Young people studying ice making for the Winter Olympics
"When drawing lines with spray paint on curves, I am responsible for drawing points. I will draw red dots at regular intervals so that I can place markers during the game to help athletes not go out of bounds during the game." I went back to the practice for nearly a month. The national speed skating hall "Ice Ribbon", the track pointed by sophomore Lu Yuanzhe has just completed the task of "Meet in Beijing" ice event testing activities for the April Winter Olympics, and is looking forward to the next ice making and Beijing Winter Olympics Make a stunning appearance with the "fastest ice".
As the only newly-built ice competition venue for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the "Ice Ribbon" will be tested by athletes for the first time in this test event.
This track, built with the world’s most advanced and environmentally friendly carbon dioxide ice-making technology, is led by Canadian senior ice maker Mark Messer who has participated in the ice making work of the 5 Winter Olympics, leading the foreign ice making team and the Chinese ice making team. The ice team completed it together. Among them, there were 22 "student army" from the same class, including Lu Yuanzhe.
"Ice Ribbon" is making ice.
Photo by Liang Xuan, China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter
According to Wu Xiaonan, director of the operation team of the National Speed Skating Stadium and chairman of the National Speed Skating Stadium Company, in 2019, the National Speed Skating Stadium, the National Swimming Center and Beijing Electronic Technology Vocational College jointly established the "Double Ice Arena Ice Maker Talent Order Class". Use these two Winter Olympics venues as training bases to cultivate China's ice-making power.
At present, there are 32 students in this "order class". During the testing activities, they went to two venues to participate in ice making and ice protection during the game.
"The'Shuangbing Stadium Ice Talent Order Class' was born because of the Winter Olympics. It is named Heating Ventilation and Air-Conditioning Engineering Technology in the Higher Vocational Professional Directory, but it has been appropriately revised according to the Winter Olympics talent training program." Beijing Electronic Technology Chen Xiaorong, deputy dean of the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering of the Vocational College, previously told the media that before entering the library for internship, students learned basic knowledge of ventilation, air conditioning, and ice making technology, and worked in the library to achieve a combination of theory and practice.
Once seen an "ice maker", Lu Yuanzhe's impression is no different from the outside world, "It is by no means as simple as it is literally." After becoming a member of the team, he understands that one piece can make athletes "very aisle." Behind the ice surface is a complex and quite technical system engineering. “A qualified ice maker needs to master all the skills of freezing, repairing and melting ice." He said that during the use of the stadium, the ice maker It is necessary to constantly check the thickness of the ice and repair the flatness of the ice rink accordingly. If the damage is serious, it may need to be melted and re-freeze.
In addition to the thickness, smoothness and flatness of the ice rink, ice makers also need to know the temperature of the ice pouring water, the dehumidification capacity of the dehumidifier, and the temperature difference between indoor and outdoor, etc., so as to comprehensively judge the real-time situation of the ice rink according to the seasonal climate. To adjust the device parameters.
After cleaning the bottom plate, pouring the bottom ice, painting the lines, pouring the ice in multiple layers, and laying the ice eyes, the ice-making plan of the "Ice Ribbon" lasted for nearly 14 days.
During the ice making process, after 00, Liu Yi felt that "freezing three feet is not a day's cold", "watering 5 times a day, almost a week, when the ice surface reaches a certain thickness, only a few tons of ice can be poured. The car drives on the ice.” On the track, every time an ice-making professional vehicle appears, the focus is always on the spot, but the driver’s seat is still an unattainable position for the students. More often, they are responsible for adding water to the ice repairing vehicle. After the vehicle is iced, prepare to push snow shovel, ice shovel, etc. to remove the snow produced after ice repair.
"What we learn now is only the fur. Just like a level game, you have to collect the required materials to enter the next level." In Liu Yi's view, if a qualified ice maker is compared to a character in the game, The maximum level is 15 and the 4th level is a watershed that "can begin to make big moves." Then their current level is to work towards 4th level, and more often they are to achieve growth in a repetitive and detailed work.
"Meticulousness" almost runs through the entire ice making work. "Mark's team is particularly strict." Liu Yi remembered that when he was spraying paint and drawing the line, Mark held a ruler to measure a little, and the slight deviation also required re-correction. "In the beginning, if there was a little bit However, going down the painting will make a big difference." Liu Yi concluded: "A lot of things feel nothing at the beginning. If they are left unchecked, they may become big things. You can't lose big because of small things."
"Self-summary" is also Liu Ao's habit.
In 2019, the whole class conducted a 5-week ice-making internship at IceCube for the first time. When cooperating with foreign ice makers to participate in the ice-making process of the curling venue, the other party told him to put the line in the designated position, which was limited by insufficient English. Okay, he is not smooth enough to complete the task, which makes him sensitively aware that "you have to learn English well in order to do the job better."
After all, communicating with international senior ice makers is an opportunity for young ice makers to grow up.
Back at school, Liu Ao spent a lot of time learning English, but in this assignment, he spent more time in the underground computer room and lacked the opportunity to "test".
Unlike working on ice, the underground engine room is very stuffy and the machines are rumbling. Liu Ao has to stay here for six or seven hours a day to keep an eye on the changes in the liquid level, not only to prevent overflow from being too high, but also at the liquid level. Replenish in time after reduction.
This work almost runs through the entire ice making process, and the content is single but very critical.
In his opinion, each link is the part that the ice maker needs to master. "Ice water is very particular. It cannot be tap water with a lot of impurities, but pure water filtered by reverse osmosis RO membrane."
He firmly believes that during the Winter Olympics next year, the ice surface of the ice ribbon will show its best condition. "I also hope that I can work on the ice surface and test the results of my studies by then."
The challenge is not for this group of Chinese "ice-making new generations" who are mainly born after 00s to face alone.
Mark, who has been engaged in speed skating ice making since 1987, is also facing new "problems". According to him, the "Ice Ribbon" is the first avenue speed skating hall in the history of the Winter Olympics to adopt carbon dioxide transcritical direct cooling ice making technology. "This is a new system that is environmentally friendly and efficient, but the parameters are different from the previously used freon and other ice-making systems. We need to better understand its laws."
According to Feng Gang, deputy manager of the National Speed Skating Stadium Facilities Planning and Development Department, the national speed skating stadium company's planning and development department deputy manager Feng Gang, the ice surface and ice temperature produced by the carbon dioxide system are very uniform, and the ice surface temperature difference can basically be controlled within 0.5 degrees Celsius, allowing athletes When sliding on the ice, the softness and hardness of different areas are consistent, which is more conducive to creating good results.
In this way, the goal of all ice makers to "create the fastest ice" may be achieved in the "ice ribbon".
"I think there is no reason to say that this place cannot be one of the fastest speed skating stadiums. We will work hard to find the correct parameters and turn them into reality. There are different factors to control to do our best. We have also been at low altitudes. The regional venues have built fast ice, and the last Winter Olympics almost broke the world record, so why don’t we work hard and set a standard to achieve this goal?” Mark believes that it’s far from the Winter Olympics. There are still 9 months, and there will be more testing opportunities later to help the team create the perfect ice surface for the Beijing Winter Olympics.
"Becoming a good ice maker must work hard, because time is very tight. To understand physics and chemistry, you must have curiosity and adaptability." In addition to leaving the "fastest ice", Mark also hopes to be able to Leave the ice-making technology to more Chinese ice-makers, including the young people in the "ice-making class", "For this test event, we have 4 Chinese ice-makers, and I also brought two colleagues from Calgary. . During the Olympic Games, our team will grow stronger. There will be Canadian ice makers who have served in the previous Winter Olympics, as well as Chinese ice makers. In the previous Winter Olympics, we did not leave Olympic heritage. We just finished making ice in the venues. I left. But this time the "Ice Ribbon" has a complete Olympic heritage plan, so I want to make sure that after we leave, there will be trained personnel to continue this work."
"The cultivation of ice affair talents and ice-making talents is relatively short in China. Taking advantage of the opportunity of building top venues to promote the training of vocational talents is not only in line with the development direction of national vocational education, but also can leave a valuable winter Olympic talent'legacy' for the country "Wu Xiaonan said that this talent training model has also been recognized by a team of foreign ice makers and domestic senior ice makers. "These young people are like seeds, hoping to continue to nurture talents for the development of ice and snow sports in China, and some people will make ice. So that more people can be better on the ice."
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Liang Xuan