China launches hypergravity machine capable of 'compressing' time and space.

According to SCMP on November 18, China's Chief Interdisciplinary Experimental Facility has begun operations.

CHIEF provides a multidisciplinary scientific platform with the world's largest supergravity centrifuge – capable of generating forces thousands of times greater than Earth's surface gravity, helping to solve complex engineering problems in a wide range of fields.

The CHIEF supergravity testing facility in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. (Photo: ifeng)

CHIEF is located in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province in eastern China. According to local authorities, the preliminary completion of the project is a significant milestone in the field of hypergravity research.

The project was approved by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in 2018. Construction began in 2020, under the supervision of scientists from Zhejiang University.

CHIEF comprises three main super-gravity centrifuges – machines that spin containers at very high speeds so that heavier liquids and solids are pushed out or to the bottom – along with 18 pre-installed units.

The main motor of the first centrifuge – the device with two large arms holding two chambers where the experimental modules are placed – has been installed. According to Hangzhou authorities, construction of the remaining two centrifuges and 10 prefabricated units is underway.

The Earth's gravitational force is expressed in 1g (unit of gravity); any force greater than 1g is called supergravity.

When an astronaut returns to Earth aboard a spacecraft, they are subjected to a super-gravity of 4g, equivalent to four times their body weight.

The image shows the dimensions of one of CHIEF's three centrifuges. (Photo: ifeng)

The supergravity centrifuge is considered a revolutionary research tool because of its ability to create extreme physical conditions that do not exist in everyday environments.

Professor Chen Yunmin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that facilities like CHIEF can "compress" time and space, allowing for research into many complex physics problems and serving various engineering purposes.

"For example, scientists can observe the movement of pollutants that would take tens of thousands of years in nature," Chen, who is also the mastermind behind the idea for this massive scientific facility, wrote in a report.

The world's leading supergravity facility is currently being developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, capable of reaching approximately 1200 gt (gravity acceleration x tons). The facility under construction in Hangzhou could reach 1900 gt.

The project is designed to house six hypergravity laboratories, each focusing on a specific research area: slope and dam engineering, seismic geotechnical engineering, deep-sea engineering, deep subsurface engineering and environment, geological processes, and materials processing.

For example, in the field of deep-sea engineering, such scientific experiments could bring natural gas hydrates closer to reality.

Natural gas hydrates, also known as burning ice, are frozen fossil fuels found on the seabed and permafrost, consisting of water and gas (usually methane). Gas hydrates are considered an abundant, widely distributed, and clean-burning energy source, making them one of the most promising alternative energy sources for the future.

Scientists involved in the project say that the hypergravity experiments will be able to simulate the mining process and various mining methods in deep-sea environments, providing crucial scientific and experimental support for optimal mining and minimizing future incidents.

According to publicly available information, CHIEF is on the list of 10 key national science and technology infrastructure projects in China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), with a cost of over 2 billion yuan (US$276.5 million).

Hua Yu (Source: SCMP)

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