Three Gorges Project: building a new height of international

Since the start of the Three Gorges Project in 1993, new skills, new processes, new patents and other innovative effects have been born every year. According to incomplete statistics, in the scientific and technological effect of the Three Gorges project, it has won 18 national science and technology progress awards, more than 200 provincial and ministerial science and technology progress awards, applied for more than 700 patents, and established more than 100 project quality and skill standards higher than the national and ministerial standards.

 

 

 

Zhang Zhihui, a postdoctoral researcher of research flow station of China Three Gorges group and deputy researcher of Natural Science History Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to write the article “Three Gorges Project: building a new height of international water conservancy and hydropower technology”, which was published in the 14th Journal of China Economic weekly in 2019.

 

 

 

The Three Gorges project is the only national serious project approved by the National People’s Congress. The Three Gorges project, from putting forward the plan, repeating the scientific proof to officially starting the production, embodies the care and support of the party and the government for the Three Gorges Project. The construction of the Three Gorges project started on December 14, 1994, and entered into initial operation in October 2006. It is the largest water conservancy project in the world so far.

 

 

 

From the beginning of the high slope excavation of the permanent ship lock, to the production of the unit, the commissioning of the device and the operation management, the Three Gorges project has been confronted with various unexpected and unexpected great challenges. At last, the scientific and technological personnel have seized all the technical difficulties and achieved more than 100 “international best”. Since the commencement of the Three Gorges project, new skills, new processes, new patents and other innovative effects have been born every year. According to incomplete statistics, in the scientific and technological effect of the Three Gorges project, it has won 18 national science and technology progress awards, more than 200 provincial and ministerial science and technology progress awards, applied for more than 700 patents, and established more than 100 project quality and skill standards higher than the national and ministerial standards.

 

 

 

In fact, from the 1950s, generations of scientific and technological experts began to research around the Three Gorges Project. The key equipment of the Three Gorges ship lift and other serious issues put forward by the experts have been classified into the national “Seventh Five Year Plan”, “Eighth Five Year Plan” and even “Ninth Five year plan”. More than 40000 producers, thousands of engineers and experts from scientific research institutes all over the country have made unremitting efforts for a long time to promote the research of the Three Gorges Project.

 

 

 

The application of the scientific and technological effects of the Three Gorges Project deeply reflects the current level of scientific and technological skills of water conservancy and hydropower in China, especially the independent innovation of the local scientific and technological personnel in the fields of project production, mechanical and electrical equipment development, ecological maintenance, etc. In 2011, the Three Gorges dam was awarded the international milestone project of concrete dam. In 2016, the Three Gorges project won the FIDIC Centennial Award for serious civil engineering projects.

 

 

 

In April 2018, when general secretary Xi Jinping investigated the Three Gorges project, he pointed out that the Three Gorges project was a heavy load of the country and was created by the hard work and self-reliance of the labourers. The successful completion and operation of the Three Gorges project has made the dream of how many generations of Chinese people develop and use the Three Gorges resources come true and become an important symbol of China’s development since the reform and opening up. This is a model for the superiority of our socialist system in concentrating on major issues, for the wisdom and creativity of our people, and for the growing prosperity and prosperity of the Chinese nation.

 

 

 

This paper briefly reviews several typical technological innovations of the Three Gorges Project.

 

 

 

River closure

 

 

 

Although the Gezhouba project completed the closure of the Yangtze River for the first time, the closure of the Three Gorges project is much more difficult. On November 8, 1997, the closure of the Three Gorges project was completed; on November 6, 2002, the closure of the diversion channel of the Three Gorges project was successful. The Three Gorges Project cut off the Yangtze river twice, indicating that China’s river closure skills are internationally advanced. According to the skill plan put forward by Zheng Shouren, a water conservancy expert, the Three Gorges project has been successfully intercepted twice in the production process, which is rare in the world. “Three Gorges Project river closure planning and construction skills discussion and engineering practice” won the first prize of national science and technology progress.

 

 

 

Compared with the closure project with the highest single hydraulic goal in the world, the three key hydraulic goals of the Three Gorges project, namely, discharge, drop and velocity, are all relatively high, and the difficulty of induction is rare in the history of international closure. The success of the two river closure indicates that the river closure skills of our country have been in the leading position in the world. The river closure planning of the Three Gorges project won the gold award of national excellent planning, and its technical effect won the first prize of national science and technology progress in 2000.

 

 

 

Dam concrete pouring creates wonders

 

 

 

The concrete work volume of the Three Gorges project is huge, with a total volume of 28 million cubic meters, during which the concrete pouring volume of the dam is 16 million cubic meters, and the peak construction intensity requires more than 5 million cubic meters of concrete to be poured in one year. The quality of the Three Gorges Dam project is excellent. Experts believe that on the one hand, it depends on careful handling, on the other hand, a large number of the latest technology and skills are used in the concrete pouring to make the concrete pouring skills of the dam reach the first-class international level.

 

 

 

New concrete raw materials and mix proportion. In China, the Three Gorges project takes the lead in using the granite excavated by the project itself as artificial aggregate for concrete after being crushed. The first time, the first class fly ash with excellent function is used as concrete admixture, and several million yuan is invested to discuss the concrete mix proportion, including further improving the high-power additive, so that the concrete induction function reaches the optimal level.

 

 

 

Revolutionary concrete placement plan. The concrete pouring plan and supporting technology are the key to the dam concrete construction. In the past, the traditional pouring technology of dam concrete construction is often continuous truck transportation and crane, and the Three Gorges Corporation has introduced the most advanced foreign technology.Concrete temperature control and crack prevention skills. Temperature control and crack prevention of mass concrete is a big problem in dam construction. In the construction of the Three Gorges project, the technique of secondary air cooling of concrete aggregate was first created. In summer, the concrete produced by the mixing plant will be precooled to 7 ℃, and the high-grade concrete will be cooled with “personalized” water; three early warning systems of “climate, temperature control and intermittent period” will be creatively formulated to ensure the quality of each link of concrete temperature control. In 2002, the cracks of the Three Gorges dam were exposed by the media. The experts diagnosed the cracks as the temperature cracks spreading towards the shallow layer instead of the structural cracks. The construction party and the management party dealt with this problem in time. In the third stage of construction, there is no crack in the right bank dam, which creates a spectacle in the International Hydropower Engineering field.

 

 

 

Opening up the way of localization of the whole industry chain of hydropower equipment

 

 

 

The unit is the heart of the hydropower station. Once upon the commencement of the Three Gorges project, the state formulated a series of supporting and encouraging policies and methods around the localization of mechanical and electrical equipment in the Three Gorges Project. Since 1980, the key research projects of the Three Gorges project have been listed in five consecutive national five-year plans from the sixth five year plan to the tenth five year plan. The special construction equipment, navigation equipment, water turbine generator set equipment of power station and complete power transmission and transformation equipment of the Three Gorges project, Harbin electric machinery plant, Dongfang Electric Machinery Plant, Harbin Institute of large electric machinery, China Water Conservancy and Hydropower Research Institute, Yangtze River Water Conservancy Commission and other units and Universities cooperated with the planning department and certification team to propose the water turbine and generator of the Three Gorges Project. Parameter plan. These results not only provide an important basis for the feasibility demonstration and preliminary planning of the Three Gorges project, but also lay a solid foundation for the introduction, digestion and absorption of mechanical and electrical equipment skills of the Three Gorges Project.

 

 

 

The Party Central Committee and the State Council made a decision: the Three Gorges left bank power station units implemented international acquisition, took the road of combining technology and trade, skill transfer, joint planning and cooperative production, clearly proposed to rely on the Three Gorges project, combine independent innovation and skill introduction, and gradually complete the nationalization of the Three Gorges Project.

 

 

 

In June 1996, China’s Three Gorges Corporation announced that the left bank power station purchased 14 700000 kilowatt water turbine generator units at a time and carried out international bidding. The bidding document stipulates that the tenderee shall take full responsibility for the economy and skills of the supplied equipment, and it is necessary to plan and cooperate with the qualified production enterprises in China. The subcontracting share of the production enterprises in China shall not be less than 25% of the total contract price; the Chinese personnel shall be trained; the last two of the 14 units on the left bank of the bidding shall be produced by us and supervised by foreign investors.

 

 

 

This “big cake” has attracted the keen eyes of the world. Ten multinational companies have formed six bidding bodies to compete in the fierce competition. In the autumn of 1997, the purchase contract was signed, 8 sets of supply groups composed of Alstom and ABB won the bid, and Harbin Electric Co., Ltd. Co produced them; 6 sets won the bid in the joint venture of Ge Canada, Voith Germany and Siemens (VGS), and Dongfang Electric Co produced them. The subcontracting amount of two domestic enterprises is more than 30% of the total contract price.

 

 

 

In the production of the Three Gorges left bank power station, China’s hydropower equipment enterprises still work for foreign enterprises. In order to break this situation, the domestic hydropower equipment manufacturing enterprises, represented by Harbin electric machinery plant and Dongfang Electric Machinery Plant, have increased the independent development of the central skills on the basis of combining the domestic preliminary scientific research results, digesting and introducing foreign turbine development skills, and deeply participating in the production of the left bank power station.

 

 

 

On September 16, 2005, the last unit of the Three Gorges left bank power station, which was independently produced by Chinese enterprises, smoothly connected to the grid for power generation, marking that China has the ability to independently plan, manufacture and install 700000 kilowatt hydropower units, and the hydropower equipment manufacturing industry in China has completed a span development of nearly 30 years in 7 years. Dongfang Electric Power Plant selects a completely planned model in the underground power station on the right bank.

 

 

 

Compared with the previous technology transfer of some large-scale hydropower projects, which only stay in the planning and supply planning drawings of foreign manufacturers to the transferee, the transferee can only make the same model, the technology transfer of the left bank project of the Three Gorges is more comprehensive and in-depth, and the transferee can use the transferred technology to independently plan and make new units.

 

 

 

The underground power station has also independently developed the main transformer, GIS (Geographic Information System), non oriented silicon steel and high magnetic induction oriented silicon steel, which marks that the whole industrial chain of hydropower equipment in China has been localized, and that the domestic manufacturers, as “students”, have the ability to compete with foreign “teachers” in the same field.

 

 

 

Through the production of ten million kilowatt cascade hydropower stations in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, China’s hydropower equipment has been upgraded in terms of new skills, new materials, new processes and new equipment. In 20 years, it has gone through the 100 year development process of developed countries, and completed the three major spans of the Three Gorges project, which are the technical catch-up of 700000 kilowatt units, the overall surpassing of 800000 kilowatt units in Xiangjiaba, and the overall leading of one million kilowatt units in Baihetan. Over. As a result, China’s hydropower equipment has established its own brand in the global hydropower industry. This “Three Gorges model” of “skill transfer, digestion and absorption, independent innovation” has played a good exemplary role in promoting the independent innovation of China’s serious skill allocation.

 

 

 

“Super elevator” came out

 

 

 

After the impoundment of the Three Gorges reservoir, the navigation conditions of the upper reaches of the dam are improved obviously. However, the maximum water level difference between the dam and the dam can reach up to 100 meters, so it is necessary for ships to pass the dam by means of navigation facilities. The total length of “two lines and five levels ship lock” is 6400 meters, the main part of the lock is 1600 meters, and the approach channel is 4800 meters.