Chapter 955 So what’s the price?
A weekend passed quickly.
11 month 19 day.
Shengjing.
In a conference room of Institute 606.
Ian Vista, who had just got off the plane, sat at the conference table, waiting for the meeting to begin with a serious expression.
Although he was trying hard to hide it, he could still see obvious fatigue between his brows.
For someone of Vesta's age, the two days of rest before departure were not enough to make up for the fatigue caused by working non-stop for more than half a month.
Besides, with such a big thing on my mind, it’s impossible to have a good rest even if I say so.
Coupled with the relatively closed environment in the conference room, he even felt like yawning.
However, Vesta knew very well that she could not attend the upcoming meeting in this state.
Even though it's just a routine work handover, if you're dizzy, something will definitely go wrong.
He bit the tip of his tongue gently, using the pain to wake himself up a little.
However, this alone is clearly not enough.
Vesta turned around and looked at several technicians around him who were also from Snecma.
Of course, this also includes his deputy Arthur Mondoc.
The latter was chatting with Bernard Shore, the technician who called Vesta a few days ago, and was obviously trying to find out what had been going on recently.
After hesitating for a moment, he decided to join the conversation to distract himself.
"Bernard."
As Vesta's voice rang out, the whispers around them suddenly fell silent:
"I remember you said on the phone before that you participated in their testing process throughout?"
"Um……"
Hearing this question, Xiao Er scratched his head a little embarrassedly:
“It’s not really participation…”
"The Chinese researchers are very good at cooperating with each other. We don't have many opportunities to intervene. At most, we can help debug the equipment. Most of the time... we can only watch from the side the whole time..."
Snecma's original intention of sending them to China was to follow the R&D process here and learn something.
In fact, at the beginning, several people including Shor still felt good about themselves.
You know, they are all veterans in the company.
Some even participated in the round of technological cooperation with China in the late 80s.
Now that I have to be a student of my former students, my mentality is naturally different.
According to what Shore and others were thinking at the time, China should have mastered some tricks specific to the CFM56 by some coincidence, and that would be the end of it as long as they learned them.
result……
Just two days into the process.
Strictly speaking, after attending the technical meeting on the first evening, Xiao Er was shocked to find that he could not keep up with the other party's thinking at all.
He even asked a translator to translate the meeting minutes into English.
But it still doesn't work.
Soon, he realized that what the Chinese people possessed were not some magical skills.
Rather, it is a completely new set of aircraft engine design concepts.
Learn, kid!
Of course it's impossible to learn it so quickly.
So, this is the situation we have now.
They only had time to translate the design information provided by the Chinese and send it back to China.
As for participating in the design work throughout the process...
No one mentioned it a long time ago.
Fortunately, Vesta was also aware of the actual situation, so he didn't make it difficult for Shaw:
"Watching the whole process... that's fine. You should have seen the parts they used for testing, right?"
"Of course."
Shaw finally breathed a sigh of relief.
After all, it would be embarrassing if you don't know the answer to any question:
"The parts they have completed testing include all the high- and low-pressure turbine discs and turbine blades. Of course, only four of each type of blade with the same number were produced. After all, it is only a component-level test..."
He was interrupted by Vesta before he finished speaking:
"A considerable part of the Chinese aviation industry standards are borrowed from us. Of course I know this process..."
The voice of this sentence became smaller and smaller as it was spoken.
Because at the beginning, Vesta almost instinctively felt that this was a very proud thing.
But halfway through the sentence something felt wrong.
Others borrowed a bunch of industry standards from you, but ended up overtaking you...
It doesn't seem like something to be proud of...
"Cough-cough-"
Vesta had to cough twice to cover up the embarrassment, and then continued as if nothing had happened:
"I want to ask, have you paid attention to the specific design of the cooling system?"
In fact, you can see these contents after you get the design plan.
But on the one hand, Vesta was feeling sleepy at the moment, and on the other hand, it was impossible for them to believe everything others said.
There has to be some other information channels as supporting evidence, right?
"I noticed."
Shore replied:
"From a technical perspective, it is still traditional film cooling, and does not use new technologies such as impingement cooling or double-wall cooling. However, the internal features of the film holes are very complex, with non-standard variable cross-sections and a three-dimensional structure inside..."
"As for the design process, I..."
Vesta waved towards Shaw:
"It's good enough for you guys to have this information."
“If you didn’t catch up during the design phase, then you didn’t catch up…”
He led a team and it took him more than 88 days to thoroughly understand the technical data of the M2- engine. Naturally, it was impossible for him to make any higher demands on his subordinates.
However, Shaw shook his head:
"It's not that we didn't catch up, but..."
At this point, he paused:
"Yes...we didn't notice they had a design process..."
"what?"
Vesta, who was trying hard to hold back his tiredness, suddenly felt no longer sleepy:
“No design process?”
"Yes."
Shore explains:
"The special-shaped air film holes they used should have been designed long ago. They just slightly adjusted the arrangement of the holes on the M88-3..."
"..."
He obviously wanted to say something more.
But at this time, the door of the conference room was pushed open.
A group of Chinese representatives, led by Liu Yongquan, walked in one after another from outside.
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."
Liu Yongquan took the initiative to step forward and shook hands with Vesta:
"On behalf of China Aviation Power Group, I welcome our partners!"
……
After some meaningless and polite greetings, the two parties, each with their own thoughts but the same goal, sat down at the two ends of the conference table.
Everyone had a technical document in two languages in front of them.
Of course this is just a brief overview.
The detailed technical documents, even if stored on a hard drive, can fill up a password box the size of a schoolbag.
"Dr. Vesta."
As he spoke, Liu Yongquan turned on the projector on the table:
"Next, let me briefly introduce to you the main design contents of this handover."
The representatives from Snecma across the table immediately perked up, all looking at the curtain on the wall on one side of the conference room.
While no one was paying attention, Liu Yongquan took out the black leather notebook he had prepared long ago, and spread it out in front of him under the cover of the projector host:
"According to the upgrade plan we agreed upon earlier, the most important improvement of the M88-3 engine is the thrust envelope below 1 meters in altitude and below Mach 0.9 in speed..."
"..."
He first gave a brief introduction to the expected effects after the upgrade is completed, as well as the current progress of the upgrade, and then got to the point:
"In order to optimize thrust without increasing fuel consumption and without affecting the cycle life and reliability of the aircraft engine, we have redesigned the entire hot end of the M88-3 engine, especially the fuel atomization system and the air film cooling system to obtain a higher turbine inlet temperature..."
"..."
While Liu Yongquan was turning the pages of his PPT, Vesta finally asked the question he wanted to ask the most:
"Dr. Liu, it has only been less than three months since we first finalized the upgrade route for the M88-3 engine. How can you make such a drastic adjustment to the hot end?"
Liu Yongquan smiled slightly after hearing this.
He was actually prepared for this question:
"First, during this period, we have concentrated all our technical strength on upgrading the hot end components, so the progress is relatively fast."
"After all, the SeA series engines on the Falcon Z project have to share the hot end with the M88-3. The time is tight and the task is heavy. There is no room for delay."
"In addition, I should have mentioned before that this cooling system, especially the dustpan-shaped three-dimensional air film holes shown in the PPT, is a mature technology that we have been researching for a long time. As long as we slightly adapt it to the M88-3 engine, it can meet the technical requirements..."
In fact, Liu Yongquan did not tell the truth completely——
The cooling system design of the M88-3 is almost completely copied from the WS-10, but there is actually no targeted adaptation...
Of course, if this is said, it will be difficult for us to be friends.
After hearing Liu Yongquan's explanation, Vesta turned his attention back to the curtain.
Then, his eyes suddenly opened wide.
"This……"
Just as Shore said just now.
This air film hole design includes a gradient cross-section, gradient pore size, three-dimensional structure, internal microstructure of the hole and multi-layer arrangement, which can be said to have all the five characteristics.
Although the test data marked below is indeed very impressive, Vesta is a little afraid to think about how this thing can be mass-produced by then...
But at this time, Liu Yongquan began to introduce the advantages and cooling principle of this three-dimensional special-shaped hole again, and Vesta was not in a position to interrupt.
It was not until about forty minutes later, when the entire introduction came to an end, that he finally got the chance to speak a second time:
"Liu..."
Vesta quickly stopped Liu Yongquan from opening a new PPT:
"I want to ask... According to your design, there are about 50 sets of air film holes on a single turbine blade, and the internal structure of each air film hole is so... complicated."
“Have you ever considered the issue of production hours?”
Liu Yongquan raised his head and stared at Vesta, whose brows were furrowed, for a while.
Then, he let out a faint sigh.
"Ugh……"
"Dr. Vesta, we used the most mature air film cooling technology with the lowest air flow loss. Just by optimizing the air film design, we increased the temperature in front of the turbine by about 110K, which is the limit of the current technology level."
"If we switch to shock cooling, we can certainly reduce the complexity of the structure, but it will lead to increased gas loss, affecting about 3-5% of the full envelope thrust, and reliability will also be affected."
"Compared to that, it only takes a few more man-hours now. It shouldn't be an unacceptable price, right?"
