In the 90s, you could acquire max-level skills every 14 days.

Chapter 110 The Self-Proclaimed Clever Section Chief Liu

He took the file folder from Meng Qingshan and squatted down to flip through it.

Inside were water quality test reports, water supply temperature records, and a handwritten sewage discharge log.

Zhang Yong glanced at the data, stood up, and took a pencil out of his pocket.

"Wei Shuyun, find me a piece of cardboard."

Wei Shuyun turned around and pulled a piece of corrugated cardboard from the pile of scrap in the corner, shook off the dust, and handed it over.

Zhang Yong took the cardboard, leaned against a small table, and began to draw.

The cross-section of the pipe wall is drawn in red pencil, and the temperature gradient is marked in blue pencil.

He drew very quickly, with clean and crisp lines.

"Director Meng, come and take a look."

Meng Dehou walked over slowly.

Zhang Yong didn't urge him, and continued talking to himself.

"The No. 1 furnace was designed with a tube wall thickness of four millimeters, but the actual measurement shows that it is now only a little over two millimeters thick."

"When the scale inside the pipe is more than three millimeters thick, the thermal conductivity drops from fifty for steel to zero.5 for scale."

He marked two numbers on the cardboard.

"The flame temperature on the furnace side is 1,100 degrees Celsius, and the water temperature inside the pipe is 140 degrees Celsius. Under normal circumstances, the temperature difference between the two sides of the pipe wall does not exceed 300 degrees Celsius, which the steel can withstand."

The pencil tip makes a heavy thud on the cardboard.

"But now, the scale is blocking the heat. The temperature on the outside of the pipe wall is heated to over 900 degrees Celsius by the flame, while the inside is only 150 degrees Celsius due to the scale."

He raised his head and looked directly at Meng Dehou.

"The temperature difference exceeds 600 degrees Celsius. Carbon steel will undergo grain boundary creep at this temperature difference. Simply put—"

Zhang Yong pointed to the repair marks on the weld seams on the side of Furnace No. 1.

"The pipe will slowly bulge, like a plastic water pipe that has melted in the sun, and then burst."

"Furnace No. 1 is now a ticking time bomb."

No one in the workshop dared to speak.

Even the smile on Section Chief Liu's face froze.

Meng Qingshan also realized what was happening and immediately pulled out a stack of newspaper clippings from the bottom of the file folder. The paper was yellowed and curled at the edges, clearly accumulated over many years, but the bold headlines were still clearly visible.

"Dad! Look at this!"

He spread out the newspaper clippings and read them aloud one by one.

"In 1987, a boiler explosion occurred at a flax factory in Heilongjiang Province, resulting in deaths and serious injuries —"

"In 1989, a water pipe boiler at a chemical plant in Liaoning Province burst, killing three boiler operators on the spot—"

"This March, Shanxi ————"

"Enough!" Meng Dehou shouted in a low voice.

Meng Qingshan shut his mouth, shrinking back with his head down, still tightly holding the newspaper clipping in his hand.

Meng Dehou stared at the drawing Zhang Yong had made, his brows furrowed into a deep knot.

His gaze shifted from the temperature difference figures to the weld, and then back again.

"How many days would it take to completely shut down the furnace and clean out the scale?"

Zhang Yong did not answer immediately. He glanced at Meng Qingshan.

Meng Qingshan quickly chimed in, "We're still in contact with Professor Fang. I estimate it will take at least five days. We'll do chemical cleaning and mechanical descaling, followed by a water pressure test."

"Five days?" Meng Dehou's voice turned somber. "Winter is just two months away. All three residential areas in the county are waiting for heating. If it's shut off for five days, the subsequent maintenance, trial operation, and debugging will take about half a month. Won't that affect the heating season—"

"If you miss the heating season, you'll freeze," Zhang Yong said, but every word seemed to land on the ground.

"If the stove explodes, people will die."

19

Meng Dehou stopped.

Section Chief Liu finally couldn't hold back any longer. "Young man, aren't you being a bit too frightening? This furnace hasn't been running for thirty years—"

"Not being bombed for thirty years doesn't mean it won't be bombed for the thirty-first year."

Sun Lei got anxious listening to this; he hated those who wouldn't listen to advice.

"Section Chief Liu, you've studied the Production Safety Law, right? If an accident occurs, the factory manager will be held accountable, and the head of the department in charge of safety won't escape either."

He paused for a moment and looked at Section Chief Liu.

"I don't know if the transportation department is in charge of boilers, but if you were there and knew about it but didn't report it, when the safety supervision bureau asks—you'll all be in jail!"

"Anyway, we don't care about this! Don't try to hide anything from us later! Go report it to the safety supervision bureau yourself! After they go around in circles, they might still have to call us to fix it!"

Section Chief Liu's face flushed red and then turned pale. He opened his mouth twice, but swallowed back the words that were about to come out.

The only sound in the workshop was the humming of the coal fire burning in the furnace.

Meng Dehou stood there, motionless.

He looked down at the extinguished tobacco pipe in his hand and remained silent for a long time.

Then he banged the tobacco pipe heavily on his left palm several times.

He neither agreed nor disagreed. He turned and left.

Meng Qingshan looked at his father's back and let out a long breath; the back of his shirt was already soaked with sweat.

"It's done! My dad agreed, so I'll call the shots from now on."

Zhang Yong also breathed a sigh of relief.

He leaned back against the iron pillar, the pain in his ribs returning, and his vision blurred.

Wei Shuyun quietly walked to his side, reached out and held his arm without saying a word.

Just then, a sudden screech of brakes came from the direction of the back door of the boiler room.

The screeching sound of tires rolling over the cinder ground was followed by a few muffled thuds from the diesel engine after it shut down.

Then came the sound of metal hitting the ground.

"Clang—Clang!"

It looked like several metal drums rolled off the truck, bounced twice on the concrete, and then slowly came to a stop.

A pungent smell wafted in from the back door.

Zhang Yong's nose twitched.

He recognized the taste.

Thickeners, industrial paraffin, and—the lingering smell of waste engine oil.

He knows that smell all too well.

Waste engine oil!

It was exactly the same as what was extracted from the fuel tanks of Wei Dabiao's three Dongfeng trucks back then.

"Zhang Yong?" Wei Shuyun noticed that his expression had changed.

Zhang Yong didn't reply, and turned to walk towards the back door of the boiler room.

Outside the back door is a concrete open space where a Jiefang 141 truck is parked, with a dozen or so metal barrels stacked crookedly on its bed.

Two of them had rolled onto the ground, the iron lids on the barrels were loose, and black oil was flowing out along the barrel walls, spreading out in a puddle on the cement floor.

A young man in blue overalls was squatting on the ground picking up a bucket when he saw someone come out and look up, startled.

"Who are you? This is the transportation department's premises; outsiders are not allowed in!"

Zhang Yong ignored him.

He walked to the nearest iron barrel, squatted down, and dipped his right index finger into the black oil overflowing from the barrel opening.

Rub with fingertips.

It's sticky and seems to have some residue inside.

Normal engine oil will form a uniform oil film when rubbed between your fingertips, and it will feel silky smooth.

[Auto Repair Lv.5: Oil Identification Triggered]

The system feedback flooded my brain instantly.

Overall assessment: This product is a first-level recycled waste oil reprocessing product.

Zhang Yong stood up and wiped the oil off his fingers on his trouser leg.

He turned around.

Section Chief Liu also came out at some point and stood at the back door.

"Section Chief Liu, did your transportation department buy this oil?"

"Was it also used as lubricant for those two blowers?"

Section Chief Liu's voice was filled with doubt.

"—What's wrong now?"

"Where did it come from?"

"Special supply from a major factory in Baoding! Genuine goods!" Section Chief Liu said proudly.

"A bucket costs only fifteen yuan, half the price of what your supply and marketing cooperative in Beijing charges! Do you know how much money I've saved the factory?"