Artificial rainfall is already a very mature technology, but artificially simulating snowfall to build Winter Olympics venues is much more difficult. The hosting of the Beijing Winter Olympics has once again attracted the attention of all countries to the city of Beijing. Beijing has hosted the Summer Olympics before, but hosting the Winter Olympics is not that simple.
Beijing’s climate environment is not suitable for large snowfields to remain unchanged for a long time. Without the necessary competition venues, many Winter Olympics events will naturally not be carried out. Some indoor skating events can also use artificial ice to create venues, but outdoor ski venues need to rely on artificial snowfall to create a qualified competition venue.
Before hosting this Winter Olympics, it took the domestic team five years to break through the core technology of snowmaking machines. Why is it so difficult to make artificial snow? Generally speaking, there are no strict requirements for the host city of the Olympic Games. As long as the necessary venues can be provided and the application is successful, the Olympic Games can be held.
However, the venues required for the events of the Summer Olympics are easier to achieve, while many events of the Winter Olympics must be conducted on snow-covered tracks. If the snow is too thin or the amount is not enough, it will naturally not be able to meet the requirements of the competition. requested. Before the invention of snowmaking machines, the host city of the Winter Olympics would use cold storage to store large amounts of snow in the past few years.
However, it takes a lot of electricity to keep the stored snow intact, and laying a snow track more than ten kilometers long requires a large amount of snow, and it is difficult to store the snow. meet needs. Russia has hosted the Winter Olympics and accumulated large amounts of snow in the years leading up to the event.
However, when building the site, it was discovered that there was not enough snow. Later, 450 snowmaking machines were deployed to solve the problem of insufficient snow supply. Russia spent 40 million yuan on this. When China holds the Winter Olympics, it is also possible to rent snowmaking machines. However, due to the need for long-term development of winter tourism and skiing, it began to conquer snowmaking machine technology a few years ago.
Snowmaking machines are similar to artificial rainfall, except that they blow out small pieces of crystallized ice. In the past, snowmaking machines mixed water below 5°C with air to form ice cubes in an environment of minus 25°C. The ice cubes were chopped with a cutting machine and then sprayed out with the air. This kind of artificial snow is quite different from the snowflakes formed in nature. It is not very thin snowflakes, but 5mm-sized flakes of ice.
This type of snowmaking machine was commonly used decades ago, but later people put forward higher requirements for snowmaking machines out of the need for fair competition. The snow track paved with flake ice is different from the natural ski track. The larger particles make the snow track easier for athletes to slip.
The Chinese scientific research team also went through an arduous journey to develop a snowmaking machine. In order to develop a snowmaking machine that can spray out snowflakes that meet the requirements, the researchers worked in an environment of minus 20 degrees below zero in the wild. They got up early and stayed up late every day in a variety of ways. Test the snow gun under ambient conditions.
Finally in 2021, the research team developed a variety of snowmaking machines suitable for different environmental conditions, providing a strong guarantee for the hosting of the Winter Olympics. The snowmaking machines developed in China have been put into actual use. The alpine ski center uses 170 snowmaking machines for maintenance.
Domestic snowmaking machines are different from previous snowmaking machines. Instead of chopping ice cubes and spraying them, they spray mist-like water droplets, which are quickly cooled to form ice that is closer to natural conditions. snowflake. The size of the sprayed snowflakes ranges from 10 mm to 0.3mm.
The snow track in the Olympic Games is not like the snow formed by natural snowfall. The snow density must be 5 to 13 times the density of natural snow. Athletes ski on the snow track many times, and the snow track can still remain smooth enough.
It is understood that the snowmaking work for the Beijing Winter Olympics lasted for six weeks before the construction of all tracks was completed, and the artificial snowmaking area reached 125,000 square meters. Artificial snow is also mixed with some substances to prevent the snow from melting too quickly. Even if the snow track in the Winter Olympics heats up to more than ten degrees, the snow can still continue to exist stably for a period of time. #WINTER OLYMPIC# #SNOWMACHINE#