Chapter 917 "Minor Repairs"

Compared with the much-watched aviation manufacturing industry and the vehicle manufacturing industry that is closely related to people's daily lives, the shipbuilding industry, which is an amphibious industry, is actually an industry with huge influence but not too strong presence.

At least that was the case before the advent of the self-media era.

Just like this time, a Norwegian company with Zhuoer Capital background approached China Shipyard to produce LNG ships, a super high value-added product, and then the order was dramatically intercepted by a Korean company. This was actually quite shocking news in the industry.

After all, no matter how unethical Xizhuoer is, it is still one of the top giants in the global marine engineering and energy fields. Moreover, the demand for LNG and LPG ships has indeed been surging worldwide in recent years.

The outside world is not clear about the details of the negotiations between the two parties, so it is naturally impossible to judge whether it is a scam or a real business.

However, Chang Haonan has never seen any related news in any public news reports.

Only a few brief mentions were made in some industrial newspapers.

Of course, this is a good thing to some extent.

This order from Xizhuoer could not be accepted under any circumstances, and instead it had to be passed on to the Koreans as a hot potato.

However, the details here must not be publicized through the media.

The spectators could only see the surface layer and thought that the order was really snatched away by Samsung Offshore & Marine.

Once public opinion starts to ferment, no one can guarantee whether it will lead to complications.

So there is an old Chinese saying, "Make a fortune in silence"...

cough cough...

In short, shipbuilding is not like building airplanes. No matter how fast the technological breakthrough is, it may not take several months or even years to reach a major milestone.

If we want to see any results on the LNG ship issue, we will have to wait at least a year or two.

Therefore, after the Hudong Factory had decided to avoid this pitfall, Chang Haonan did not continue to pay close attention to the matter.

After all, it is not his main job. He just needs to be the second party of the BOG reliquefaction system.

It was the French who really added some extra workload to Chang Haonan in early September.

After reporting the situation in Beijing that day, Liu Yongquan turned around and reported his situation and requirements to his partners.

Snecma and Dassault were shocked after hearing this.

They did know that after the Chinese perfected the M88-2, they immediately began research and development of a more advanced modification.

And the project is progressing very quickly.

But precisely because of the rapid progress, everyone subconsciously thought that this should be a transitional model, the kind that has limited performance improvements but can be used immediately.

Therefore, the French Air Force dared to postpone the equipment update schedule and decided to accept it after it was upgraded to the F2 technical status.

It is only expected to be delayed for a few months, which cannot be considered a delay for a project initiated by Europeans.

Moreover, they have some fairly new Mirage 2000C/Ds available, unlike the navy next door which can only use F8FRs.

As a result, after a meeting with Institute 606, we found that the upgrade plan they came up with mainly involved three areas.

Turbine, combustion chamber and high pressure compressor...

These three parts are usually referred to as the core engine of the aircraft engine...

In addition, there is a new receiver that reduces weight through diamond-shaped reinforcement ribs, and a tail nozzle that has been changed from an ejection type to a convergent-divergent type.

OK, you modified the entire engine from the outside to the inside except for the fan and afterburner.

So you're just going to get a new one right away?

Therefore, after Ian Vista saw this document at the technical meeting, he felt dizzy on the spot and almost fell down.

"Liu, I admit that your improvement plan is very... bold."

Vesta couldn't find any other words to describe it, so he could only comment like this:

"But we still hope to come up with this improvement plan as soon as possible and upgrade the Rafale to a more mature F2 technical state, as long as we can optimize some envelopes or a little thrust..."

"Mr. Vesta, you don't need to worry about the progress."

Liu Yongquan touched his bald head and smiled confidently:

"Although the technical documents show that the upgrades are indeed spread throughout the engine, in general, they are still minor repairs based on the M88-2 and will not change the underlying design of the core engine itself."

"Minor repairs?"

Vesta picked up the memo on the table again and quickly flipped through it to the end:

"But... there are 70 upgrade items listed here?"

"Well... not all of them are important."

Liu Yongquan also lowered his head to glance at the technical documents to hide the embarrassment that flashed across his face.

In fact, he specifically asked his subordinates to dismantle these 70 items in order to show the heavy workload of this upgrade and to get some benefits from the other side.

Who would have thought that others would complain that the changes were too many.

After a pause, he continued:

"Moreover, the most important thing is that almost all of these are mature technologies that we have verified on other models. Now that we apply them to the M88, the risks and development cycle are absolutely controllable."

This sentence is half true and half false.

The new film hole design and combustion chamber atomizing nozzle can indeed be adopted. Although it is impossible to copy the compressor as it is, the use of slits and curved designs to control boundary layer separation is also an idea that Chang Haonan has been using since the WP-14.

However, the new lightweight receiver and the convergent-divergent nozzle with better low-altitude adjustment capabilities are the parts that Chang Haonan plans to verify and test using the M88-3 as a guinea pig.

Of course, these two places do not involve the core part of the engine, so Liu Yongquan’s statement that the risks and cycles are controllable is not a lie.

"This……"

After listening to Liu Yongquan's assurance, Vista hesitated a little.

To be honest, the progress of the 606 Institute in improving the M88-2 was so fast that it was completed before the engineers from Snecma could react.

As a result, there were many things I could only slowly figure out after returning.

Now the M88-3 involves more improvement projects, which is also a good opportunity to practice.

Looking at Vesta who was thinking silently with his head down, the former knew that his attitude had begun to loosen, so he continued to increase his stakes.

"Mr. Vesta, during our last meeting, you and Mr. Edsteiner mentioned that you hoped to improve the Rafale's performance against the EF2000 through this upgrade."

"In our opinion, if we really want to gain an advantage in the competition, we must make a major upgrade to the M88 engine."

He then pulled out two more pages of paper from the folder next to him and handed them to the other person:

"This is the expected performance indicator of the M88-3 model after the upgrade is completed according to our plan. Please take a look and see if you are satisfied."

Vesta never expected that such an important thing had not been taken out just now, so he quickly took it in his hands.

[Temperature before turbine increased from 1740K to 1830-1850K. (Note: No need to replace hot end material and thermal insulation coating)]

[Considering that the Rafale's aerodynamic design is not intended for high-speed maneuverability, it is considered to further increase the total pressure ratio to 30.5 to enhance subsonic thrust and fuel consumption. ]

[The air intake per second is increased by 7% on the original basis to increase thrust and provide cooling...]

【…】

[After comprehensive calculation, it is expected that the sea level thrust will increase from 7600kg to 8400kg, the total weight will be reduced from 830kg to 790kg, and the fuel consumption rate will be…]

This document is not very long.

But before even getting to the second page, Vesta was convinced.

Previously, Snecma's internal judgment and expectation was to increase the thrust by 88% based on the M2-5 and further optimize the output under high overload at medium and low altitudes...

The result before us is a complete transformation.

For this, even if there are some risks, it is definitely worth it!