China is building a mega thing. It doesn’t matter when you read this: the Asian giant always has a megadam in progress, the highest bridge in the world or an impossible highway in its bag. However, one of the country’s latest projects is not a mega-construction, but a floating artificial “island,” which can navigate and designed to be self-sufficient.
Oh, and most importantly: prepared for the end of the world.
The “island”. While waiting for it to receive a somewhat more “commercial” name, a South China Morning Post report refers to the facility as “Deep-Sea All-Wather Resident Floating Research Facility.” It is a name that is equivalent to “what do you want this station to do” and the answer is “yes,” and it is basically a mix between a research center, a command center and a nuclear bunker.
It will be a semi-submersible platform with a 78,000-tonne twin-hull design and considerable dimensions:
- 138 meters long.
- 85 meters wide.
- Main deck 45 meters from the waterline.
Long duration missions. The project specifications show that the platform is projected to house almost 240 people for four months without the need for any replenishment. In addition, it can sail at a speed of up to 15 knots and something that gives us a clue to its colossal ambition is that the engines allow a displacement comparable to that of the Fujian, the brand new 80,000-ton Chinese aircraft carrier.
Bomb proof (nuclear). If you’re thinking about a fortress that could be worthy of a Marvel movie, here’s the shot. The structure will resist waves up to nine meters high and category 17 typhoons, the highest for this type of cyclone. But the most striking thing is that it will have special armor to resist nuclear explosions.
Instead of conventional steel armor, the walls of the complex will be built with a design that converts the powerful shock waves of a nuclear explosion into ones that the structure can assimilate. As a “dissipator” of the power of the wave, wow. To do this, they have turned to a metamaterial that, when subjected to pressure, compresses, creating a denser and more resistant structure than much thicker steel panels.
According to simulations, its walls resist more pressure than those of a submarine and four times more than those of a conventional ship, but with a plate thickness of only 60 mm.
BackTo withstand these long periods at sea, and as described by Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) in an article in which they talk about the superstructure, the installation contains critical compartments that guarantee emergency power, but also support for communications and a navigation center equally protected against nuclear explosions.
China is taking leaps and bounds in its fleet
Strategy. The SJTU describes it as a research center and, although the project has been described as “civilian”, its specifications make it comply with the Chinese military standard GJB 1060.1-1991 against nuclear explosions. Therefore, although it can be used for deep-sea research, it could also operate in areas that warships might not access (such as waters near diplomatically sensitive countries or territories).
This is something that does not intimidate a China that does not hesitate to deploy its ships in disputed territories, and from SCMP they point out that the installation could function as a resilient command center, a logistics center or a surveillance station that, in addition, is less invasive than a fixed structure built on land.
It’s not that far away. Although we now know of its existence, this station has been on the drawing board for a decade and is expected to reach operational status in 2028. Once completed, we will be able to see what it is capable of and, above all, what use it is given. Because therein lies its importance as a research center to support the “blue economy” (deep sea resource extraction, renewable energy and marine research), but also its military component.
The photo, by the way, is not of a real structure, but of an interpretation of the SJTU.
Imágenes | SJTU, China News Service
In WorldOfSoftware | China is immersed in a nuclear revolution and needs industrial quantities of uranium. His solution: “fish” it in the sea
