Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste
Chapter 93: Steam Core and "Heavy Water

Chapter 93: Chapter 93: Steam Core and "Heavy Water

In the library transformed into a temporary laboratory, Perfikot was "dissecting" a maid automaton.

An already shut-down maid automaton lay on its back on the huge experimental table; its maid uniform was removed and neatly folded aside, and the panel on its abdomen was opened, revealing the intricate gears and steam core inside.

These maid automatons were also driven by steam. However, Perfikot’s precise design allowed them to move freely without needing strong power, and models like Beifa could even burst forth with strong combat capability when needed.

But due to the use of a miniaturized steam core, the output of these maid automatons was limited, making it impossible for them to deliver stronger power.

After all, the abdominal cavity of a maid automaton only had that much space, and Perfikot had already streamlined their internal structure as much as possible, yet it was still challenging to fit a higher-power steam core inside.

The so-called steam core is actually a specially modified miniature steam engine.

They are compact and exquisite, originally crafted by watchmakers for precise parts or instruments as miniature power sources. Some noble homes had steam mantle clocks powered this way, which were relatively more convenient than the older ones that often required winding.

This steam core adopted specialized design, integrating components like the hearth, cylinder, and wheel into a single unit, making it easy to install and use—a currently quite practical small power mechanism in Langton.

The steam core used for maid automatons was optimized and improved by Perfikot herself. She intentionally added an exhaust gas collection device, which could gather the smoke produced by burning coal blocks in the hearth and also recover waste heat.

The advantage of this design is that when the maid automaton works, it won’t emit black smoke or unpleasant odors. Although the fuel Perfikot used for maid automatons is smokeless coal blocks, this doesn’t mean there aren’t coal smoke or other gases emitted.

The exhaust gas collection unit can effectively reduce and minimize this impact.

As for the waste heat recovery, it primarily aims to boost energy utilization efficiency, allowing the steam core to output more power.

Considering the size, even though Perfikot had spent a lot of effort improving it, the output power of this thing is just under 0.3 horsepower.

For such a small device, outputting 0.3 horsepower isn’t insignificant, especially since Perfikot needed to consider its installation on the maid automaton and compromise on performance for noise reduction.

Otherwise, she could completely lift the restrictions on this device, allowing it to deliver up to ten horsepower of powerful output like the steam core on the Steam Knight armor of the same model.

However, if this were the case, the maid automaton’s stomach would sound like someone drilling, and the operation of the intricate internal components would be greatly affected.

After all, high-power output inevitably generates noise and vibration when the steam core operates.

But now, with the additive that doubles the expansion of evaporated water volume, Perfikot estimates she could increase the output power of the steam core to one horsepower while maintaining the original silent effect.

In the end, this is still the components for the maid automaton, not for the Steam Knight armor, where silence is valued more than output.

Although that’s the case, Perfikot also calculated separately if she applied the new technology to the Steam Knight armor, to what extent the power output could be increased.

As for the calculation results... Perfikot was already considering whether she should build mecha and large robots.

Influenced by that apocalyptic game she played years ago, Perfikot still had a longing for large robots.

Actually, there were large robots in Langton City, just most of them didn’t have good control programs, or were simply manually operated.

Even Perfikot needed the knowledge provided by the Jade Record to write sufficiently intelligent programs; others, no matter how genius, should avoid fantasizing about solving this problem without even achieving micro-differential machines.

This isn’t something that can be easily done with information recorded on music box-like rollers, which would make the gears used for recording commands so complicated as to break through the limits.

Especially when the commands you need to record far exceed one, you might need a separate recording roller for each different command.

As for Perfikot’s Alchemy Puppet? Sorry, they use digital commands and rely on micro-differential machines to interpret and execute instructions, their level of intelligence isn’t low at all, and they can store up to more than a dozen commands simultaneously.

Of course, to avoid a crash due to exceeding processing capacity, Perfikot set the maximum number of stored commands for the maid automaton at nine.

Mechanic logic is an integrated instruction set; after receiving the command, the maid automaton only needs to interpret and compute, find the corresponding instructions in the set, and can execute them.

These regular maid automatons have simplified instruction sets, so they can only perform simple maid duties.

As for Beifa beside Perfikot, she is the unique individual with the complete original set of mechanical logic instruction sets, thus her intelligence level is very high, able to not only fight but also speak and think, or at least appear to be thinking.

"Using the additive, the pressure in the steam core will be significantly increased, the maid automaton is fine since I’ve limited its output, but when it comes to the Steam Knight, the steam core cylinder needs reinforcement," Perfikot dismantled the steam core in her hand, conducted a simple check and maintenance, and then attempted to fill the tank with water with the additive.

The water Perfikot intended to name "heavy water," not the heavy water used in nuclear industry in the original world, which is a deuterium compound, quite different from this additive-added "heavy water."

If compared, this "heavy water" probably resembles the high-density stable liquid that appeared in the anime movie "Steamboy" from the original world’s pre-crossing, used for producing ultra-high pressure steam.

Of course, compared to the anime where three steam balls could power an entire steam city, Perfikot’s technology is quite far behind.

Although she believes that if more of the Jade Record could be opened, she might really produce a power source rivaling the steam ball.