Major Heavy Industry: Starting with a Fake Marriage

"Comrade Jiang Cheng, your solution has passed the test piece verification and simulation part verification, and it has also passed the thermal cycling test. But there is still a long way to go before it can be applied in real engineering." Chief Engineer Chen sat in a chair in the laboratory, a stack of data reports spread out in front of him, pointing to one of the pages. "Look at this data—the coating lifespan has too much dispersion. For the five blades, the thermal cycling test results are: 1200 hours, 980 hours, 1100 hours, 850 hours, and 1050 hours. The lowest is 850 hours, and the highest is close to 1200 hours, a difference of 350 hours."

Jiang Cheng stared at the numbers, remaining silent for a long time. Eight hundred and fifty hours—a full one hundred and fifty hours short of the design target of one thousand hours. Although the average exceeded one thousand, the minimum was the decisive factor—the military would not accept "average passing"; they demanded "every single one passing." Moreover, the lives of several pilots might be at stake behind this, and he knew all too well how much effort was put into training pilots.

"What's the reason?" he asked.

"We analyzed several possibilities. Batch differences in the substrate material, drift in spraying parameters, and slight variations in cooling conditions are all possible." Chief Engineer Chen took off her glasses and rubbed her nose. Two red marks, one deep and one shallow, were pressed into the sides of her nose by the lenses. "But the most fundamental reason is—your solution relies on manual operation. The angle of the spray gun, the speed of movement, and the dwell time all depend on the operator's experience. Experience has its margins of error. One blade might be sprayed well, but the next one might be slightly less accurate. That slight difference can mean a difference of one hundred hours in lifespan."

Jiang Cheng knew she was right. Every blade he personally sprayed in the lab was done with complete focus and utmost care. As the spray gun moved, his breathing would unconsciously slow, his eyes fixed on the distance between the nozzle and the blade, afraid to blink. But he couldn't spend his entire life in front of the spraying equipment. This technology needed to be promoted, needed to be made available to others. Without his focus, without his "feel," would the sprayed blades be up to standard?

"Chief Engineer Chen, do you mean—automation?"

"Yes. The spraying parameters are fixed into the equipment, allowing the machine to execute automatically. No human judgment or experience is required. Every blade uses the exact same parameters and the exact same trajectory. This way, dispersion can be controlled."

Jiang Cheng nodded. He recalled the fully automated painting production lines he had seen before his transmigration—robotic arms operating at high speeds, laser ranging providing real-time feedback, and closed-loop control with micron-level precision. But that was in the 21st century. Now it was 1982, and even CNC systems were still in their infancy in China. Automated painting equipment—let alone buying it, they didn't even have the blueprints. The most advanced CNC equipment he could think of was the machining center that the BJ Machine Tool Research Institute was working on, but that was still an experimental product.

"Chief Engineer Chen, there are no automated equipment available domestically. Importing them would be time-consuming, expensive, and not necessarily compatible with our processes."

"I know." Chief Engineer Chen stood up, walked to the window, and turned his back to him. A layer of dust covered the windowpane, and the locust trees outside were indistinctly visible. "So I was thinking—could we modify the existing equipment ourselves?"

Jiang Cheng was taken aback. Modify it themselves? They were a materials research institute, modifying spraying equipment? But then he thought about it again, and the idea was right. There were no ready-made ones in China, importing them was unrealistic, the only way was to do it themselves. And doing it themselves was exactly what he did best.

When I was at the Hongxing Factory, I assembled the coating equipment myself, welded the landing gear tooling myself, and even made the teaching aids for the training courses myself.

"Chief Engineer Chen, this idea is feasible. But we need people with expertise in mechanical design, electrical control, and software programming. We have mechanical engineers in our center, but we need to find outside help for electrical and control systems."

"Professor Zhou is already coordinating. He's borrowing two people from the Beijing Automation Research Institute to work on electrical control. As for software programming, they might have to learn it from scratch. There's a young man from the Automation Institute who graduated two years ago with a computer science degree. Professor Zhou said he's quick-witted and could give him a try."

Jiang Cheng nodded. He knew that the project had changed from a "materials problem" to an "equipment problem," and the difficulty had increased to a new level.

Materials problems can be solved through experimentation and trial and error, but equipment problems require design and manufacturing. If the design is wrong, the parts cut by the machine tool will be unusable; if the program is wrong, the robotic arm may knock the blades away.

It was already dark when Jiang Cheng came out of Chief Engineer Chen's office. He stood in the courtyard of the research institute, looking at the locust tree. The locust blossoms had all fallen, leaving only green leaves on the branches, gleaming with a dark green light under the streetlights. The streetlights were old-fashioned mercury lamps, emitting a pale white light that shone on the leaves, making them look as if they were coated with frost. He felt in his pocket, took out a cigarette, squeezed it, but didn't light it. He put it back. He remembered what Huang Deqing had said—"Smoking too much will make your hands shake. If your hands shake, how can you repair machines?" He had heard this for two years, and he had always remembered it, but he had never put it into practice. This time in Beijing, he smoked less. Not intentionally, but because he had no desire to smoke.

"Brother Jiang."

He turned around, and Sun Deming stood behind him, holding two steamed buns wrapped in oil paper, still steaming. The steam from the buns condensed into a small puff of white mist in the night breeze, which quickly dissipated.

"Want some? They're fresh from the cafeteria, I took two extra."

Jiang Cheng took one and took a bite. The steamed bun was soft and sweet, and it gave him a comforting feeling when he chewed it.

It's not that steamed buns are delicious, it's that when you're hungry, everything tastes good. In his previous life, during his doctoral studies, he forgot to eat one night, and the hunger pangs from his stomach in the early morning made him want to cry.

Thinking of this, Jiang Cheng's lips curled up slightly.

"Deming, you've been here for almost a month. How are you feeling?"

Sun Deming thought for a moment. He took a bite of his steamed bun, chewing for a long time before swallowing. "At first, I was scared, afraid I wouldn't do it well. Later, I found it interesting, more interesting than repairing machines. Repairing machines is when someone tells you what's wrong and you fix it. This is about finding the problem yourself and figuring out the solution yourself. It's different."

"How are they different?"

"Repairing machines is like following the path. This is like finding the path." Sun Deming broke the steamed bun in half, examined the air holes, and said, "Look at this steamed bun. If the air holes are evenly distributed, it tastes good. If they're uneven, some parts are hard and some parts are soft. Repairing machines is like eating steamed buns. You know it's a steamed bun, and you just eat it. Applying a coating is like making steamed buns. You need to know the ratio of flour, water, and yeast, you need to know the fermentation time, and you need to know the steaming temperature. They're different."

Jiang Cheng looked at him and suddenly smiled. "Deming, that's a good analogy."

Sun Deming grinned. "I learned it from Master Huang. He said that people who do technical work need to know how to talk in the language of ordinary people."

The two stood under the locust tree and finished their steamed buns. A night breeze blew by, carrying a chill; autumn was approaching in Beijing.

In the distance, cicadas were chirping, their voices hoarse, as if they knew their days were numbered, chirping with extra effort. The chirping came in waves, loud at the beginning and almost inaudible at the end.