When will China be able to build its own steam catapult aircraft carrier?

Steam catapults, like many modern industrial products, are a systematic manifestation of the technical strength of a country's industrial system in a certain aspect. It is a systematic project in the modern industrial system.

In August 1950, the United Kingdom installed a BXS-1 steam catapult with a power stroke of 45.5 meters on the center line of the "Perseus" aircraft carrier deck. It was powered by steam from the ship's main boiler. The trial was initially successful. It has large ejection energy, good safety and acceleration performance, and is gradually being widely used by aircraft carriers. The steam catapult can eject an aircraft weighing 20 to 35 tons, with a speed of 250 to 350 kilometers per hour, a gravity acceleration of 4 to 5.5 g, and 1 to 3 aircraft per minute. Aircraft carriers are usually equipped with 2 to 4 catapults, which are respectively installed on the forward flight deck and the oblique flight deck.

The U.S. Navy purchased the patent and eventually developed it. The steam catapult uses high-pressure steam to push the piston to drive the slider on the ejection track to project the carrier-based aircraft connected to it. The American C-13-1 steam catapult is 76.3 meters long and can eject two carrier-based aircraft per minute. If a 2-ton jeep is ejected from the bow of a ship, it can be thrown to the sea 2.4 kilometers away, which shows how powerful it is.

The Soviet Union began the development of aircraft carrier catapults in 1982. At that time, the Soviet Union’s official name for the catapult was “boost equipment.” The task of developing this “boost equipment” was assigned to a factory. . In order to verify related technical issues, the factory produced a 1:10 catapult model, and began building the first physical catapult in mid-1983. After several years of hard work, the catapult was finally installed in the "Nitka" aircraft carrier land test system in 1986. As the first catapult of the Soviet Union, its ejection cylinder length is 90 meters. Although the authorities later planned to test the newly developed catapult on the "Varyag" aircraft carrier, all ideas and plans came to nothing with the collapse of the Soviet edifice. Although the catapult was manufactured, and it was later decided to equip the "Ulyanovsk" with two catapults after debate, but since there was no ejection test flight, the performance of this type of catapult is still unknown to this day. Be known to the world.

As for why France adopted American technology without independent research and development, it is generally estimated that France considered spending huge resources to research from scratch. It was not as cost-effective as purchasing mature technology directly from its allies. Therefore, it cannot be said that France Steam catapults cannot be researched.

Many articles have different opinions on the difficulty of manufacturing catapults. Some say that the sealing of the open cylinder is the key, some say that the manufacturing of the open cylinder is very difficult, and some say that it is the machining accuracy of the ejector. It is very high, and some people think that first-class welding technology is necessary. In fact, the real difficulty of the catapult lies in the manufacture of the steam tank. The above statement is only true to the point of welding technology.

The catapult's steam storage tank is a large-sized high-pressure container. In the manufacturing industry, high-pressure vessels are an important variety of mechanical industry products. They are widely used in chemical industry, nuclear industry, energy and aerospace technology. They are an important reflection of a country's heavy industry level. Although this product has no moving parts and its structure is quite simple, it has to withstand high pressure and is large in size, so it places special high demands on can-making materials, manufacturing equipment and welding processes. Manufacturing companies must have relevant production capabilities. license. For aircraft carrier catapults, there are requirements in terms of number of uses, weight restrictions and high temperature resistance, so manufacturing is even more difficult. Can-making materials must use heat-resistant special alloy steel, which must have good creep properties and tensile strength, and must withstand hundreds of thousands of ejection pressurization/decompression fatigue cycles. Currently, only a few countries can manufacture. There are several can-making processes. The most commonly used one is to pass a steel pestle through a steel ingot and repeatedly forge it into a link shape. After turning, several links are welded into a cylinder. The heads on both sides are sealed with a hydraulic press of more than 10,000 tons. It is extruded or extruded in pieces, then cut and then welded. The welding process must be carried out strictly in accordance with the operating process. If you are not careful, the parts will be scrapped.