Reference News Network July 24 report: According to the South China Morning Post website on July 22, as the United States withdrew federal funding support for California's high-speed rail project, China officially announced its new generation of high-speed rail technology.

The report said that China's latest high-speed train, CR450, is undergoing final performance tests, preparing for commercial trial operations at speeds up to 400 kilometers per hour.

The research team has broken through the previous speed limit of 350 km/h. For a long time, high air resistance and energy consumption at this speed have been difficult technical challenges.

Shao Jun, a researcher from the China Academy of Railway Sciences, said that for every 50 km/h increase in speed, resistance increases by 30%, and energy consumption also rises accordingly. 95% of the resistance of high-speed trains comes from the air.

The report said that to increase speed and save energy, scientists adjusted the shape of the train's head to reduce resistance. They drew inspiration from nature, imitating the shape of birds that fly at high speeds, which reduced resistance by about 2.6%.

They also focused on the bogie area under the train, a region that had been overlooked but had potential for drag reduction.

Shao Jun said that a team member proposed an idea of a covering structure to cover the exposed areas of the bogie, thus forming a more complete aerodynamic shape to reduce resistance. After repeated optimization, "the train's running resistance can be effectively reduced by 22%."

This means that even if the speed increases by 50 km/h, the energy consumption of the new train will still be comparable to the CR400 "Fuxing" train operating at 350 km/h.

The project's researchers also developed a new material that is heat-resistant, anti-deformation, and fatigue-resistant to meet the braking requirements of ultra-high-speed trains.

The development team's goal is to make the braking distance of the CR450 train the same as the CR400—controlling the distance from 400 km/h to zero within 6.5 kilometers, ensuring the train decelerates smoothly until it stops.

The energy released during this process is enough to heat 6.8 tons of water from freezing point to boiling point in 2 minutes.

The report said that although the research team did not specifically mention which metals were used in the new material, they said that they conducted hundreds of experiments to determine the material's formula, and evaluating its performance took more than a year.

China's national high-speed rail network has reached 48,000 kilometers, accounting for more than 70% of the global high-speed rail mileage, covering 97% of cities with populations over 500,000.

The report pointed out that while China continues to strive in the field of high-speed transportation technology, the United States has not given support. Last week, the Trump administration terminated $4 billion in federal funding support for the California high-speed rail project.

On July 16, Trump announced the cut in funding on the "Truth Social" website, calling the project "a high-speed train going nowhere."

The project aims to build a train capable of speeds over 320 km/h, reducing travel time between Los Angeles and San Francisco to less than 3 hours.

In April this year, the Trump administration revoked nearly $64 million in funding for the Texas high-speed rail project connecting Houston and Dallas. (Translated by Liu Zongya)

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7530542407159611947/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author. Please express your attitude by clicking the [up/down] buttons below.