Chapter 1226: British gas turbines are going to have problems

What greeted Chang Haonan was silence.

Not to mention answering, Ren Bingda actually didn't even quite understand the question.

After a long while, he continued tentatively:

"In fact, before I came here, I specifically asked the comrades in the technical department, and they said that the British's statement is correct in principle. When the temperature difference of the heat exchange gas is small and the specific heat capacity of the heat exchange medium is not large enough, the intercooler does not play a practical role..."

As the second-in-command of Gaofa Group, Ren Bingda has been away from front-line R&D work for some years. He can only consult others on many new or professional issues.

But many things are difficult to explain without the specific context.

Chang Haonan scratched his head and organized his words for a while with a twisted look on his face:

"If you only look at the principle, it is indeed as they said... When I first introduced the intercooler into the turbofan engine model using a simple simulation method, the effect was to increase the fuel consumption by 1.5% in exchange for a 2% increase in thrust, which is basically dispensable."

"But if we really analyze the actual situation in depth, the presence of the intercooler will reduce the inlet temperature of the high-pressure compressor, reduce the tip temperature of the high-pressure compressor rear stage to a certain extent, and reduce the material load... At the same time, the compression of low-temperature gas will be easier, and the pressure ratio of the high-pressure compressor will be improved, which is beneficial to the performance of the engine..."

Halfway through the explanation, Chang Haonan's voice suddenly paused.

"and many more……"

He first narrowed his eyes, and then a serious thinking expression appeared on his face:

"Could it be that……"

Ren Bingda saw him like this and didn't want to disturb him, so he just sat down beside him for the time being.

After a few minutes, Chang Haonan's brows relaxed slightly.

Then he immediately grabbed the telephone receiver on the table and quickly dialed the number of Yan Zhongcheng, chief engineer of the 606 Institute.

A familiar voice soon sounded over there:

"Hey?"

I haven't seen him for more than a year, and Yan Zhongcheng's voice sounds much older.

Apparently, as the chief designer, he was under a lot of pressure during the period when QC300 was just shipped.

"Academician Yan? I'm Chang Haonan."

"Academician Chang?"

The other party seemed a little surprised.

After all, this is a number displayed as Haojing:

"Any instructions?"

"It's not even a question of instructions..."

Chang Haonan got straight to the point:

"I want to ask, while our 606 Institute was developing the QC300, we should have collected information about similar products from other countries through various channels, right?"

"This is natural."

Although there was doubt in his tone, Yan Zhongcheng quickly replied.

"Then please, Academician Yan, sort out the information about the Rolls-Royce WR21 and MT30 models and send them to me. I need them urgently."

"Okay, I'll do it as soon as possible."

"..."

Only after he hung up the phone did Ren Bingda stand up and walk across the table:

"Academician Chang, are you preparing to..."

Everyone around him knows that the two core tasks that Chang Haonan is directly responsible for now are high bypass ratio aircraft engines and hypersonic weapons, and he does not ask too much about marine gas turbines.

But now he suddenly received such a call, which inevitably made Ren Bingda a little confused.

And a vague worry.

Although the Gaofa Group has developed well in recent years, it still lacks the experience in fully developing an aircraft engine model.

Still very dependent on strong foreign aid.

Chang Haonan took a deep breath and calmed down a little:

"What you just said gave me a sudden guess."

He explained:

"In theory, the effect of the indirect cooling and regeneration system on aircraft engines should be easy to discover if actual cycle tests are carried out... or even if correct and complete numerical simulations are done."

"But the British are now acting as if they know nothing about this. I even suspect that they don't even know that they are being tricked. This means that they are completely unaware of the influencing factors I just mentioned. This shows that Rolls-Royce's understanding of the intercooling cycle is likely to be fundamentally wrong... or at least incomplete."

Ren Bingda raised his head slightly, recalling the scene when he was talking with the two British people from Xiluo Company.

He didn't feel anything at the time, but now after a little guidance, he found that the other party did seem to be a little confused...

"It seems true... But haven't they done any research in this area? It's only natural that they don't know, right?"

Chang Haonan waved his hand:

"For example, the problem of too small working temperature difference of the intercooler should be considered even in the field of gas turbines... Although the working environment of marine power is relatively stable and rarely faces harsh and changeable conditions like aircraft engines, in some specific situations, such as when the ambient temperature is particularly high and the working point of the gas turbine is close to the limit, the spontaneous intercooling cycle may still be broken."

"Although the British have not conducted such attempts in the field of aeroengines, they have developed two marine gas turbine models, WR21 and MT30, with intercooling and heat recovery systems since the end of the last century. It is a bit strange that these details are still unclear after more than ten years..."

Before he could finish his words, a notification sound came from the computer indicating that a new email had been received.

It was obvious that Yan Zhongcheng sent the information.

China is not Big Brother and cannot ask Britain to be transparent with its one-way intelligence, so these materials are basically public or semi-public content collected and analyzed.

It can be sent via internal mailbox.

Chang Haonan quickly downloaded and opened it.

QC300 itself adopts an intercooling cycle, so the focus of benchmarking during the preliminary research process is WR21 and MT30, and the amount of relevant information is also astonishing.

But he was lucky and soon found the part he wanted.

The specific test items that the two models have undergone are of course a secret, but the distribution of key time nodes and the movement trajectory of the water trial platform are public.

It is not difficult to analyze some clues from it.

Ten minutes later, Chang Haonan raised his head again...

……

In fact, the failure of the WR21 gas turbine caused the Type 45 destroyer to be grounded for a long time, which was a big deal known to the whole world in the previous life.

However, the reason given by the British Navy has always been that the problem lies with the integrated power management system of the Type 45 destroyer.

This system abandons the traditional reduction gearbox and uses all the mechanical energy output by the gas turbine and diesel engine for power generation, and then uses a computer system to accurately distribute the electrical energy to the drive motor and shipboard electrical equipment.

However, due to an error in the control logic, when the WR21 experienced power thermal decay, the countermeasure was not to automatically reduce the output power of the propulsion motor, but to forcibly increase the power generation of the diesel engine to meet the power requirement.

The result is that the diesel engine can't bear the pressure and shuts down first, and then the system continues to forcibly increase the power of the gas turbine, and then uses the same method to crash the gas turbine.

This was a pretty basic engineering mistake, but it made perfect sense.

After all, in the previous life, Britain had almost completely deindustrialized after entering the 21st century, so it doesn't seem surprising that it would come up with such a mess.

However, Chang Haonan couldn't be sure whether Luo Luo and BAE, who were constantly being whipped by him with a small whip, would make the same mistake again after the timeline had undergone huge changes.

So he never considered this as part of his plan.

However, today, Chang Haonan finally realized it.

This power system problem, which has plagued a total of 45 ships including the Type 11, Zumwalt and Queen Elizabeth, was not caused by any integrated power system failure.

But there was a big problem with the engine itself -

The loop parameters are related to the core hardware. Once an error occurs, it cannot be solved by patching it up.

The entire design has to be started from scratch.

It is no wonder that it took the British nearly 15 years to barely complete the overhaul of all six Type 45 ships.

As for the two Queen-class aircraft carriers, they were simply abandoned.

If there was just an error in the control logic, how could it take so long?

In an instant, all thoughts became clear.

"I predict……"

After saying these three words, Chang Haonan paused for a moment.

Then his tone suddenly became very firm:

"No, I'm sure of that."

"Both types of gas turbines designed by Rolls-Royce have very serious potential failure risks!"

Ren Bingda was unable to keep up with the sudden change in the plot for a while.

But he could still understand Chang Haonan's conclusion.

Not only can I understand it, but it also seems familiar.

Because more than two years ago, a potential fault on the Trent 900 was also guessed and analyzed by Chang Haonan in this way.

"You mean... we can use this as a bargaining chip to gain an advantage in the negotiations?"

"No."

Unexpectedly, this time, Chang Haonan rejected the proposal almost without thinking.

"But before that, at Trent 900..."

Ren Bingda was still somewhat unwilling.

Teaching a class to a group of British engineers at Rolls-Royce headquarters was the highlight of his life.

Naturally I want to recreate it.

"We are also involved in the development of the Trent 900, which means that if something goes wrong, everyone will suffer losses, and we may be blamed, so I want to warn the British in advance."

Chang Haonan replied:

"Rolls-Royce's gas turbine has nothing to do with us, and the first Type 21 destroyer equipped with WR45 seems to have just been launched. We can't wait for the British to verify this problem. So it's better to wait until the problem breaks out and becomes irreversible before we step in and lend a helping hand!"