China has unveiled a new hypergravity research machine capable of generating forces nearly two thousand times stronger than Earth’s gravity, according to a report shared cited from Futurism.
CHIEF1900 Sets New Global Record
The machine, known as CHIEF1900, was built at the Centrifugal Hypergravity and Interdisciplinary Experiment Facility at Zhejiang University in eastern China. It allows researchers to examine how extreme gravitational forces affect materials, plants, cells, and other structures, the South China Morning Post reported.
Once fully operational, the facility will enable scientists to recreate catastrophic events such as dam failures and earthquakes under laboratory conditions, according to the university.
Simulating Real-World Disasters in the Lab
CHIEF1900 can be used to test the structural stability of large-scale infrastructure by modeling extreme stress scenarios. For example, researchers can simulate the behavior of an almost 1,000-foot-tall dam by spinning a ten-foot model at 100 Gs, or 100 times Earth’s gravity.
The machine can also support studies on the resonance frequencies of high-speed rail tracks and examine how pollutants migrate through soil over thousands of years.
Surpassing Its Own Predecessor
CHIEF1900 has officially surpassed its predecessor, CHIEF1300, which became the world’s most powerful centrifuge only four months earlier. The new system can generate 1,900 g-tonnes of force, equivalent to 1,900 times Earth’s gravity.
For comparison, a typical washing machine produces only about two g-tonnes of force.
