In the seventeenth year of Xuanping, several manufacturers of steam engines led by Zhaoqing Machinery Company in the Tang Empire sold more than 1,000 steam engines of various types in the seventeenth year of Xuanping.

It's just that these industrial applications are only low-pressure steam engines, and the steam pressure is generally between 0.11 megapascals and 0.13 megapascals.

This steam pressure has hardly changed in the past ten years, and the improvement of the low-pressure steam engine for industrial use is more in the traditional structure, so as to use the steam pressure more efficiently, although the continuous improvement effect is also great, and has laid the foundation for the large-scale application of the industrial steam engine.

However, there is still no way to change the defect that the steam engine is heavy and huge, and is not suitable for ship power, let alone as a train power.

Over the years, the Navy has tried many times to bring the existing low-pressure steam engine to the ship, but the reason why it has been tried so far is because there are still many problems that have not been solved.

Too large, too heavy, and too small in power, these make the existing low-pressure steam engine simply not able to be used as the power of the ship, at most as an emergency power.

However, the high-pressure steam engine of the Royal Institute of Technology has reached 0.35 megapascals, and this is only a prototype, once this 18th prototype is proven to be feasible, then there will be a series of subsequent improvements, and at that time, it is possible to increase the steam pressure to a higher 0.5 megapascal or even one megapascal or even higher.

Li Xuan immediately gave instructions, increased investment, continued experiments, and prepared to inspect at a later date.

In fact, there is no need for Li Xuan's instructions, the Royal Institute of Technology is also encouraged by the success of the eighteenth prototype, you know, before this, they have already made a full seventeen prototypes, but none of them can run more than an hour without failure.

The previous ones were limited by the level of materials and processing, and then there were some design problems, most of which could only run for a few minutes, and at most only a few tens of minutes before various problems occurred.

Today, the first test of the 18th prototype lasted for three hours, and without saying a word, they immediately built the second prototype after making certain design improvements based on the results of the first prototype.

During this time, they also carried out continuous testing of the first prototype, during which they successfully achieved 12 hours of trouble-free operation, followed by 24 hours of trouble-free operation.

In the fourth test, it continued to run for 56 hours before it was declared to be lying in the nest.

After testing, it was found that the problem was not on the cylinder, but on the transmission structure, which means that in theory, the core components such as the cylinder can withstand continuous operation for a longer period of time, which is very important.

After repairing and improving the traditional structure, and in order to obtain more realistic test data of the core components of the steam engine, they simply did not add any transmission structure, directly tested the steam engine itself, and did not sit on the power output, and this test, until now, has not been stopped, the project team intends to continue to run until it reaches its limit.

When the first prototype was tested for runtime limits, they also built a second prototype and a third prototype, and they tested the extreme barometric pressure on the second prototype.

To this end, they made targeted improvements to increase the steam pressure from 0.35 MPa to 0.5 MPa, and after success, they continued to press the limit of the testing machine.

From 0.35 megapascals, to 0.5 megapascals, to 1 megapascals, 3 megapascals, 5 megapascals!

When challenging 5.5 megapascals, the cylinder of the core component is the one that cannot withstand the burst!

However, the success of 5 megapascals has also greatly stimulated them, you must know that a few days ago, they were still working hard for 0.35 megapascals!

But in the past ten days, they have raised the limit standard of steam pressure from 0.35 megapascals to 5 megapascals!

This has brought about almost leapfrog development!

If the mass-produced model can maintain stable operation at 5 megapascals, then the steam unit can even reach more than tens of thousands of horsepower!

Of course, this is impossible, this standard is already the standard during the First World War in later generations, and no matter how awesome the Royal Institute of Technology of the Tang Empire is, it can't reach this level.

This 5 megapascal is only the limit standard of the testing machine, which cannot be maintained for a long time, and when it is actually used, after their testing, at most it is maintained at 0.65 megapascals, and this 0.65 megapascals is also considered to be the limit of operation, if it is used normally, it is best to keep it below 0.5 megapascals.

After all, there is a huge gap between laboratory standards and mass production standards!

The research at the Royal Institute of Technology is to get the limit figures, and then get the next research direction, if it is a mass production application, then it is necessary to consider the cost and stability.

After all, when it is actually used, it is not possible to accept an ultra-high pressure steam engine that can burst out with high power, but can only run for more than ten minutes.

Even if it is the military, the minimum standard they put forward is that it must run continuously without failure for fifteen hours!

This is only the minimum standard, in fact, if it is 15 days, it is difficult to apply it to actual combat, the time for the combat deployment of warships is several months at every turn, even if it is just an ordinary voyage, a single voyage is 10 days and half a month at every turn, and it is obviously impossible for the navy to build a steam engine maintenance factory in every port, especially in overseas ports.

Therefore, if the steam engine on the battleship wants to achieve actual combat value, it needs to run stably for at least one month, even if there are some minor problems during the period, but it can only be a minor problem, and the engineers on the ship can solve it on the spot, not the kind of major problem that needs to be driven into the dock and then disemboweled.

The second prototype was tested at extreme high pressures, while the third prototype was used to test conventional systems as well as other systems.

When Li Xuan received the test report from the Royal Institute of Technology again, what he saw was that the first prototype had been running continuously without failure for ten days!

The ultimate steam pressure of the second prototype was five megapascals.

The third prototype was tested with other systems and the expected data was obtained.

Now, based on these three prototypes, they have built a fourth prototype!

And this fourth prototype is not intended for various tests, but is intended as a prototype for mass production!

When Li Xuan saw this, he decided that he wanted to watch the operation test of the fourth prototype in person!

Because the first three prototypes are basically laboratory products, it is basically impossible to mass produce, but the fourth prototype is developed as a premise for mass production and practicality, which has a different meaning.

After learning that Li Xuan was going to come to inspect in person, the Royal Institute of Technology also attached great importance to it, although Emperor Li Xuan often came to the Royal Institute of Technology to inspect over the years, but everyone knew the status of the steam engine in the mind of Li Xuan, the son of heaven.

Otherwise, the project team would not have reported almost every test report, because the Son of Heaven must always know the research and development progress of the high-pressure steam engine.

The R&D projects in the Royal Institute of Technology are not 1,000 but 800, and basically every teacher and student in the school are studying and carrying out all kinds of messy research and development.

So the projects they develop are also messy, with everything, from daily necessities, to theoretical research, to weapons, etc., all of which are carried out by someone.

But the only thing that can make Li Xuan pay attention to it all the time is the steam engine project.

After learning that the Son of Heaven was coming, the Royal Institute of Technology had already made preparations, and the interesting thing was that Li Xuan was not the only one who came to see the test of the fourth prototype, not only those high-ranking civil and military officials of the court who came with him, but also the general managers of several enterprises directly under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises.

Liu Ping, the general manager of Zhaoqing Machinery Company, got the steam engine project team of the Royal Institute of Technology yesterday and had come up with a prototype of the mass production of high-pressure steam engines, and he couldn't wait to come to the Royal Institute of Technology yesterday, but at that time, the people of the steam engine project team of the Royal Institute of Technology were busy preparing for the final test to meet the inspection of the Son of Heaven, and there was spare time to take care of him.

But Liu Ping knew the importance of this high-pressure steam engine, he didn't see anyone yesterday, and he ran over early this morning, but this time he didn't go to the R&D personnel of the project team with his nostrils facing the sky.

The teachers and students in the Royal Institute of Technology are all demons, there are few normal people, and it is difficult to deal with, especially the main persons in charge of the steam engine project team, who are even more nostrils to the sky, and they don't even give face to the bigwigs.

Well, there's no way, who makes their political status no lower than that of the court bosses!

Lin Hui, the leader of the steam engine project team, is the director of the mechanical department of the Royal Institute of Technology, from the second grade, or the imperial earl, his earl's palace is given by the Holy Son of Heaven, and his wife is also Li Xuan himself as a matchmaker, married to the Bai family daughter of the Empress Dowager's mother's family, and her daily travel is accompanied by the guards to protect the people, and the special gift can enter the palace at any time to meet (except for the palace ban time), and can be folded at any time.

Forget about the secret fold, this power is basically the fourth rank and above civil officials, colonels and above officers have this power, but they can enter the palace at any time to meet them, this is the prerogative of the minister on duty in the imperial study!

He was able to win so many honors as a scientific researcher, just because of one thing, this person is a super genius and has made outstanding contributions to the scientific development of the Tang Empire.