China Completes World’s Most Powerful Hypergravity Centrifuge CHIEF1900 to Simulate Extreme Engineering Disasters

China has broken its own record in hypergravity research after completing construction of its multi-tonne centrifuge that can compress space and time. CHIEF1900, built by Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Group, is the newest hypergravity machine that surpasses the previous iteration CHIEF1300, which came online only in September this year.

Hypergravity research aims to understand the impact of gravitational forces stronger than those on Earth on materials and structures, such as plant and animal cells. To do this, scientists build massive centrifuges capable of simulating hypergravity conditions.  Hypergravity is measured in units of g-tonnes, where g is the gravitational acceleration, and tonnes is the mass being spun in the centrifuge. For clarity, the spin dryer in a household washing machine does the same job.

It puts the clothes under intense gravitational force using centrifugal motion. However, the maximum hypergravity experienced is no more than 2 g-tonnes. In comparison, CHIEF1900 simulates hypergravity of 1900 g-tonnes.

CHIEF1900 is currently the world’s most powerful centrifuge. It succeeds the CHIEF1300, both built for the Centrifugal Hypergravity and Interdisciplinary Experiment Facility (CHIEF) at Zhejiang University in eastern China.

CHIEF1300 became a record holder in September this year, beating the US-built centrifuge at the Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Mississippi. With a capacity of 1,200 gtonnes, the US centrifuge led the world in hypergravity research until September this year when CHIEF 1300 came online. Within months, CHIEF1300 is sitting in second place as CHIEF1900 takes the throne.

The CHIEF laboratory sits nearly 50 feet (15 m) below the Zhejiang University campus to minimize vibrations during operation. The entire facility has a budget of 2 billion yuan ($285 million) and encourages researchers from around the world, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

The facility is not just aimed at understanding hypergravity for instances when humans travel into space. Instead, creating hypergravity allows scientists to simulate real-world conditions at smaller scales. For instance, creating a three-meter model of a dam wall and spinning it at 100g puts the same amount of stress on it as a 984-foot (300-meter) wall would in the real world. This happens because all objects on Earth are subject to gravity and to the centrifugal force generated by the planet’s rotation.

By generating forces thousands of times stronger than the Earth’s gravity, machines such as CHIEF compress time and distance. This allows lab-based studies to investigate phenomena spanning decades or extending over kilometers.

Other real-world applications of this research can be to estimate how pollutants migrate through soil over multiple millennia or how high-speed rail tracks resonate with the ground – scenarios that are impossible to study in real time.

The job of building such a facility was a multidisciplinary one, requiring experts in environmental science, engineering, automation, and civil engineering to come together. However, building at scales never attempted before brings its own set of challenges.

The research team needed to develop multiple components that could deal with high-speed movements and complex operating conditions from scratch. At high rotational speeds, the CHIEF centrifuges also generate substantial heat.

The team developed a vacuum-based temperature control system that uses a mix of coolant and air ventilation to dissipate the heat, the SCMP post said.

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What is the CHIEF1900 hypergravity machine and how does it "compress space and time" for scientific research? The CHIEF1900 is the world's most powerful hypergravity centrifuge, capable of generating a capacity of 1,900 g-tonnes—surpassing previous records held by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Developed by the Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Group for Zhejiang University, the machine "compresses space and time" by using intense centrifugal force to simulate large-scale or long-term physical phenomena in a controlled laboratory setting. For example, spinning a three-meter dam model at 100g replicates the exact stresses of a full-scale 300-meter structure, while a century of pollutant migration through soil can be observed in just 3.6 days. This subterranean facility, located 15 meters underground to minimize vibrations, utilizes advanced vacuum-based cooling and adaptive optics to maintain stability during extreme rotations.