The world's most powerful centrifuge was installed at the Centrifugal Hypergravity and Interdisciplinary Experiment Facility (CHIEF) located in Hangzhou last December. The machine, named CHIEF 1900, can generate up to 1900 times the pull of Earth's gravity when fully operational. It overtakes the CHIEF1300 centrifuge with the ability to generate 1300 Earth's gravity that began operating last September at the same location.
A total of three centrifuges will be built at CHIEF, equipped with six chambers to generate hypergravity force when rotating. Hypergravity pressure is used in materials research, geological processes, deep-sea mining, seismic studies of the earth and material processing. Construction began in 2020 with the entire facility expected to be completed next year.
Among the studies that will begin is how to extract gas hydrates from the ocean floor under high pressure. Before actual exploration is carried out, the technique can be tested using centrifuges. Hypergravity can also test the effects of pressure on dams for several hours.
CHIEF is included in China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020) as one of the ten major scientific infrastructures with an investment of over RMB 2 billion (~RM 1.16 billion).
