Chapter 307 - 305: Arrangement of the Production Line
After upgrading the power armor, Chen Xin and Qin Lan hurried back to the city.
Initially, the brothers Han Ping and Han Ze wanted to follow Chen Xin. Han Ping was Chen Xin’s bodyguard and had no reason not to follow him, while Han Ze was called by Han Ping to lend a hand to Chen Xin.
However, Chen Xin refused the brothers’ proposal and left them at his family’s shelter for a very good reason.
"My parents and two friends live here, and they need protection. Han Ping, since you’re my bodyguard, you should protect my family. As for myself, with this set of power armor, no one can harm me," Chen Xin said to Han Ping, who wanted to go with him to the city.
With such a compelling reason from Chen Xin, Han Ping had no choice but to stay at the shelter, responsible for protecting Chen Xin’s parents and the Mo Qingyan sisters.
Chen Xin and Qin Lan, once again, braved the blizzard to return to the city.
This time, however, they did not go to the city police station or the Polytechnic College, but instead, went to a small shelter designated by the city government for the production line of Isotope Thermoelectric Batteries.
The city government had apparently already sent people to clean up the place. Even though the small shelter had started the heating boiler, the temperature of seventy degrees below zero was so cold that it made people shiver, to the point that water would freeze upon contact.
Yet, with the city’s mobilization, combined with slight improvements in the situation of various shelters, there were enough hands to clean up the place and begin tasks according to Chen Xin’s previous requirements, such as dismantling some partition walls.
These partition walls were installed before the disaster to divide inner spaces within the shelter. Some were ordinary light partitions that could be easily dismantled by removing the fixed clamps, but others were brick walls that served a supporting role, which were much harder to take down.
Even under normal circumstances, demolishing a brick wall would require considerable effort. But now, with the temperature dozens of degrees below zero, even soil was frozen harder than granite, leaving only a white mark when struck with a hammer. In such cold, demolishing a wall made of cement and bricks was not something that could be done with just brute force.
After arriving in power armor, Chen Xin attempted to use the power armor to demolish a brick wall. Despite the power armor being able to exert a force of over 1.25 tons with a punch, it only created a hole in the wall.
Moreover, this caused slight deformation to the mechanical structure of the power armor’s hand, indicating that striking hard objects with maximum force was damaging to the mechanical structure.
However, this was obviously not the correct use of the power armor. While it was possible, it’s similar to how anyone with sense would choose to use a hammer instead of their hands to break a wall. Power armor can punch through walls, but there’s no need to do so.
Activating the mechanical arm on his back, Chen Xin operated the steel hand to switch to an appropriate tool. Following up on the hole he had just punched, he easily expanded it, soon creating a person-sized opening.
This efficiency was undoubtedly amazing, but it was the expected performance of power armor.
Meanwhile, Qin Lan borrowed an iron hammer from the workers and wielded it single-handedly against the wall. After several swings, she successfully made a dent in another wall, and with a kick, created a large hole.
This rapid wall demolition was, of course, faster than the workers swinging hammers by themselves. In fact, even with the wall half-demolished by Chen Xin and Qin Lan, the workers still struggled with the demolition, usually taking a long time to remove just a few bricks, making the progress quite slow.
Despite this, Chen Xin and Qin Lan no longer used the power armor to demolish walls, instead seeking out the construction site manager to confirm the structure of the shelter.
Although it had been confirmed as the production line for Isotope Thermoelectric Batteries, the specific construction drawings for the production line had yet to be made. This was because the drawings needed to be modified based on the site’s structure, even though, under normal circumstances, the building should be constructed according to equipment requirements. There are also cases where equipment needs to be installed according to the site.
So, this was not a strange occurrence. Moreover, although the site preparations were almost complete, with no precedents to refer to, the production line was still just a concept in Chen Xin’s mind, not yet turned into a product.
Of course, this posed no issue for Chen Xin, as having a concept was enough for him to use the system’s upgrade function to upgrade the production line.
According to Chen Xin’s concept, the entire production line should include several aspects such as raw material processing, metal parts casting, radioactive material processing, and high-precision parts production, eventually converging on the assembly line.
The more challenging parts to arrange were metal parts casting and radioactive material processing.
Metal parts casting was mainly for radiation shielding within the battery, ensuring that the radiation emitted by the internal radioactive isotopes did not leak. Therefore, lead alloy would be used for high-precision integral casting.
The key issue with casting parts was needing a high-temperature furnace to melt the materials to a castable state.
Of course, manufacturing using stamping was possible, but under the current environment, a hydraulic press was clearly unsuitable; instead, a furnace was more appropriate.
Fortunately, since they had already made isotope generators, it was enough to meet the electrical demands of an electric furnace, eliminating concerns about the energy supply.
The energy consumption of the electric furnace was easy to solve, but the heat it released during operation was not as easy to manage, especially considering the enclosed underground location. Various problems brought on by the furnace needed to be addressed.
The furnace would consume oxygen during operation, release high temperatures, and need precise temperature control during cooling—all these were not decisions to be made on a whim. Without the system, Chen Xin would need to conduct detailed research and calculations to ultimately prepare for the furnace installation.
As for radioactive material processing, this was easier to arrange than the furnace. As long as radiation protection measures were taken, it could even be arranged for the state to process the radioactive isotopes elsewhere and send them here as raw materials, with only loading being required here.
Though radiation protection was not easy, considering that every part of the production line, except for the initial raw material processing, would be exposed to radiation, the entire small shelter needed to achieve full radiation protection. This was essentially a hard requirement, eliminating the need for additional calculations and arrangements.