China’s new wind tunnel for hypersonic testing is too powerful for the electricity grid: scientists
- The new facility, whose name and location remain secret, can simulate extreme flight conditions at Mach 5 or faster at high altitude
- Many diesel ship engines are used to power aspects of the new facility, according to researchers involved, but their complexity creates other challenges
To simulate extreme flight conditions at Mach 5 or faster at high altitude, the wind tunnel runs a 13-megawatt vacuum pump to create an extreme environment from thin air.
But the power needed for the pump to operate continuously was greater than “the upper limit allowed by the local electric power distribution network”, said research engineer Li Yanliang, of the Beijing Institute of Space Long March Vehicle, in a paper published in the domestic peer-reviewed Measurement & Control Technology journal last week.
02:06
Chinese hypersonic weapons test ‘has all of our attention’, US General Mark Milley says
Instead, the pump had to be driven with ship engines, said Li and his colleagues.
The pump system is just one component of the hypersonic wind tunnel facility, whose name and location remain classified.
Other energy-intensive instruments include powerful fans that can accelerate air to extremely high speeds and high-voltage heaters to ionise the air.
Li’s team, based in Beijing’s Fengtai district, did not disclose the power demand of the entire facility.