China develops the most powerful CHIEF1900 centrifuge at Zhejiang University

The CHIEF1900 centrifuge was built by Shanghai Nuclear Power Corporation and shipped to the Centrifugal Supergravity Interdisciplinary Experimental Facility (CHIEF) of Zhejiang University, eastern China, last month. The laboratory is located 15 m deep under the campus, helping to minimize vibrations and ensure stable operation.

With a capacity of 1,900 g-tons, combined units of gravitational acceleration (g) and model mass in tons, the CHIEF1900 will become the most powerful centrifuge ever built for scientific research. When in operation, it will surpass its predecessor CHIEF1300 with a capacity of 1,300 g-tons. CHIEF1300 set the record for the world’s most powerful centrifuge when it began operating last September, “usurping” the machine with a capacity of about 1,200 g-tons in Vicksburg, Mississippi (USA).

These giant centrifuges are capable of rotating models weighing many tons at great intensity. The spin drum of a home washing machine performs a similar function, but rarely exceeds 2 g-tons in a spin cycle.

All objects on Earth are affected by gravity and centrifugal force when rotating. By generating forces hundreds or thousands of times stronger than Earth’s gravity, machines like CHIEF’s can “compress” time and distance, helping to study phenomena that span decades or kilometers right in the laboratory. For example, to evaluate the structural stability of a 300 m high dam, scientists could build a model 3 m high and rotated at 100 g, which helps simulate stress levels similar to those experienced by the actual dam.

Supergravity experiments could yield useful information about how high-speed train tracks resonate with the ground or how pollutants move through soil over thousands of years – situations that are nearly impossible to study in real time.

Chen Yunmin, CHIEF’s chief scientist and professor at Zhejiang University, said: “We aim to create experimental environments lasting from a few milliseconds to tens of thousands of years, with scales from atoms to kilometers – under normal or extreme temperature and pressure conditions. The machine gives us the opportunity to explore completely new phenomena or theories.”