the time and cost required to make this kind of aramid fiber would be astonishing, and it might take several years.

Especially the additives in the mixed solution. When Xu Qiang and his team were developing it, in order to ensure the fiberization of aramid, they experimented with hundreds of synthetic formulas and even took many detours before finally achieving success.

Another thing is the stirring speed and temperature control, which is also crucial and a very expensive process. If there is a slight deviation, the length and thickness of the fiber will change, which is extremely difficult to control. If Xu Qiang had not accumulated a lot of R&D experience in his previous life, it would have been impossible to succeed in one go.

But producing aramid fiber is only the first step in Xu Qiang's project. There will be greater challenges waiting for him afterwards.

With aramid fiber, Xu Qiang can use it to spin and weave aramid cloth or directly make it into aramid paper.

But if it is spinning, there are many problems that need to be solved. With the current domestic industrial level, most of the aramid spinning equipment components can be produced, but some key components cannot be produced yet.

On the one hand, it is because the processing accuracy of domestic machine tools is limited. For spinning, many components require very high precision, and some even have to reach the micron level.

On the other hand, if you want to spin aramid, you must first dissolve the polymer in sulfuric acid to produce a liquid crystal solution. The solution is then spun into thin filaments, each with a diameter of 12μm. The structure of the filaments is 100% subcrystalline, with the molecular chains parallel to the fiber axis. It is this highly directional distribution that gives Twaron filaments their various excellent properties.

However, sulfuric acid solution is highly corrosive, which requires that some parts of the spinning machine need to have strong corrosion resistance. However, China has not yet developed such high-performance metal materials. Moreover, the design of the entire aramid textile machine is quite complicated and cannot be produced in a short time. Therefore, Xu Qiang gave up the plan of spinning aramid to make aramid cloth from the beginning, and instead chose aramid paper, which has a much simpler production process.

Compared with aramid cloth made of aramid filaments, aramid paper has inferior performance in all aspects, but this kind of aramid paper is about five times stronger than steel wire and twice as tough as steel wire, and can still be regarded as one of the world's top materials.

As for the production of aramid paper, when it was first developed in China, the idea was to use the same production process as traditional paper. However, due to the many essential differences between aramid fiber and plant fiber, it is difficult to make aramid paper with excellent performance using traditional papermaking techniques. This forced the domestic research and development team to change their design ideas.

Later, the domestic aramid paper research and development team spent about four or five years to overturn the traditional papermaking process and use the hot pressing method to produce domestic high-performance aramid paper, thus breaking away from the technological blockade of the United States, Japan and other countries.

However, the hot press paper machine used to make aramid paper is also very difficult to produce, mainly because the temperature control system and some core components also require high processing precision. But compared with the aramid spinning machine, it is much simpler and can be produced with the current domestic level.

So in the next few days, Xu Qiang started the research and development of aramid paper hot pressing papermaking machine without any rest.

In order to reduce costs, this hot press papermaking machine is still a smaller version, just like before. Many of its parts are simple and crude, and can only be used for a short time and cannot run for a long time.

Xu Qiang did this for a very simple purpose. He only needed to produce a small batch of aramid paper products first. Only after a large amount of funds were in place would he enlarge the scale of the verification machine and make a final model that could truly be mass-produced and used for a long time.

Xu Qiang's research and development progress was only halfway completed, while Li Cunzhu was receiving good news frequently.

Thanks to more than a month of overtime work by Liu Siying and other team members, the first sample of the electronic fuse shielding box has been produced and has officially entered the stage of new product testing.

Moreover, after preliminary tests, the performance of the fuze shielding box of Li Cunzhu's project team is very ideal, especially the box component made according to the principle of radio wave angle of attack radiation. The test effect is quite good. Compared with the previous traditional shielding box design, the isolation performance is more than 30% higher, which can be called a subversive product!

It can be said that at this point, Li Cunzhu's project is basically successful. After the factory's testing is completed, it will be sent to the province for inspection. There will be live-fire shooting at that time, but it is estimated that there should be no problems.

In early November, factory director Liu Biao convened a work summary meeting for department leaders to summarize the work of each department and workshop in the previous month.

"...Last month, the main task of our technical department was to develop the electronic fuse shielding box project. So far, the first batch of samples have been produced. During this period, all staff members have been working overtime in order to live up to the expectations of everyone in the factory..." At the work summary meeting, Li Cunzhu was in high spirits, and there was a bit of pride in his words.

Ever since the National Day commendation meeting for model workers last month, Li Cunzhu has been in a relatively anxious state. Especially after he discussed product development with Xu Qiang in front of the director of the Provincial Defense Science and Technology Office, the pressure on him suddenly increased. After all, many factory leaders were present at the time and had been paying attention to this matter.

But now, as new products continue to pass the factory's multiple color tests, especially the tests on reliability and noise isolation, Li Cunzhu's pressure has been reduced a lot.

You know, there are currently no similar military products in the country, so the successful development of this fuze shielding box at least fills a gap in the domestic military industry. If we can participate in this year's foreign trade military products exhibition and get foreign trade orders, it will be a great thing for Shengli Machinery Factory and even for Li Cunzhu personally, and he may even be commended by the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building!

"…The successful development of the sample of this new product project proves that our technical department is a capable and combat-ready team that can rise to the challenge and win in the face of any difficulties!" Li Cunzhu said excitedly, and then he continued: "I believe that in the near future, our factory's new products will not only improve the country's overall military industry level, but also open up the international market and make a huge contribution to our country's export earnings!"

"Clap clap clap!"

As soon as Li Cunzhu finished speaking, warm applause broke out at the scene.

Speaking of which, the Technology Department hasn't had such a big move for a long time.

Although last year, Liu Siying successfully developed the domestic third-generation electronic proximity fuze and received commendations from the province and the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building, in fact, this product can be seen as Liu Siying's victory alone, because at that time Li Siying had just entered the technical department, and her project team consisted of only two members besides herself, and most of the technical department staff did not participate in this project.

But this time it was different. Li Cunzhu initiated the project as the head of the technical department. The entire project team had as many as twenty members, almost all the technical elites and backbones of the factory's technical department. So when this project was successfully developed, it would undoubtedly represent a victory for the entire technical department!
In addition, the arduous process of the technical department's research and development is obvious to all. For nearly a month, almost all employees worked overtime, and many people even had lunch and dinner at their workstations. As the project leader, Li Cunzhu has led by example and worked until very late every day. It is precisely because of this that he has won everyone's respect.

"Chief Engineer Li has been working very hard during this period..."

At this time, Liu Biao took the microphone and said with some emotion: "When our factory was just built, Chief Engineer Li was always busy with the research and development of new products. The working conditions at that time were very bad. There was not even electricity. Chief Engineer Li relied on a calcium carbide lamp every day to stay up late to draw drawings of various products. Sometimes he didn't even have time to eat..."

Liu Biao was obviously very satisfied with Li Cunzhu's work this time, especially the fact that Li Cunzhu's team took only one month to come up with samples of the new product, which was more than three months earlier than expected. This was undoubtedly a very successful achievement.

Although there had been some friction between the two before, Liu Biao was still a very magnanimous person and he never criticized people for their actions. He was always willing to praise and reward anyone who contributed to the factory.

"...Recently, seeing Chief Engineer Li working overtime for new product projects reminded me of many things in the past. Under such difficult conditions, Chief Engineer Li and the technical staff of the aid construction unit overcame difficulties and developed the earliest batch of products for our factory. It was precisely with these products that our factory ushered in more than ten years of glory. Regarding this, I hope everyone here can remember it in their hearts!"

"Thank you Director Liu for your encouragement!" Li Cunzhu said with gratitude upon hearing this.

It can be said that Liu Biao's words were of great help to Li Cunzhu.

Because in the past seven or eight years, Li Cunzhu has not had any new product projects to show off, and even several projects failed in research and development, causing certain losses to the factory. As a result, many people in the factory talked about him and thought he was "old and weak."

The success of this new product development is a turnaround for Li Cunzhu. At least it can eliminate the doubts of the factory staff about his technical innovation ability, which is crucial to his position as chief engineer.

(End of this chapter)