Every time an astronaut returns from space, they experience a force four times their body weight. As they leave the microgravity of space and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, their bodies witness hypergravity. 

The normal gravity you feel on Earth is considered 1g. Hypergravity is when the force of gravity exceeds the normal (more than 1g), making objects or your body feel heavier. While this is quite challenging for astronauts, for scientists, this is a pretty interesting phenomenon. 

Some use facilities with artificial hypergravity conditions to study how increased gravity affects living organisms, materials, and mechanical systems. For instance, testing a spacecraft in artificial hypergravity conditions can allow scientists to prepare the vehicle for real high-gravity environments.

China recently opened a hypergravity facility called CHIEF (Centrifugal Hypergravity and Interdisciplinary Experiment Facility). It can produce 1900 g-t, which is a gravity 1900 times more than at Earth’s surface. This surpasses the 1,200 g-t facility of the US Army Corps of Engineers, making CHIEF the world’s most powerful hypergravity research station.

How does CHIEF produce artificial gravity?

The Chinese government has placed CHIEF among its top ten national science and technology infrastructure projects. The facility’s construction began in 2020 in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province. 

“As planned, the first phase of commissioning will take place this year,” a report from the South China Morning Post claims.

However, hypergravity is an expensive affair. For instance, even before becoming operational, CHIEF will cost the Chinese a whopping $276.5 million (two billion yuan). 

The facility currently houses three giant centrifuges —- large, bulky, radial arms that spin at incredible speeds producing an outward pushing effect, called the centrifugal force. This force acts like gravity in rotating systems and is, therefore, referred to as artificial gravity.

This is because, unlike natural gravity which keeps on weakening as the distance between an object and the Earth’s center increases, centrifugal force depends on angular velocity and radius.  So while there’s no known way to enhance Earth’s natural gravitational pull, centrifugal force can be increased dramatically just by manipulating the speed of rotation and the radius of the spinning arm —- allowing scientists to create artificial gravity that is far stronger than natural gravity.

From dams to deep sea and beyond 

CHIEF comprises six hypergravity experiment chambers where scientists can conduct experiments related to six fields. Here’s a small description of how the facility might improve our understanding of each field:

• Deep-sea engineering: Simulating the extreme pressures and forces experienced in the deep ocean. Thereby, facilitating the development of underwater structures, pipelines, and exploration vehicles that could perform efficiently under extreme conditions.

• Materials processing: Testing and manipulating new types of materials, and running simulations to dive deep into their physical and chemical properties. 

• Slope and dam engineering: Checking and ensuring the stability of dams and bridges for many years to come under different stress levels. 

• Geological processes: Understanding how natural processes like erosion, plate tectonics, and volcanic eruptions shape the Earth’s surface over time.

• Seismic geotechnics: Studying how soil and different rocks respond to seismic forces, especially when it comes to earthquakes.

• Deep-earth engineering and environment:  Running simulations of extreme conditions found deep within Earth, and testing the tools and machinery best suited to study those environments.  

Experiments related to these fields can lead to new and better clean energy sources, safer and long-lasting materials, earthquake and fire-proof structures, improved waste management techniques, and much more efficient ways to harness tidal and geothermal energy. 

However, over-exploitation of natural resources (such as deep-sea environments) driven by the experiments at CHIEF could do more harm than good. Hopefully, this will not be the case, and the Chinese will use their powerful hypergravity facility to make incredible advancements in science.