RPAGF #475 - High-speed rail technology route development
#475 - High-speed rail technology route development
"Regarding your current debate, I have some suggestions," Ren Zhong said directly.
"For railways with speeds up to 160 kilometers per hour, we can define 120 to 160 kilometers per hour as fast railways, and below that as ordinary railways."
"And for railways with speeds exceeding 160 kilometers per hour, we can call them high-speed railways, abbreviated as high-speed rail."
Ren Zhong stated his purpose clearly, drawing a large circle for Dongda's railways.
"From the current technological development, a speed of 200 kilometers per hour is the upper limit for internal combustion locomotives, but it is not the upper limit for all railway locomotives. Therefore, the upper limit of high-speed railways, in the foreseeable future, we can consider increasing it to a speed of 350 kilometers per hour. After all, Alstom's current technology is already very close to this speed. After re-adjusting and optimizing the design of the locomotive's front, car body materials, and tracks, I believe that reaching a stable 350 kilometers is not a dream."
"Therefore, it is correct that the future technological direction for high-speed railway development is electric locomotives.
However, this does not mean that we will only develop one type of technology from now on. On the contrary, we must adhere to walking on two legs, and continue to develop both internal combustion locomotives and electric locomotives to new extremes. For internal combustion locomotives, we need to develop locomotive heads with stronger traction and higher internal combustion efficiency, which can be used to continue developing our heavy-haul railways with more than 10,000 tons, and optimize the speed and operating efficiency of our existing internal combustion locomotive routes."
"Because internal combustion locomotives operating at speeds below 160 kilometers per hour do not have much demand for changes in the tracks, the speed increase of our current railway network is only limited to indicators such as the slope and curvature of our railway lines themselves. We can completely control them in sections to ensure the speed increase of the entire railway line.
In this regard, we need to comprehensively consider the existing conditions as a whole. This is a problem that we need to study and solve now. I hope that on the main lines, the speed can be increased to 120 kilometers per hour to 160 kilometers per hour on straight routes."
"On the other hand, the focus of our future high-speed rail technology research should be placed on future electric locomotives. Current technology has proven the huge advantages of electric locomotives in high-speed traction. It has been proven that it is not realistic to rely on internal combustion engine technology to increase speed again at speeds above 200 kilometers. Therefore, it is wise for us to abandon internal combustion engine technology in the future high-speed rail field."
"I hope that the advantages of electric locomotives will not only be in the field of high-speed railways, but also in the field of fast railways in the future. Although environmental protection issues have not been raised yet, in the future, after our methods of obtaining electricity become more diversified, high-speed trains directly driven by electricity will obviously be more environmentally friendly than internal combustion locomotives.
Moreover, the power efficiency is also higher."
After Ren Zhong put forward his conclusions, Professor Zhao Xiaoming recorded while digesting Ren Zhong's words.
"Dean Ren, we have no technical accumulation in the field of electric locomotives. The relevant key technologies are basically at zero foundation now. In this regard, can we choose to cooperate with foreign countries?" Professor Zhao Xiaoming asked after listening to Ren Zhong's words and thinking carefully for a while.
"Of course, we have never closed the door to foreign exchanges and cooperation. This exchange with Alstom is very meaningful. You have broadened your horizons and seen the feasibility of another technical route. Although their technology may still be relatively basic now, and only has experimental value and cannot be put into commercial operation, it is fully capable of achieving commercial use after we improve it."
"But what I mean is not to limit you to this one company. Siemens also has good electric locomotive technology, and we can choose them as our cooperation objects. In terms of specific methods, no matter how we negotiate, my bottom line requirement is that for the things jointly developed, we must have complete technical data and complete intellectual property rights, and have the permission to sell them to the outside world."
"This is our bottom line in this regard. On the basis of this bottom line, we can make some appropriate economic compensation, including the introduction of domestic line locomotives, and the amortization of funds for joint research and development."
Ren Zhong knew that Zhao Xiaoming and the others had no experience, so he directly gave them face-to-face instructions.
"We don't need to rush to reach an agreement with them. In this regard, it is better to contact several similar companies and talk at the same time. We must fully highlight the domestic railway market. Now our railway mileage has reached 60,000 kilometers. We must show them that not only is Dongda a realistic railway market now, but in the future, with economic development, Dongda's 60,000 kilometers of railways is just a starting point. We will continue to build new railways, from 60,000 kilometers to 100,000 kilometers, or even 200,000 kilometers, 300,000 kilometers, until it becomes the world's largest single railway market. If we cooperate with us, relying on the Dongda market will undoubtedly become a giant in railway equipment in the future." For things like drawing cakes, not only must there be visible things, but also an extremely bright future.
From the current conditions, these goals put forward by Ren Zhong are not completely drawing cakes. Dongda in the Bright Sword world has rapid economic development and population growth. Since hybrid technology was launched ahead of schedule, there is no longer much worry about food. Under the general premise of advocating eugenics of 2 or 3 children, the population development is generally stable, with an annual increase of around 15 million. The current population is just over 700 million. According to this trend, it may gradually increase to 1.4 billion people in 50 years, and then enter a period of population balance. After all, the more developed the economy, the lower the willingness to have children.
According to such a large population, coupled with the economic development and the population flow between cities, Ren Zhong deeply hates the congested road traffic in the main world, and the best way to reduce the number of road traffic is to improve railway transportation. In this regard, the European railway network is a very good reference.
Realizing the commuterization of intercity railways in economically developed areas is an indispensable development.
Under such conditions, the development of high-speed rail and fast rail in Dongda is obviously a center of the future world.
"Dean Ren, do you mean that we can join forces with companies like Alstom to build a future high-speed rail and fast rail technology system?" Professor Zhao Xiaoming heard Ren Zhong's meaning and confirmed.
"Why not? They are ahead of us in the development of electrification. Now, in addition to being good students and quickly following up, there is no other way to overtake. Learning, absorbing, and then surpassing is the normal path of development. Of course, we adhere to a win-win attitude. For partners, we can work together to make the cake of this future market bigger and share it. The development of the railway market is not just a market in Dongda. After the world economy develops in the future, many places will need high-speed rail and fast rail. The overall potential market in other parts of the world in the future is several times that of Dongda. We have enough market space to develop," Ren Zhong said.
"However, we must remember that during the cooperation process, we must master the core technology. We cannot simply introduce products and be satisfied with quickly starting product production to make money. This is not the focus of our Railway Technology Research Center. The core task of each research center under our Liming Research Institute is the research and mastery of core technologies in various industries, rather than focusing on immediate profits. If we do that, we would be putting the cart before the horse. The focus of our work is technology research, and product research is only an extension of technology research, not a core aspect," Ren Zhong reminded.
Ren Zhong has also noticed some signs of this, because the researchers' interests are now strongly tied to product sales, leading some research projects to focus too much on product implementation, while reducing investment in core basic technology research.
For example, integrated circuit production technology. In the eyes of the evaluation group, this is an intermediate node in the development of computers, which can be considered a major achievement, but not a groundbreaking one, because they simply do not realize the possibility that computers can be popularized to every household.
In this era, not many people dare to dream such dreams.
Only after Ren Zhong strongly recommended personal computers, the personal computers of today were launched and began to sell well, gradually making some people realize the trend of computers entering homes.
However, there are still not many, because on the one hand, the functions and performance of computers are still relatively weak. Home office may be acceptable, but home entertainment is still far from it, especially without networking. Everyone simply hasn't opened their minds to the usefulness of a computer.
However, Ren Zhong can still grasp these things now, so he can exercise his authority in the identification of achievements to rate various achievements.
For example, the integrated circuit research and implementation team won a special-class (highest level) science and technology award for this achievement.
In terms of railway technology introduction and research, Ren Zhong also hopes that everyone can pay attention to core technologies, such as advanced power semiconductor technology, large thyristors, high-power silicon carbide inverters, traction transformers, traction motors, bogies, locomotive system integration, AC transmission systems, and microcomputer network control systems. Many technologies are still lacking basic support, such as silicon carbide technology and microcomputer network technology, which Dongda is developing under the guidance of Ren Zhong's main world knowledge reserves.
Future high-speed railways must have such technical support to control trains running safely and stably at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour or more. A highly intelligent railway system is essential for high-speed and safe operation.
Because of this, Ren Zhong did not expect to lay out a high-speed railway network for Dongda overnight.
Instead, he is taking it one step at a time.
The first step is naturally to realize 160-kilometer near-high-speed railways in local sections based on mature internal combustion engines.
During this period, the Railway Technology Research Center can also gradually research and master the technology of electric locomotives, laying the foundation for the next step of true high-speed railways at 200 kilometers and 250 kilometers.
These plans will take 5 to 10 years or more to see the final results.
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It may be necessary to divide it into hundreds or thousands of basic technology research teams to carry out research.
But Ren Zhong is not worried that these studies will be in vain.
He has a main world as a reference for the correct route of the entire high-speed rail development. Ren Zhong will definitely not invest resources in researching technologies that look beautiful, such as magnetic levitation, at this time.
Wait until the electric locomotive technology reaches its end before talking about the follow-up.
From Ren Zhong's point of view, the Fuxing bullet train can reach a maximum speed of 420 kilometers per hour, and maintain a continuous operating speed of 350 kilometers per hour, which is enough for people to complete the long acceleration process from 200 kilometers/hour to 400 kilometers/hour.
As for high-speed railways after 400 kilometers/hour, Ren Zhong will let the main world develop for a few more decades before talking about it.
By following the development footprint of the main world, Ren Zhong will not make those unrealistic mistakes.
"We understand and will always adhere to the research ideas advocated by Dean Ren to deeply cultivate core technologies." Professor Zhao Xiaoming entered the Liming Research Institute later and truly admired Ren Zhong.
The Liming Research Institute now has more and more research centers, but no research center负责人 dares to say that he has a more accurate view of future development trends in his field than Ren Zhong.
"We will conduct in-depth negotiations with potential partners such as Alstom on joint research in technology."
With Ren Zhong's clear guidance, Professor Zhao Xiaoming clearly sees his key work.
However, after contacting them, the negotiations were more difficult than Professor Zhao Xiaoming imagined.
Alstom only wants to sell products to Dongda and does not want to mention anything about technology.
Alstom still understands the difference between selling chickens and selling eggs.
However, facing Alstom's resistance, Ren Zhong listed a dense list of new high-speed rail research projects. As Dongda also began to contact and negotiate with Siemens,
Although Siemens was also unwilling to accept the diffusion of its research on electric locomotive technology, in the face of Dongda's strong research strength, when the new electric locomotive research plan was listed, Siemens, like Alstom, was silenced.
Dongda has very clear development ideas and special projects for the technological development of more than a dozen key subsystems of electric locomotives, and even listed very specific performance indicators. For these two industry experts, they can of course distinguish whether this is a bluff or really feasible.
In addition, the Jingfeng Line and Jinghu Line, two 200 km/h high-speed rail projects, have been promoted to the scope of planning and construction, and are planned to be started within 10 years, which finally forced both companies to put down their high heads and signed a tripartite joint research and development framework agreement for the next generation of high-speed rail technology with Dongda.
The three parties established the Orient Star International High-speed Rail Company to jointly develop the next generation of high-speed rail technology and production. According to the proportion of investment, Dongda invested 45%, Siemens 30%, and Alstom 25% to divide the equity.
The project goal is to achieve commercial operation of 200 km/h high-speed railways within ten years, and commercial operation of 300 km/h high-speed railways within twenty years. As the leader, Dongda will be the first to build a commercial demonstration.
Another new field has begun a great journey. Although Dongda will bear the greatest risk (mainly because the demonstration project construction does not have allies to amortize the costs), Ren Zhong, who knows the future high-speed rail technology well, will not allow any major problems to occur in this demonstration. Therefore, this demonstration will take the lead in eating the first crab and benefit from building it early. (End of this chapter)