Thirty-seven millstones driven by waterwheels have been installed in the craftsman camp. These days, feedback from users generally says that one water-powered mill is equivalent to the speed of five or six mills.

Hydraulic power has many potentials, and this amazing efficiency is expected, but it is far from the ultimate.

Extreme data must be tested.

The technical points to improve the hydraulic mill include water, water wheel, transmission gear, and mill.

Water also includes water speed, water channel, water drop, and water tanker depth.

Some of the many test tasks assigned by Li Mengxi have already made progress.

In order to obtain more sufficient water power, Li Mengxi recently found a river, repaired the river, and built a dam. After many days of testing on the newly renovated river, the craftsmen have already begun to develop some projects.

The first point is whether straight river channels can provide more hydraulic power than curved river channels. The answer is that straight river channels do help to utilize hydraulic power.

A simple data submitted by the craftsmen. The data stated that the ten waterwheels were exactly the same in size, thickness, and even the thickness of the light and heavy axles. Each waterwheel entered the water at the same depth. Then, the waterway was changed to an extremely

There are two types: curved and straight. The ten waterwheels are installed in a fixed position, and a dedicated person is responsible for recording the number of turns of the waterwheel.

After comparison, when the river is straight, the speed of the waterwheel is as much as 0.30% faster.

The efficiency is 0.30%, that is, about one-thirtieth. To increase the efficiency by this point is equivalent to one more stone mill for every thirty units.

From a practical point of view, it may not be worth the loss to invest in large-scale projects to repair rivers for such a little efficiency, but from a political point of view, in order to collect as much soybeans as possible from the hands of the people, the cost of grinding tofu for the government is

The lower the price, the better. The lower the cost, the cheaper the tofu dumped to the people will be, and the more beans can be replaced.

Therefore, in order to minimize costs, the river channel should be renovated.

Regarding the second test of the river course, whether building a dam can increase the water flow speed.

There is no doubt that damming can greatly increase the speed of water flow.

But then there is a new question. After the dam is built, does the power of the waterwheel have anything to do with the distance from the dam? The waterwheel is directly connected under the dam, just like a waterfall, allowing the water flow to directly wash away the power of the waterwheel.

Is it more powerful if the water wheel is positioned later, or is it more powerful if it is farther away?

When setting up this test, Li Mengxi himself didn't know if there was any correlation. Anyway, there was only so much about the positional relationship between the water wheel and the dam. You would know if there was any correlation.

The test results returned by the craftsmen were beyond Li Mengxi's expectations.

The craftsman said that when the water flows over the dam, it hits the waterwheel directly. The waterwheel spins the fastest, even if it is farther away, but the waterwheel spins slower nearby.

This was not directly proportional to the distance. Li Mengxi was also surprised.

He went to the site to have a look in person, and the results of the on-site observation seemed to be like this. The dam built by the craftsmen was half a foot high, and the water flow rushed out of the dam and spread to a distance of ten feet before falling to the water surface.

At this point where the water falls into the water, the water splashing on the river will make the water splash in that area and the water flow will be disordered. That is, at that location, the power of the water flow is extremely dispersed, which means that if the water tanker is set up there,

Turbulent water flow cannot provide strong power.

The purpose of this unexpected discovery is to make the placement of the waterwheel more reasonable and precise.

The craftsmen have tested the simplest factor regarding water.

Based on the test results, in order to make the water flow more powerful, dams began to be built in various places, preparing to provide the basis for the large-scale erection of waterwheels.

From the factor of water flow, the next step is the complicated water wheel.

The size of the waterwheel has been determined, and the remaining tests are the complex propeller blades and the depth of the waterwheel into the water.

Feedback from the craftsmen is that the faster the waterwheel rotates when it is submerged a quarter of the way underwater.

At this point, Li Mengxi was not sure whether it was really the case. He doubted whether the data collected by the craftsmen was sufficient. A little verification was needed on a certain date.

Ordinary waterwheels do not have propeller blades. In order to make the waterwheel have more power, paddles are added. The effect of the paddles is excellent, but the paddles also bring extremely complex variables.

There are things that can be improved on the blades, such as material, shape, blade bending angle, installation method, etc., and these improvements are subtle and subtle, making it difficult to design and collect data, making it extremely difficult.

The amount of testing of blades must be extremely large. Li Mengxi has judged this. In later generations, blades were used from engines to ships and then to fighter jets. The room for improvement is huge and almost endless. Li Mengxi

He had some expectations, and he felt that the paddle might not be able to reach its end even if he tried for decades.

The currently finalized blades are similar to those in the shape of a fan, and the effect is pretty good. However, as the blades continue to be improved, Li Mengxi hardly knows how to change them into other shapes.

Li Mengxi does not have any knowledge related to mechanical design. It is good enough that he can design a fairly good blade based on the fan blade in his impression. It is almost impossible to make any further progress.

Li Mengxi, who is self-aware, found a way out - bionics.

In the hundreds of millions of years of long biological evolution, every living thing has evolved to an almost perfect level. An animal's feathers, sharp teeth, and scales are all the best products of hundreds of millions of years of evolution.

The solution is the optimal among infinite configurations.

When humans realized that the dome structure had outstanding defense capabilities, turtles were already there tens of millions of years ago; when humans realized the powerful advantages of streamlines against resistance, fish and birds were already there hundreds of millions of years ago.

, their bodies have long evolved into streamlined shapes; humans find it difficult to be spotted when wearing clothes of the same color as the environment, and chameleons lying on the treetops laugh at humans for not even having the ability to change color automatically.

Li Mengxi cleverly sought methods from nature, which was the only way to find an efficient blade shape in a short time.

The first result of embarking on the road of bionics was that Li Mengxi thought of a plant whose fruit has long wings. When the fruit matures, it can fly everywhere like a helicopter.

The craftsmen spent a lot of effort to find the seeds that Li Mengxi mentioned, which were the seeds of coniferous trees. Li Mengxi had a new paddle modeled after the shape of the coniferous tree seeds. After testing, the power was outstanding.

This is an excellent start.

If one day you are lucky enough to find a creature that is very close to a waterwheel, has a paddle, and relies on paddles to move, then just copy its shape, and you will most likely find the perfect shape of the paddle directly.

When Li Mengxi decided to start bionics, his goals soon were not limited to the waterwheel blades themselves.

In Li Mengxi's vague impression, there were ox-tail knives that looked like ox tails, dog-leg knives that looked like dog legs, wild goose feather knives that looked like wild goose feathers, and lancets that looked like willow leaves.

Also, there seems to be pangolin armor in the Ming Dynasty, that is, the pangolin armor is peeled off and used as armor. There seems to be a tiger tooth gun in the Qing Dynasty. What are the shapes of the tiger teeth?

These oxtail knives, dog-leg knives, wild goose feather knives, lancets, pangolins, tiger fangs, and even knives that imitate mantises, spears that imitate marlin, arrows that imitate porcupines, and arrows that imitate hedgehogs, all of these can be started.

As expected, the goose feather-shaped knife and the willow leaf-shaped knife are somewhat unique compared to the ring-shou knife.
Chapter completed!