Anchoring Deep Sea Exploration of Crust - China's First Ocean Drilling Ship "Dream" Completed and Entered Service
2024-11-18
On November 17th, China's first ocean drilling vessel, the "Dream", was officially built and put into operation in Nansha, Guangzhou, marking a major breakthrough in China's key technology and equipment for deep-sea exploration. The "Dream" is 179.8 meters long and 32.8 meters wide, with a displacement of 42600 tons, a range of 15000 nautical miles, a self-sustaining capacity of 120 days, and a crew of 180 people. It has the ability to operate in unlimited sea areas worldwide, and can operate normally under level 6 sea conditions and survive safely under level 16 super typhoons, meeting the requirements for bridge passage and dock docking in major sea areas around the world. The "Dream" vessel adopts a "modular" design concept, overcomes multiple world-class technical challenges, and achieves "multifunctionality" with a "small tonnage". It is the first international innovation to integrate multiple functions such as ocean scientific drilling, deep-sea oil and gas exploration, and natural gas hydrate exploration and trial production. After two rounds of sea trials, the main performance indicators of the ship have been verified to be better than the design requirements, establishing China's independent technology system for the design and construction of ultra deep water drilling equipment. Sun Zhen, Chief Scientist of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Voyage 367 and Researcher at the Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey, introduced that the comprehensive performance of the "Dream" spacecraft in terms of maximum drilling depth, drilling method, dynamic positioning, self support, and displacement has reached the international leading level. The maximum drilling depth of over 10000 meters is the most important capability of the "Dream" spacecraft. Ocean drilling is known as the "crown" of marine technology. At the same time, drilling through the crust, penetrating the Moho surface, and entering the upper mantle are the scientific dreams of humanity. The mantle accounts for 4/5 of the Earth's volume and 3/4 of its mass, making it the largest "chemical reservoir" on Earth and full of unsolved mysteries. As early as the 1960s, foreign scientists began attempting to drill through the Moho surface into the mantle, but this goal has yet to be achieved. Previously, there were only two ocean drilling ships in the world, one belonging to the United States and the other to Japan. As China's first ocean drilling vessel, the "Dream" carries the dream of building a maritime power for the Chinese people, the dream of global scientists to "penetrate the Moho surface and enter the upper mantle", and the dream of human development of deep Earth resources. There is a saying in the field of drilling science: "The difficulty of drilling to a depth of 10000 meters is comparable to that of landing on the moon." The "Dream" drilling and production system is internationally leading, equipped with the world's first hydraulic lifting drilling rig that combines oil and gas exploration and core drilling functions. It has four drilling modes and three core extraction methods, which can meet different operational needs such as ocean drilling and deep-sea resource exploration. The comprehensive drilling efficiency and hard rock drilling ability have been greatly improved, and the maximum drilling depth can reach 11000 meters. The pressure of 11000 meters is a challenge for equipment, water, electricity, fluids, and materials Yin Xianfeng, the leader of the "Dream" ship supervision team, once revealed that the entire ship involved 303 major large-scale equipment, 8300 production drawings, and tens of thousands of construction processes. More than 150 scientific research units participated in the construction, breaking through more than 10 key technologies. In addition, the "Dream" scientific research laboratory has internationally leading functions and information technology levels, making it a "national laboratory" for maritime mobility. The ship is equipped with nine functional laboratories including basic geology, paleomagnetism, inorganic geochemistry, organic geochemistry, microbiology, marine science, natural gas hydrates, geophysics, and drilling technology. The total area exceeds 3000 square meters and is equipped with the world's first shipborne core automatic transmission and storage system, which can meet the research needs of all disciplines in the marine field. The 'Ship Smart Brain' can real-time aggregate and analyze data from more than 20000 monitoring points, achieving intelligent monitoring of operations, intelligent collaboration in experiments, intelligent health protection, and intelligent integration of ship and shore. In the next two years, multiple academicians and experts have stated that the commissioning of the "Dream" vessel will provide significant platform support for China's deep-sea resource exploration, key technology and equipment research and development, as well as global scientists conducting ocean scientific drilling research. Xu Zhenqiang, Director of Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey Bureau, introduced that the "Dream" will target major cutting-edge scientific issues such as breakthrough theoretical changes in Moho drilling, efficient and green development and utilization of deep-sea energy resources, and marine disaster prevention and reduction. It will focus on serving the major needs of national energy and resource security, technological self-reliance and self-improvement, and the construction of a maritime power, and promote the output of original and leading major achievements. According to the plan, the "Dream" vessel will complete its first ocean drilling within the next two years. Academicians and experts also provided suggestions on how to make good use of this' great power tool '. In terms of scientific research, Lin Lin, a member of the European Academy of Sciences and dean of the Institute of Advanced Marine Studies at Southern University of Science and Technology, believes that it is necessary to establish new international benchmarks, including drilling depth, continuous core length at the same location, and drilling ability in hard rocks. Wu Fuyuan, an academician of the CAS Member and a researcher of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, suggested that drilling should be carried out to find the mid ocean ridge with slow expansion and ultra slow expansion, strengthen the research on the exposed Moho surface of land, improve the understanding of Moho surface, and identify the direction and scientific problems to tackle key problems. In terms of operating mechanism, Wang Chengshan, an academician of the CAS Member and a professor of the School of Earth Sciences and Resources of China University of Geosciences (Beijing), said that a national security mechanism supporting sustainable operation should be established as soon as possible, and a global consultation mechanism supporting the transformation of hardware advantages into scientific advantages should be formed as soon as possible, and a major scientific plan that can be recognized globally and participated in by many parties should be proposed. (New Society)
Edit：Yao jue Responsible editor：Xie Tunan
Source：Science and Technology Daily
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