To build the shelter, there is a problem that Perfikot must solve, which is the shield machine.
Although the shield machine may not be impossible for the engineers and alchemists of this era to build if the requirents are known, clearly, in an era where even the swinging arm drill hasn’t been invented yet, making a shield machine that ets Perfikot’s requirents is quite difficult for these people.
In Perfikot’s original world, the most primitive shield machine was indeed invented during the sa era, but rather than being a shield machine, it was more of a construction thod.
The engineers at the ti found inspiration through the thod of shipworm drilling wood, dividing the tunnel boring working surface into several small work windows, with each window having a worker responsible for excavation. After digging the underground soil and rocks, the worker would transport the excavated soil and rocks away, and the fra of the entire working surface would move forward, with the excavated parts being supported by bricks and cent walls.
This working thod was the earliest shield tunnel boring model, providing the foundation for modern shield machines, but it is hard to call it a shield machine.
Moreover, although this thod’s work efficiency is higher than purely relying on manpower, the excavation speed is still too slow.
One must know that in the original world, the world’s first tunnel built using shield technology took several years to complete, and they only dug a tunnel beneath the Thas River in London.
Thus, Perfikot obviously cannot choose this thod; she wants to create a boring device that at least conforms to the concept of a shield machine.
This kind of boring device also appeared in the history of the original world, or rather, it was the true ancestor of the modern shield machine.
The front end of this machine has a huge rotating arm equipped with sharp and robust blade heads that can cut down rocks and soil and then transport them away via conveyor belts, with the entire machine being continually pushed forward using hydraulic devices.
Though this equipnt is still extrely crude compared to the modern shield machines of later generations, it at least ets the basic requirents of a shield machine in Perfikot’s mind.
So, after Perfikot spread open the drawings, she began to draft designs according to the style of this old-fashioned machine.
The structure of this old-fashioned machine is relatively simple compared to modern shield machines of later generations; its main working components are the rotating arm and blade heads at the front, which appear overly simple and crude to Perfikot.
She referenced the design of modern shield machine cutterheads, designing the head of her shield machine as a continuously rotating cutterhead, identical in structure to modern shield machines.
The advantage of this cutterhead design is that it can grind different kinds of rock on the work surface more evenly, while also better resisting potential soil collapse issues at the work surface.
Additionally, as the cutterhead is a circular whole, it can better advance forward aided by the rear propulsion device.
However, a qualified shield machine cutterhead not only has high design requirents but also poses a trendous test to materials science.
It should be noted that in later generations, the shield machine is dubbed the crown jewel of the industrial world, and the most critical part is arguably the cutterhead and its various blade heads.
To handle various underground rocks with different textures, the blade heads on the cutterhead are not of a single type, but utilize multiple different types of blade heads in cooperation to achieve boring.
Different types of blade heads employ slightly different cutting principles.
Among them, hard rock blade heads primarily rely on impact force to cut hard rocks, while soft soil blade heads primarily depend on pressure and shear force to cut loose soft soil layers.
The material for soft soil blade heads is relatively straightforward, with sufficient wear resistance and robustness being adequate, but the material for hard rock blade heads has very high requirents, as nobody knows what kind of rock texture might be encountered underground; encountering a rock with excessively high hardness could shatter the blade head, which would be difficult to repair.
In later generations, the materials for such blade heads have evolved to composite structures. While manufacturing the blade heads with hard alloys, diamond micropowder is added, or a layer of diamond is sprayed onto the surface of the drill bit to enhance the durability and hardness of the blade heads.
This is also why so industrial powerhouses in later generations, having exhausted the crown jewel of the industrial world, beca a significant producer of synthetic diamonds.
In the industry, the application fields for synthetic diamonds are incredibly extensive.
If it’s only about manufacturing diamond drill bits, this isn’t difficult for an alchemist like Perfikot; it’s rely transforming graphite into diamonds using alchemy, which, once the principle is understood, can be achieved even by an apprentice.
The truly complex aspect is creating high-strength alloys, which is where the real challenge in materials science lies and cannot be achieved through alchemical cheating.
Moreover, Perfikot has little mory from later generations that might help in this regard, as despite her exposure to these matters, she does not specialize in them; besides recalling manganese in alloy formulas, she can’t recall much.
There’s also a crucial factor: the developnt of tal material processing technology.
The sa homogeneous steel from the 21st century is clearly of much higher hardness than the homogeneous steel from the 20th century for tank armor, which undoubtedly reflects the progress in tal processing technology (although differences in tal formulas also play a role).
As of now, the material Perfikot can utilize is nickel-chromium alloy that she produced herself.
While this material cannot compare with the tal materials used in shield machines in later generations, it is sufficiently effective for now, so Perfikot does not dwell excessively on material aspects, except for designing the blade heads to incorporate diamonds for increased hardness, using nickel-chromium alloy elsewhere.
Solving the problems of the cutterhead and blade heads simplifies the rest of the shield machine: a steam engine to drive the cutterhead rotation, a conveyor belt to transport crushed stone and soil, a propulsion device to push the shield machine forward, and a pipe laying system to construct tunnel wall pipes.
In modern shield machines of later generations, the pipe laying system generally adopts an assembly thod, chanically piecing together prefabricated pipe segnts and installing them onto the tunnel walls.
However, this doesn’t affect the overall situation for Perfikot, as she isn’t digging deep tunnels, rely excavating an underground city; even using the relatively old grouting operations is feasible.
The truly critical part remains the shield machine body at the front, requiring the most ti and effort from her.
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