Chapter 34 (2/2)
Stone bear now for steel quality requirements are not much higher, as long as the steel can be refined is a huge progress. As for how to produce more high-quality steel in the future, it needs more people and more time to work slowly.
Pouring steel method appeared as early as the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, but the use of pouring steel method to greatly improve the quality of steel has to wait until the northern and Southern Dynasties.
During the northern and Southern Dynasties, there was a genius in smelting, named Qi wuhuaiwen. He was a member of Xiang kingdom in the Northern Qi Dynasty. Later, he was a governor of Xinzhou in the Northern Qi Dynasty. He was also a senior member of Fang.
But Qi wuhuaiwen, who was the official to the governor, was also a genius in steelmaking. He made a breakthrough in the development and improvement of the pouring steel method in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. He also made a unique creation in knife making and heat treatment, making an epoch-making contribution to the development of metallurgical technology in China.
History books once recorded how Qi Wu Huaiwen made steel.
”If you burn pig iron, you should attach great importance to soft collars, and if you spend several nights, you will become steel.”
In modern terms, it means to select high-grade iron ore for steelmaking, first smelt high-quality pig iron, and then pour liquid pig iron on the cooked iron. After several times of smelting, the iron is carburized into steel. Because pig iron and wrought iron are used together, the steel produced is called cast iron.
It was definitely a breakthrough technology at that time.
You know, it's difficult to produce low-carbon steel by stir frying method because the temperature is not well controlled. Most of the steel produced by stir frying method is not completely oxidized by impurities and carbon in molten iron due to poor temperature control. Therefore, most of them are medium and high carbon steel. It's OK to make farm tools or daily necessities, but it's not enough to make weapons.
The appearance of pouring steel method, especially that of Qiwu Huaiwen transformation, makes refining low carbon steel a controllable method.
In modern words, that is to say, when using this kind of steel pouring method to make steel, because pig iron is used as carburizing agent, due to the high temperature after melting, it can accelerate the speed of carburizing into the wrought iron, shorten the smelting time and improve the productivity.
At the same time, due to the infiltration of carbon, wrought iron can become steel, and pig iron can also become steel due to decarburization, increasing the output of steel. At high temperature, carbon, silicon and manganese in liquid pig iron react with oxide inclusions in cooked iron to remove impurities, purify metal structure and improve metal quality.
The key point is that the pouring method is easy to operate and master. In order to get the steel with different carbon content, as long as the pig iron and wrought iron are melted according to a certain proportion, it can be obtained.
Shi Xiong estimates all the materials he has, and finds that pouring steel is obviously better than frying steel.
The iron ore in my hand is hematite. Although I don't know the grade, the grade of hematite is generally high, which should be able to meet the needs of the steel pouring method.
There is limestone as slagging agent, kaolin for firing refractory bricks, let alone coal as fuel. As for the pig iron used as carburizing agent, the best carburizing agent is after the big iron pots are smashed!
With these things, why can't steel be refined?
So, under the supervision of leader Li Lei and the sacrifice of kabulu, and encouraged by the stone bear's promise of meat every day, all the members of the tribe mobilized and began to make various preparations before steelmaking according to the command of the stone bear.
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