Bright Sword: I took Li Yunlong to work in military industry

Chapter 698 Yellow Cake Production Capacity

In the original cave of Liaoyuan Arsenal, Yu Ye and a team of engineers were debugging and installing equipment.

After careful consideration, Yu Ye decided to place the uranium enrichment plant here. Although it cannot be absolutely safe, it is the best choice at this stage.

After the engineering blasting, the depth of the cave was much greater than before. Yu Yezheng led a team of engineers to install 839 industrial-grade centrifuges in stages.

The uranium enrichment process is extremely delicate. The mass difference between uranium 235 and uranium 238 is extremely small. Only through precise design and high-intensity centrifugation can the two be separated.

At the same time, the radiation from these raw materials and products is very high, so protection is needed to avoid and reduce personal injury.

In addition to the uranium enrichment plant in this cave, Yu Ye specially built two thermal power plants and a hydropower plant to provide electricity specifically for uranium enrichment.

Uranium enrichment is a very power-intensive preparation process. Yu Ye was even a little worried about whether these three power plants would be sufficient. He once considered whether he should prepare dozens of diesel generators as a temporary power supplement. However, with the current power of diesel generators, it can only be said that it is better than nothing. Yu Ye finally gave up.

"Director, according to this installation schedule, we will be able to install all these centrifuges in about ten days."

An electrical engineer following Yu Ye said.

This is a talent trained among the batch of college students who came from the northwest last year. Now, following Yu Ye every day, he can basically stand on his own.

"Okay, the technical work of this enrichment plant will be handed over to you. I only have one request, safe and stable production, absolutely no mistakes.

Can it be done? "

"can!"

The young engineer said solemnly.

"These are the operating rules for uranium enrichment plants that I wrote these days. No one has experience in producing high-enriched uranium, so these operating rules are for your reference.

You need to gain more experience through your own exploration in actual work, and eventually come up with a more complete set of production management standards for us.”

"Okay, Director, I will definitely live up to your trust."

To be able to serve as the chief technical engineer of a uranium enrichment plant, one must have undergone a long period of observation and must have strong technical skills and a strong position. Only then can one be approved by leaders at all levels to take up this position.

The young man also understood the importance of this job and dared not take it lightly.

"Chen Kan, what is the latest inventory and production capacity of your yellow cake?"

"Director, we currently have about 4 tons of inventory. Our production capacity has basically reached an average of about 2 tons per month, which is enough for the initial production of the uranium enrichment plant.

But there is a more serious problem.”

"what is the problem?"

"The uranium mine around the Qinshui coal mine has almost been mined out. The uranium mine near Taiyuan is too low-grade and has very few ore reserves. So, we are worried that the subsequent production capacity will not be able to keep up."

Chen Kan replied with a bitter face.

Yu Ye frowned when he heard this question. Uranium ore was truly a gift from God. There were basically no large uranium mines in the Jin, Hebei and part of the Shandong areas that he had occupied. The uranium mines that he had been able to plunder were basically a pleasant surprise.

"You arrange the production of yellow cake first. The production schedule cannot be delayed. I will take care of the uranium mine problem."

Yu Ye made the final decision to support Chen Kan.

"Based on the uranium we have now, how much yellowcake can we produce?"

"We have about 6 tons of yellow cake in total, which is the limit. We can only produce for another two months at most, and then we have to stop production."

"Six tons of yellow cake, if used to produce uranium 6, would yield about 235 kilograms of uranium 18, which is not even enough for one uranium.

This damn fast neutron reactor must also be arranged."

Yu Ye sighed softly. It was still not enough. Without nationwide resources, if the resources of Jin province were used to support it, ordinary weapons would be enough, but atomic bombs were still a little stretched.

"The nation's resources..."

Yu Ye began to mutter silently in his heart, and suddenly his eyes lit up.

The comrades who previously assisted the South with a large amount of weapons and equipment have expanded their living space a lot, and can supply the North with large quantities of tungsten sand, which in turn can supply large quantities of uranium ore.

When Yu Ye thought that his fellow countrymen in Jiangxi not only produced tungsten sand, but also produced a large amount of high-quality uranium ore in the Xiangshan mining field, his face brightened up. At least there was a solution.

"Don't worry, hold on for another two months. I will provide you with sufficient high-quality uranium ore. If your yellow cake production capacity cannot be increased to 10 tons per month by then, you will write a self-criticism to me."

Yu Ye said with a big laugh.

Perhaps Yu Ye's cheerful smile infected Chen Kan, and he gritted his teeth and said, "If the factory director can ensure sufficient supply, I will definitely achieve the production target!"

"Row!"

"How's your research on high explosives going?"

Chen Kan curled his lips when he heard this: "Director, you really treat me like a donkey. It's only been two months and you're asking me for the results?"

Yu Ye felt a little embarrassed. Did he really become Zhou Baopi, putting too much pressure and workload on Chen Kan?

"Talk about progress."

Yu Ye could only use a serious tone to hide his embarrassment and change the topic to the progress of work.

"We have designed some formulas using HMX, RDX and PBX in different proportions, and have achieved some results through our local method tests."

"What folk method?"

"It is to use a homogeneous steel pipe and test its homogeneous compression capacity with explosives of different formulations, and at the same time match it with a more appropriate detonation speed."

Yu Ye's eyes lit up when he heard this. The core of detonating an atomic bomb is to use suitable high explosives to compress the nuclear fission material with nanosecond precision, so that the compression exceeds the critical point and finally triggers nuclear fission.

I have to say that Chen Kan’s idea of this folk method is still correct.

“However, Director, you also know that there is no particularly good theoretical formula to refer to in material science. We can only rely on empirical formulas to explore little by little, so a breakthrough may be made tomorrow, or it may take one or two months.

However, we have already figured out some tricks, and we estimate that it will take less than two months.”

As Chen Kan spoke, his eyes were full of excitement, and it was obvious that he was very confident about this matter.

"Very good, follow your ideas. I have a small suggestion. You can spend money to buy a batch of the most accurate detectors currently available to measure the detonation speed and compression speed. It should be helpful to you.

When you return, please report to the commander and ask him to arrange for someone to find comrades in the south to buy them."

Yu Ye smiled and gave his suggestions.