China Launches World's Largest Hypergravity Centrifuge

China launched the world's largest hypergravity centrifuge by capacity on September 29, 2025, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, east China. Coded CHIEF1300, the machine can generate 300 times Earth's gravity and accommodate loads up to 20 tonnes. It is a core component of the Centrifugal Hypergravity and Interdisciplinary Experiment Facility (CHIEF) currently under construction.

Credit: China Media Group

Developed by Zhejiang University, CHIEF is designed to support frontier research across multiple disciplines. Its applications include deep-ocean and deep-Earth resources extraction, disaster mitigation and prevention, underground waste disposal, and the synthesis of new materials.

Hypergravity is defined as any gravitational force stronger than that at Earth's surface. For comparison, a rollercoaster rider briefly experiences twice the Earth's gravity, and an astronaut during launch peaks at more than five times gravity.

Credit: VCG

CHIEF, by contrast, is engineered to sustain accelerations of up to 1,500G, according to its designers. The full CHIEF facility features three centrifuges and 18 in-flight devices supporting six experimental cabins. Two more centrifuges with even greater capacity are currently under construction.

Chief Scientist Chen Yunmin from Zhejiang University explained that a hypergravity field allows researchers to simulate real-world hydrogeological catastrophes, geological evolution, and extreme environments in bench-top scale models within a reasonable timeframe.

Under such extreme conditions, CHIEF acts like a space-time compressor. At 100G, for example, a 1-metre model simulates events that would occur on a 100-metre scale, condensing a century-long contaminant-plume journey into only 3.65 days in the laboratory.

The CHIEF1300 machine hall, a 230-square-metre circular basement, houses a giant arm with a radius of 6.4 metres. This arm spins at high speed to generate massive gravity via centrifugal forces; the faster it spins, the higher the centrifugal acceleration.

Chief Engineer Ling Daosheng at Zhejiang University stated that CHIEF1300 was placed below ground level. It was also equipped with vacuum and wall-cooling setups to mitigate the adverse influences of air resistance and machine heating.

Pilot tests of the facility have already yielded new findings. Researchers simulated strong earthquakes to verify the seismic performance of a hydropower dam foundation, and quantified how a 4-metre-high wave and 20-metre tsunami affect the seabed.

This quantification provides a reference for site selection for offshore wind farms. Additionally, researchers reproduced 2,000-metre deep-sea water pressure for evaluating methane hydrate extraction and safety.

They also synthesised metal alloys that are low in defects and high in strength and ductility. Chen affirmed that the facility will operate as an open, shared hub for frontier science, and he looks forward to teaming up with the world's top research groups to accelerate discovery and spark innovation.

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• China is set to launch the world's largest hypergravity centrifuge by capacity on September 30, 2025, in Hangzhou.

• The CHIEF1300 machine generates 300 times Earth's gravity and accommodates up to 20 tonnes.

• Part of the CHIEF facility, it supports frontier research in deep-ocean/Earth resources, disaster mitigation, and new materials synthesis.

Source: CGTN