Super Scientist

Ye Chen now has two most urgent tasks, one is to get the aerospace plane, and the other is to get the ship.

If our country wants to build a blue-water navy and go deep blue, it cannot do without a strong navy; if it wants to build a strategic air force, it cannot do without advanced fighter jets.

After Ye Chen's efforts, the new aviation engines, high-temperature alloy materials, and composite materials needed for the aerospace aircraft have all been settled, which can be regarded as solving the problem of the strategic air force.

However, the naval problems are not yet resolved. The new gas turbine and high-temperature alloy materials are all solved, and there is only one ship material left. In the past, Ye Chen didn't have the time and energy to do this. Now that composite materials are solved, it is inevitable to solve ship materials, and it is also the most urgent task now.

"When I solve the ship materials, our country can start to build more advanced warships, such as super aircraft carriers and super large warships. When these advanced warships enter service, the strength of our country's navy will increase sharply. By then, our country will The navy can become a real blue-water navy, it can truly go deep blue, and it can protect our 'interest frontier'. Haha! This prospect is so wonderful!" The more Ye Chen thought about it, the more beautiful he became, his eyes sparkled.

Our country has already proposed to build a blue-water navy and move towards a deep blue. However, due to the constraints of our country, this cannot be achieved yet, and it will take some time.

If Ye Chen solves the ship materials, it will definitely boost our country's strategic plan to build a blue-water navy, and it will speed up the pace of our country's navy to become dark blue. Our country's "interest frontier" can be maintained sooner and better.

As a military fan, as a patriotic angry youth, Ye Chen became excited when he thought of this, his eyes were full of wonderful little stars, and he wanted to do it immediately.

"Oh, by the way, how much contribution is there? How long will it take to get the ship technology?" Ye Chen has long wanted to get the ship technology in the system.

Our country's military is undergoing a period of transformation. Where does this transformation come from? Mainly the navy and air force.

As for the Army, our nation's Army has always been, is, and will be world class. We are not behind any country in terms of army, and we are even ahead.

However, the navy and air force have always been the weakness of our country, and our country is now vigorously developing the navy and air force. Once this plan is realized, our country's military strength will grow unprecedentedly, and our country's army will become stronger than ever. At that time, will the United States still dare to show off its power around our country? Do you still dare to do things around our country?

To the patriotic cynic Ye Chen, it is his duty to help our country undergo such a great transformation.

If it can be exchanged for ship technology, it will definitely be of great help to our country's blue water navy plan. Ye Chen has long wanted to exchange it, but because of insufficient contribution value, he has been dragging on.

Now, Ye Chen is ready to solve the navy's problem, and this matter must be put on the agenda.

Ye Chen started the system immediately, and saw that the contribution value displayed on the system was already more than 13 million, which was still more than 6 million away from 20 million.

"Well, the launch of the laser material factory this time has increased my contribution value by more than 6 million, not bad! Very good!" Ye Chen was full of joy and said, "If we do it again, it can almost be exchanged for ship technology."

The aircraft carrier has always been a giant at sea and a weapon of naval warfare. Even if our country realizes the plan of the blue water navy, it is still difficult to rely on the aircraft carrier battle group to deal with the US aircraft carrier battle group. If this kind of technology is available, and then design and manufacture a new type of aircraft carrier, it will be a different matter.

The aircraft carrier in the system is nearly three times larger than the largest aircraft carrier in the United States. Not to mention anything else, this size alone is enough for the American aircraft carrier to drink a pot.

What does it mean to be big?

It means that the ability to resist attacks is stronger and it is more difficult to deal with. Moreover, the more weapons that can be carried, the greater the continuous combat capability, and can sail at sea for a long time.

Such an aircraft carrier needs several ships.

Then, the most powerful aircraft carrier in the United States is no longer an opponent.

If it is paired with more advanced weapon systems, such as missiles, then the US aircraft carrier will not be enough.

"Unfortunately, we have to wait." Ye Chen felt a little regretful again.

"However, the new aircraft carrier is already in sight." If the contribution value of more than 6 million was in the past, it would be really difficult for Ye Chen to collect enough. Now, it's not that difficult.

After turning off the system, Ye Chen came to the laboratory and began to verify the ship materials.

No matter what you do, materials are always the foundation, as is the case with aircraft, and so with warships. Our country's inability to build a Nimitz-class super aircraft carrier has a lot to do with ships.

According to the development history of ship materials, it can be roughly divided into four stages.

The first stage is that after the mid-19th century, European countries began to build steel ships, that is, the iron-clad ships purchased by the Beiyang Fleet. The steel used for ship structure at that time is a typical medium and low carbon steel (0.13-0.2%) today, with low strength and is called "mild steel".

The second stage uses high-strength steel. In the early stages of steel boats, the riveting process was mainly used instead of welding. As the requirements for the structural performance of warships increase, the welding process takes the lead. The use of high-carbon high-strength steel that has little effect on the riveting process has become a key condition for the weight of the warship structure to be reduced and can be made bigger and bigger.

The third stage is the high-strength alloy stage. After entering the 1930s and 1940s, the welding process replaced the riveting process and became the mainstream method of warship structure manufacturing. Due to the poor weldability of high-carbon high-strength steel, the higher the carbon content, the less reliable the welding performance, the weld is very weak, and it is very sensitive to the gap.

Once a small opening is made due to fatigue or other reasons, it can easily lead to catastrophic structural brittle fracture.

After World War II, high-strength, high-toughness alloy steel has become the main development direction of world powers. The HY series of steel in the United States, the AK and AB series of steel in the Red Empire, and the 9XX series of steel in China all belong to this category.

This type of alloy steel mainly relies on the addition of nickel, chromium, molybdenum and other elements to greatly improve its performance. For example, the HY80 steel used to build submarines in the United States has 2.93% nickel and 1.43% chromium.

The biggest problem with this type of steel is that with the continuous improvement of key properties such as strength, more and more expensive and rare high-priced alloying elements such as nickel and chromium are used, which is expensive and difficult to weld.

The fourth stage is only available in the United States. These alloys are expensive, have poor welding performance, and are difficult to process, resulting in a significant increase in manufacturing and processing costs. The United States has abandoned these expensive alloys and developed new high-performance steels with moderate strength, easy welding, and low manufacturing costs for warship structures.

The ship material that Ye Chen wants to develop has excellent performance, good machinability, and low cost.

Of course, alloys are also used. Ye Chen started up the experimental equipment, began to verify, added various alloys, changed the structure of the alloy, and greatly improved its performance.

Through Ye Chen's hard work, the first verification was finally completed.

Ye Chen took out the materials and couldn't wait to test them.

The first thing to do is to conduct crystal phase analysis. Ye Chen started the detection equipment, put the material in, and soon, the results of the crystal phase structure came out.

When Ye Chen saw it, his brows were frowned. Although the crystal phase structure is good, it is greatly improved compared with the existing ship materials, but it still has a long way to go compared with Ye Chen's requirements.

The second is the yield strength test, the result is more than 7000Mpa.

"Amazing results." Ye Chen looked at the data and shook his head, very dissatisfied.

Now, it is amazing that the yield strength of ship materials reaches 1000Mpa. If the results are announced, it will definitely cause a global sensation.

However, Ye Chen knew very well that the ship material provided by the system had an astonishing yield strength, reaching 10,000 MPa would not be a problem.

Now it is only 7000 MPa, Ye Chen is definitely not satisfied.

Next, the welding experiment was carried out, and Ye Chen was quite satisfied with the result.

Generally speaking, this ship material is very suitable for welding, which makes the machinability very good and will greatly reduce the cost.

The United States gave up high-strength alloys and developed alloys with moderate properties, which has a lot to do with welding.

For example, HY80 needs to preheat the structural parts to be welded to 90-150 degrees Celsius, while HY130 needs to be heated to 100-175 degrees Celsius. In many cases, heat treatment must be carried out after welding.

This makes the manufacturing process too expensive.

If it's an airplane, it's not too big after all. Although preheating will increase the cost, it's not unbearable. But when used on a warship, it would be terrifying.

How much does it cost for a large warship with thousands of tons of welding and heating?

If an aircraft carrier is built, it will be even more terrifying.

Even a light aircraft carrier is tens of thousands of tons, there will be a lot of structural parts that need to be welded, and the cost of heating will be too terrifying.

Not to mention heavy aircraft carriers, super aircraft carriers.

Therefore, weldability and ease of processing have become a very important indicator of ship materials.

The ship material developed by Ye Chen is easy to process and can be welded at room temperature without heating. This is very good news, which makes Ye Chen smile.

After a series of tests, although the result was good, it was far from Ye Chen's expectation.

"This is my first time doing it. I have no experience. It's normal to have various shortcomings. I believe that I will do better in the future." Ye Chen summed up the experience and lessons.

After completing these tests, Ye Chen will conduct the last test, which is the corrosion resistance test.

The corrosiveness of seawater is terrible, and there are strict requirements on the corrosion resistance of ship materials. If this one is not up to standard, no matter how good other performance is, it is useless.

This test will take a long time. After Ye Chen put the materials in, he didn't rush to do it again, but calculated it.

Calculate what?

Of course it's the cost.

Few countries can afford modern aircraft, not only because the technical threshold is too high, but also because of the high cost. For example, the F-22 costs as much as 150 million US dollars, which is too expensive. It is difficult to raise even the United States, let alone other countries.

However, this is far from a warship.

The cost of a modern warship is much higher than that of the most advanced warships. If it is an aircraft carrier, it will be more expensive. If it is a super aircraft carrier, it will be unbearably expensive.

For example, the cost of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is about 4.5 billion U.S. dollars. If it is in service for 50 years, the maintenance cost will need 20 billion U.S. dollars. Why is it so expensive?

The materials are expensive and a lot of materials are used. This kind of super aircraft carrier uses tens of thousands of tons of alloys, and how much it costs can be calculated with just a finger.

The numbers must be impressive.

"How much is the cost?" Ye Chen began to calculate.

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