"Xuelong" and "Xuelong 2" once again combined to explore the pole
China's power in polar scientific research
This month, China's 38th Antarctic scientific expedition officially kicked off.
On November 5th, the "Xuelong" polar scientific research icebreaker set sail from Shanghai to the Antarctic; the "Xuelong 2", which has just completed the Arctic scientific research mission, will set off soon.
After that, "Ssangyong" will take part in Antarctica and jointly launch scientific expeditions.
This is the second formation of two Chinese polar scientific expedition icebreakers following the 36th Antarctic scientific expedition mission to form a "probing pole."
The mysterious polar region is an important area that affects global climate change, and it is also a natural laboratory for scientific research in meteorology, land, ocean, and biology.
Polar expedition ability demonstrates the scientific research strength and comprehensive national strength of a country.
As one of the few countries in the world that can independently conduct surveys and establish scientific research stations in the polar regions, China has set foot in the Antarctic for the first time in 1984. In just over thirty years, it has built an increasingly sophisticated polar three-dimensional monitoring system, forming a sea, land, and air. The three-dimensional pattern has created a polar survey support pattern of "two ships, six stations and one base" (two polar scientific research ships, six polar scientific research stations, and one domestic base), and the depth and breadth of scientific exploration are also expanding.
1 "China Town" in Antarctica
Intelligent and modern, complete with living, scientific research and medical facilities
In November, the domestic base terminal of China's Polar Expedition in Shanghai was already a bit gloomy.
A few days ago, Zhang Jian, an engineer of China Railway Construction Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Railway Construction Engineering), boarded the "Snow Dragon" here and went to Antarctica with his 28 colleagues.
As "veterans" with more than a dozen Antarctic expeditions, Zhang Jian and his colleagues' purpose in this trip is to "build houses" in Antarctica: In order to make the Zhongshan expedition station more modern, they will complete the antenna foundation, oil storage expansion system, and power supply system. The construction of other facilities, and the renovation of the old power generation building.
The polar expedition station is a stronghold for scientists to carry out their work, and it is also their home in the polar regions.
At present, my country has four research stations in Antarctica. These research stations are located in different geographical areas and have different scientific research purposes.
Zhongshan Station was built in the 1980s and is currently the largest Antarctic research station in my country.
It is now like a "small village" surrounded by white snow: there are more than 20 single buildings and facilities including comprehensive scientific research building, winter dormitory building, main power generation building, etc., vegetable greenhouses, helipads, medical rooms, gyms Facilities are readily available.
The dormitory building is equipped with advanced heating equipment, and the room temperature is maintained at 24°C throughout the year.
The house is equipped with 24-hour hot and cold water supply and internet, so it is very convenient to make domestic calls.
The vegetable greenhouse can withstand 14 strong winds. Vegetables on the first floor can produce about 60 kilograms of fresh fruits and vegetables per month. The glass corridor on the second floor is passable. Here you can enjoy the greenery in the vast snow.
However, when Zhang Jian came to Zhongshan Station for the first time, he saw a different scene: the simple container tin house was wrapped in ice, the roof leaked, and the table was pieced together with scraps.
In 2002, the Antarctic Scientific Research Station began to demolish the old and build a new one on a large scale.
Since then, Zhang Jian and his colleagues have used both hands to build Zhongshan Station into a permanent scientific research base with a construction area of 5,800 square meters year after year.
Wei Wenliang, a polar scientific research expert, once said: “It is not as difficult to build a 100,000 square meter building in China as a scientific research station of several thousand square meters in Antarctica.” In the past few years, polar construction lacked large-scale machinery and equipment, and many jobs They can only be carried on their shoulders by hand. Wang Zhong, a staff member of China Railway Construction Engineering, said that he and his workmates had to rely on manual labor, and he just flattened a small hill.
Extreme conditions such as violent winds, extreme cold, blizzards, and permafrost have made some originally simple tasks difficult to achieve.
However, in front of a group of workers who are not afraid of hardship, difficulties have spawned many new technologies.
Concrete cannot be solidified for a long time at extremely low temperatures. The staff used methods such as internal electric heating of the pipeline, external insulation, and adding special antifreeze to successfully achieve pouring, and also explored construction techniques such as "ultra-low temperature concrete pouring method".
When drilling holes in the complex terrain of Antarctica, the angle of the rig must be readjusted for each drill.
The staff improved the "universal drilling rig" that is not restricted by temperature and terrain, which not only increased the drilling speed, but also improved the accuracy.
Thanks to the strong infrastructure strength, the Great Wall Station, Zhongshan Station and other survey stations are already quite large.
Today, the Antarctic research station has begun to move towards intelligence and automation.
The tide gauge station of the Great Wall Station Ocean Station is tens of thousands of miles away from the Beihai Forecast Center of the State Oceanic Administration in Qingdao, but through satellites, the observation data in the station can be transmitted to the country in real time.
The staff of the Beihai Forecast Center can view the tide observation data of the Great Wall Station during the ice-free period in real time while sitting in front of the computer, and complete real-time monitoring.
2 Three-dimensional guarantee covering "sea, land and air"
More and more types of equipment, more and more Chinese elements
Every time it goes to the Antarctic, the "Snow Dragon" has to carry a lot of things.
This time, a batch of "Made in China" equipment, including loaders, low-temperature polar photovoltaic power generation equipment, etc., will be on board for the Antarctic battle.
If a worker wants to do his job well, he must first sharpen his tools.
In recent years, with the help of more and more advanced new equipment, my country's polar scientific expedition has established a three-dimensional pattern of "sea, land and air" advancement.
At sea, as a means of transportation and carrying, icebreakers have continuously improved their comprehensive capabilities.
In July 2019, after the "Snow Dragon", my country's polar scientific expedition team ushered in the second icebreaker-"Snow Dragon 2".
In October of that year, the "Xuelong 2" and the "Xuelong" carried out my country's 36th Antarctic scientific expedition, and realized the "Shuanglong Probe" for the first time.
"Xuelong 2" is my country's first self-built polar scientific expedition icebreaker and the world's first icebreaker with two-way icebreaking capabilities.
The super ice-breaking ability allows more scientific research facilities and supplies to be transported into the Antarctic continental margin ice area and the Antarctic continent, and many sea areas that were inaccessible in the past can now also be entered.
On land, various low-temperature-resistant and wind-resistant vehicle devices form an on-land fleet to provide support for material transportation and ice cap road exploration. Guangzhongshan Station has more than 30 vehicles.
The "Antarctic 2" all-terrain vehicle is called the "Antarctic bus" by the staff, and the control system and other core components are 100% localized.
According to Lu Qian, the person in charge of Guizhou Zhanyang Power Heavy Industry Co., Ltd., the production unit of the car, the "Antarctic 2" body is equipped with tank-like tracks, which has high wear resistance and amphibious performance. It can be used at a low temperature of -41°C. Can also start.
The compartment is equipped with an air conditioning system and a fresh air system, and scientific researchers will not be exposed to freezing when working outdoors.
"We must rely on the rapid development of China's industrialization and industrialization to advance our work." The relevant person in charge of the China Polar Research Center said, "In the polar scientific research, there are more and more Chinese elements and more and more types of equipment. The power generation equipment and materials are all produced in China. We also have mobile scientific research stations, all built on sledges. These are equipment specially designed for Antarctica and are all produced in China."
In 2017, my country’s first polar fixed-wing aircraft "Xueying 601" joined the polar scientific expedition equipment team. Since then, the polar expedition has entered the "Aviation Era", which has greatly improved China's scientific research, transportation and rescue work in the polar regions. Ability.
In January of that year, "Xueying 601" took off from Zhongshan Station and took more than 4 hours to reach Kunlun Station, which is more than 1,000 kilometers away.
Before that, it took nearly 20 days for scientific research personnel to travel from Zhongshan Station to Kunlun Station by snowmobile.
3 Increasingly complete scientific research conditions
The scope of observation and sampling is expanded, and the ability of on-site scientific examinations is improved
Each time the Chinese Polar Scientific Expedition Team goes out, it carries a different scientific research task.
The Antarctic scientific expedition focused on the ocean regions.
Researchers will focus on coping with global climate change, carry out scientific investigations on atmospheric composition, hydrometeorology, and ecological environment, and perform monitoring tasks for new pollutants such as microplastics in the Southern Ocean and marine debris.
In the harsh and complex environment of the polar region, scientific research results cannot be achieved without the support of advanced scientific research facilities.
Chen Liulin, deputy director of the Business Division of the China Polar Research Center, said frankly that, in recent years, my country's polar scientific expedition has made great progress in terms of the scale of scientific research monitoring, technical means, the proportion of scientific researchers participating in tasks, and the management model. .
"From the Antarctic Survey Telescope AST3-2 to atmospheric lidar, to underwater robots, ice detection robots... more and more advanced technology and equipment are applied to bases. The unmanned ice station we have developed can be directly thrown away. On the floating ice, as the sea ice drifts, long-term unmanned observation for more than a year is achieved. Even during the long polar night, it can still observe various parameters."
Among many scientific research equipment, sampling tools play an important role in scientific research.
The Antarctic ice core has important scientific research value, but it is not easy to drill through the thick ice sheet and take it out.
At present, my country has the "three major drills" for deep ice core drilling-the deep ice core drilling system, the ice shelf hot water drill, and the sub-ice geological drill. The drilling depth can exceed 100 meters. With this strength, China has become an international ice core drilling system. An important member of the core science research organization.
In 2019, the 36th Antarctic expedition team used the 22-meter-long piston sampler equipped with the "Xuelong 2" polar scientific expedition icebreaker to obtain 18.36-meter-long seabed sediment samples in the polar regions. This is the first time that my country has obtained it in the Southern Ocean. Such a long sediment sample.
As a scientific research ship, "Xuelong 2" has not only set up many professional laboratories, but also equipped with many high-tech equipment: an automatic positioning system, which can realize long-term in-situ sampling and measurement; the moon pool system leads vertically from the main deck The seabed makes it possible to operate in a large area of floating ice...
Lan Musheng, the assistant chief scientist of China's 38th Antarctic Scientific Expedition, has participated in 9 Antarctic and Arctic scientific expeditions so far.
Lan Musheng said: "My research direction is the research and development and application of polar marine ecological survey and observation technology. Most of the time during the polar expedition was carried out on the'Xuelong 2'. The'Xuelong 2'is fully equipped. Laboratory facilities and advanced scientific expedition equipment have greatly improved our on-site scientific expedition capabilities. Now the biological coverage of our observation and sampling is also much larger."
Chen Liulin introduced that at the Polar Scientific Research Station, the laboratory in the station is also more complete.
"The laboratories at the Great Wall Station and Zhongshan Station have the conditions for conducting experiments throughout the year, and the equipment is increasingly complete. In the past, because of our primitive conditions, the scientific research personnel had to bring a lot of instruments with them when they left. Go back. Now, in addition to very professional equipment, we can meet the needs of scientific researchers."
Our reporter Wang Yajing