Chapter 138 Rocket Engine Nozzle

Li Family Toy Factory, finished goods warehouse.

The air reeked of machine oil, mixed with a tense atmosphere.

Over a dozen Experts from the Ordnance Industry Group were surrounding that pile of orange-red jia an no. 1 gas canisters.

They were like archaeologists surrounding a newly unearthed dinosaur fossil.

They held various instruments in their hands.

There were ultrasonic flaw detectors, Leeb hardness testers, spectrum analyzers, and even a small industrial X-ray machine.

The probes of the instruments slid slowly over the canister bodies, emitting faint electrical hums.

Li Jiajun stood to the side, hands in his pockets, watching this group of busy old men, his mouth twitching.

'Is this really necessary?'

He thought to himself, 'It's just a gas canister, right? They're acting like they're dismantling a nuclear bomb. These Experts are the same; have they been in the lab so long they've gone stupid? Making such a fuss just because they saw a consumer product with slightly better workmanship.'

He activated his involuntary voice-over snark mode and muttered to the air, his voice not loud, but just enough for Liu Jianguo to hear:

"What a scene, wasting taxpayers' money. It must cost a lot in electricity to run these instruments once, right? Do you really need an X-ray to test a gas canister? Could it possibly reveal a sarira relic?"

Liu Jianguo glanced at him but didn't speak.

He simply pulled out a small porcelain bottle of quick-acting heart-saving pills from his pocket and gripped it tightly.

He had a premonition that this bottle of medicine would definitely be opened today.

Just then.

"Beep!"

A sharp alarm sound suddenly emanated from the instrument in the hands of an Old Expert wearing reading glasses.

That was Elder Zhao, who was in charge of material strength testing.

At this moment, he was staring blankly at the screen of the Leeb hardness tester in his hand, his hands shaking like a sieve.

"Is it broken?"

Elder Zhao subconsciously patted the instrument, "This piece of junk, why does it fail at such a critical moment? Is the data display wrong?"

"What's wrong, Old Zhao?" Liu Jianguo's heart skipped a beat, and he walked over quickly.

"General Manager Liu, this instrument must be broken."

Elder Zhao pointed at the numbers on the screen and said with an expression of disbelief, "I just tested the yield strength of this canister body. Do you know what it shows? Eighteen hundred megapascals! How is that possible? The steel for the smoothbore gun barrel of our latest active-duty Type 99A main battle tank only has a yield strength around that number!"

"A gas canister made with tank gun barrel steel? That's not scientific! Unless this factory director has a mine at home, or he's crazy!"

To verify his conjecture, Elder Zhao took out a standard test steel block he carried with him and tested it.

Beep.

The reading was accurate and correct.

The instrument wasn't broken.

Elder Zhao's expression changed instantly.

He turned around abruptly and pressed the probe hard against the gas canister again.

Beep!

Eighteen hundred and twenty megapascals!

Even higher than before!

"Hiss..."

The several Experts watching nearby all gasped in unison, their voices perfectly synchronized, as if they had sucked all the oxygen out of the warehouse.

"Eighteen hundred megapascals..."

Elder Zhao looked up, his eyes filled with a ghostly terror and fanaticism, his voice trembling:

"This... how is this a gas canister body? This is clearly an unprocessed, over-strength heavy artillery barrel blank! As long as you cut off both ends and rifle the barrel, this thing could directly fire armor-piercing shells!"

Upon hearing this, Li Jiajun wasn't happy.

He stepped forward, wearing an expression that said 'you guys are so ignorant,' and retorted righteously:

"Old comrade, you can eat whatever you want, but you can't say whatever you want. What gun barrel? That sounds so unpleasant."

"I did this for safety! For explosion protection! Just think, what if a user's house catches fire, or an earthquake causes the house to collapse? Ordinary canisters get crushed when pressed and explode when burned. But mine is different! I used special honeycomb lattice inner wall reinforcement technology. Forget about the house collapsing; even if a truck runs over it, it won't deform! This is being responsible for life!"

"Honeycomb lattice?"

On the other side, Engineer Qian, who was operating the X-ray machine, suddenly shouted, "Quick! Come and see this!"

Everyone swarmed over.

On the computer screen connected to the X-ray machine, the internal structure of the canister was clearly displayed.

Inside that thick steel wall, a dense layer of precise, honeycomb-like hexagonal grid structures was distributed.

"Genius! This is simply a genius design!"

Engineer Qian pointed at those grids, his fingers trembling, "This structure is known in mechanics as a stress dispersion matrix! It can evenly disperse the huge instantaneous chamber pressure to every node! This isn't for drop protection at all! This is for withstanding instantaneous high-pressure explosions!"

"And this valve!"

Engineer Qian brought up the perspective view of the valve, his tone becoming even more excited, even carrying a hint of fear:

"General Manager Liu! Look at this flow channel design! How is this a pressure relief valve?"

"This is clearly a precise, multi-stage adjustable Laval nozzle assembly! Its first-stage flow channel is for takeoff... cough, for initial exhaust; the second-stage flow channel is for acceleration; once the third stage is fully opened, it's a perfect rocket engine nozzle!"

"As long as you fill it with propellant and ignite it, this thing could fly dozens of kilometers, and the trajectory would be extremely stable!"

"This... this is not a gas canister at all!"

Engineer Qian turned around abruptly and roared at Liu Jianguo, "This is a heavy rocket artillery unit with a perfect structure, low cost, and capable of large-scale assembly line production! And it's the kind that comes with its own combustion chamber and nozzle!"

"This design concept is simply unheard of! If applied to our rocket artillery or barrel artillery, it could reduce the weight by half and increase the range by one-third!"

Elder Zhao was also flushed with excitement and added:

"Not only that! We always thought this lattice material processing technology only existed in theory. I never expected to see the real thing here! General Manager Liu, this technology is enough to make Eastern Country's artillery technology lead the world by ten years!"

"Ten years? I think at least fifteen years!" Engineer Qian corrected.

Hearing these two numbers, Li Jiajun, who was still complaining in his heart, was completely dumbfounded.

He stood there blankly, watching the Experts who were so excited they were about to jump, his brain buzzing.

'Lead... lead the world by ten years?'

'Is this piece of junk of mine... really that awesome?'

This thought surfaced in his heart.

He had always thought that he just made the materials a bit stronger and the structure a bit more scientific for the sake of explosion protection, so he wouldn't get blown up.

How did he accidentally end up leading the world?

"Xiao Li!"

Liu Jianguo took a deep breath, turned around, and stared at Li Jiajun with burning eyes, "What else do you have to say? You use artillery technology that leads the world by ten years to make gas canisters? How do you explain this now?"

Li Jiajun snapped back to reality.

Looking at Liu Jianguo's serious expression, and then at the surrounding Experts who were looking at him like he was an alien.

His damned desire to win and his sharp-tongued nature suddenly couldn't be suppressed.

Since you all say I'm awesome, then I must put on a big show.

Li Jiajun spread his hands, looking innocent, and even with a tone of disappointment, he activated his involuntary voice-over snark mode, muttering to the air:

"Sigh, what is this world coming to... I thought this wasn't a big deal. Isn't it just slightly modifying the honeycomb structure and optimizing the valve principle of a pressure cooker? This is all the wisdom of nature, a principle taught in junior high physics."

"You're not shocked by such simple technology, right? Is the threshold for Experts nowadays this low? You haven't even seen this kind of basic operation? It seems our country's popular science work has a long way to go..."

Once these words were out.

The entire warehouse went silent instantly.

Liu Jianguo and all the Experts present had their mouths twitching wildly.

It was a complex expression of extreme speechlessness, feeling the other party was very abstract, wanting to hit someone but unable to beat the technology.

'Simple technology?'

'Junior high physics?'

'Is this even human language?'

'This guy, even now he's still being sharp-tongued?'

Elder Zhao clutched his chest, feeling that he needed to arrange his own quick-acting heart-saving pills.

This kid was too infuriating; not only did he crush you with technology, but he also had to insult your intelligence.

Liu Jianguo took a few deep breaths, forcing down the urge to kick Li Jiajun.

He knew this kid too well.

The more it was like this, the easier it was for this kid to get carried away.

And...

According to his understanding of this monster Li Jiajun, the commotion this kid made every time would definitely not be as simple as the first layer.

The drones had swarm algorithms.

The toy cars had stealth coatings.

This time's gas canisters, although the materials and structure were heaven-defying, he always felt... something was missing.

'This kid must still be holding something back.'

This thought surfaced in Liu Jianguo's heart.

His gaze passed over the humble-bragging Li Jiajun and began to scan the warehouse.

Soon, his gaze locked onto the corner.

A person was standing there.

The manager of Li Family Toy Factory, that famous Big Smart One—Wang Dachui.

At this moment, Wang Dachui was looking at the group of Experts praising the ordinary version of the gas canisters, with an expression on his face that said 'you guys really haven't seen the world,' his lips moving, looking eager, unable to keep it in, wanting to save face for his boss.

Seeing this expression, Liu Jianguo not only didn't stop him, but instead felt his heart skip a beat.

'Sure enough!'

'I knew this loudmouth couldn't keep secrets in his stomach!'

Liu Jianguo's mouth curled up slightly, revealing an encouraging look, and he even deliberately raised his volume, saying to the Experts:

"Since everyone thinks this is all the technology, then get ready to seal it up and take it away. It seems Xiao Li really only made this one product this time; although advanced, it ends here."

This sentence was like a fuse, instantly igniting Wang Dachui's heart that wanted to show off.

How could this be?

How could he let the leader think the boss only had this much ability?

The boss clearly had even more awesome designs!

Wang Dachui couldn't hold it back anymore; he stepped forward, puffed out his chest, and shouted loudly in a resonant, proud tone, full of 'I want to save face for my boss':

"Leaders! Actually, what you are seeing now is just our basic model!"