In the 770,000 square kilometers of the East China Sea, there are sometimes rough waves, sometimes calm waves, and more often invisible undercurrents. A 100,000-ton giant ship was slowly sailing towards the Zhoudai Bridge located in the northeastern sea of Zhejiang Province - the gray turtle ocean...... Fortunately, all of this is a digital simulation of a rainy day.
Misfortune doesn't happen every day, but luck doesn't happen often. In order to maintain this "luck", Zhejiang Future Transportation Industry Development Co., Ltd. has tailored a water monitoring and early warning system for the Zhoudai Bridge, which improves the safety level of the bridge while building a safety barrier.
"Active + passive" dual protection
In recent years, with the increasing number of sea-crossing bridges in Zhejiang Province, the safety risks of marine traffic operations such as ship-bridge collisions and ship stuck bridges have become higher and higher, and safety problems have emerged. At the end of 2019, a small team planning a bridge collision avoidance system saw an opportunity to think about how to shift their focus from deck safety to the safety of the piers themselves.
On December 29, 2021, with the official opening of the Zhoudai Bridge, the 100,000 residents of Daishan Island completely ended the history of relying on boats to get around. The bridge that breaks the waves on the sea is quietly changing people's lives. The number of vehicles passing on the bridge has been increasing, and the number of ships navigating under the bridge has not decreased. According to statistics, the total flow of more than 2.7 million vehicles in and out of Daishan through the Zhoudai Bridge per year, the average daily traffic flow is about 7,500 vehicles, and the peak daily traffic is 22,600 vehicles; the average daily navigable ships in the sea area where the Zhoudai Bridge is located are more than 300, and there are about 80 ships that need to pass through the navigation holes, and the types of ships are as large as 100,000 tons and as small as small fishing boats, and the types are not fixed.
Under such a large flow rate, the safety of the bridge is even more related to the safety of the drivers and passengers in the past. As early as 2020, the Ministry of Transport, the State Railway Administration, and the China Railway Group jointly issued the "Three-year Action Implementation Plan for the Management of Hidden Dangers of Ship Collision Bridges", which proposed that the unit responsible for the maintenance or operation management of the bridge is the main body responsible for ensuring the safe operation of the bridge, and should set up and maintain bridge signs and anti-collision facilities in accordance with laws and regulations; If the anti-collision performance is insufficient, measures such as setting up anti-collision facilities and installing active early warning devices should be taken to improve the anti-collision ability.
In the past, in the practice of emergency protection and passive physical collision avoidance after yaw accidents, managers found that problems such as high cost, limited distance, insufficient accuracy and intensity of prevention and control, etc., could not achieve comprehensive protection. Therefore, it is extremely important to anticipate and proactively protect in advance.
By chance, a small team that started early planning in the early stage, from small-scale planning to the formal establishment of Zhejiang Future Transportation Industry Development Co., Ltd., they want to do a real practice for the bridge collision of Zhoudai Bridge, and a set of "active + passive" dual anti-collision warning and pre-control system design scheme came into being.
"Invisible + tangible" doubles the security
In January 2024, the Ministry of Transport's "Guiding Opinions on Doing a Good Job in the Creation and Demonstration of Ping An's Centennial Quality Project to Promote the High-quality Development of Transportation Infrastructure Construction" pointed out that the redundancy design and resilience design evaluation methods of long bridges should be improved to improve the ability of bridge structures to resist natural disasters and emergencies. At the same time, the Zhoudai Bridge dual anti-collision warning and pre-control system officially started trial operation, giving the bridge a double sense of security of "invisible + tangible".
"This ship is not quite right, call quickly!" On the large monitoring screen, it is clearly visible that a ship has deviated from the main channel, which may affect the structural safety of other ships and the bridge. A few seconds later, the system sends the early warning information to the ship according to the automatic judgment, and the VHF high-frequency call system on the ship emits a sound. Subsequently, according to the position of the yaw ship, the system automatically links the whole bridge to set up the strobe lights and directional horns in the corresponding area to warn the yaw ship, guide the ship back to the channel, and minimize the risk of the ship hitting the bridge. At the same time, the system automatically connects with the maritime department and pushes all data, including early warning information, to the maritime system. If the ship loses power or there is no feedback, emergency ships such as warning ships and emergency tugboats will be dispatched to drive and intercept them. At this point, the closed-loop linkage is completed.
According to reports, the bridge anti-collision active warning system adopts a combination of remote sensing technology, computer applications, information technology, software development technology and other multidisciplinary integration of high-tech, the bridge, sea, ship, equipment, environment and other one-to-one mapping, to build a digital twin model. The system mainly focuses on the functional requirements of ship overspeed, yaw, supervision, accident post-management, etc., and establishes a special early warning system, which discovers and reduces risks through algorithm optimization, and pre-predicts risks.
It is not easy to create such an "immersive and empathetic" digital twin, especially since the pre-survey and post-installation and maintenance of the Zhoudai Bridge that has been built and navigable.
"The 16-kilometer-long road, we can only walk through the cable bridge, this road is only connected by two steel plates, and the bottom is a vast sea dozens of meters away, and colleagues have a fear of heights and can only overcome it." The person in charge of the project admitted that he had walked twice from beginning to end on this narrow road that was difficult to walk. "We have installed 142 testing equipment, 12 high-performance servers and an 18-kilometer fiber optic network on the bridge."
Behind the "invisible" hand of digitalization, there are still the "tangible" silent efforts of countless builders. "In addition to the equipment under the bridge, there is also the installation of equipment on the bridge deck, which we spent a long time communicating and coordinating." He added.
Finally, the radar equipment group with Zhoudai Bridge as the core has built a 16-kilometer ×20-kilometer "bridge-sea integration" perception space, which can deeply integrate the perceived real-time data with the digital twin model, and establish an all-weather, no blind spots, and intelligent bridge anti-ship collision safety guarantee system, so as to achieve scene synchronization, risk level, and behavior at the same frequency, so as to achieve real-world roaming, accurate positioning, intelligent decision-making, forward command, and global control.
Up to now, the system has collected about 200 dangerous situations every day. In the process of continuous iterative update of the version, the system can also feedback relevant problems and suggestions to the relevant regulatory units through data analysis and review, and provide them with relevant basis for bridge inspection and maintenance. Combined with the installation and improvement of active early warning equipment, it is expected that in July this year, the system will complete a six-month trial operation and open all-round protection.
Be a good guardian of marine safety
On the journey of the sea of stars, builders are breaking through technical barriers step by step, and the lever of digitalization is also extending indefinitely.
In March 2024, at the promotion meeting for the construction of a strong marine province in our province, it was emphasized that the ocean is a major advantage, a major potential, and a major space for the development of Zhejiang, and it is necessary to strengthen risk prevention, focus on building a smart marine data system, improve the level of marine intelligent governance, strengthen marine safety production, and show new achievements in improving marine governance capabilities.
With the acceleration of national strategies such as "new infrastructure", "maritime power", "carbon neutrality" and "digital economy", a series of new concepts such as accelerating the development of new quality productivity have become the mainstream in the future.
If the first "active + passive" dual anti-collision warning and pre-control system of Zhoudai Bridge is the original seed of Zhejiang Future Transportation Industry Development Co., Ltd., then the four series of products around the safety of offshore operations are the nutrients that make this seed take root and sprout, and inject strength into the company's strong growth.
From comprehensive coverage of the whole process of offshore engineering safety management services, to specialized offshore wind power operation and maintenance services, as well as more port and port technical services, Zhejiang Future Transportation Industry Development Co., Ltd. is relying on cloud platform technology, management digital technology and new material technology to actively explore a new model of water engineering safety management.
Over the years, Zhejiang Future Transportation Industry Development Co., Ltd. has practiced the implementation of strategic layout, strived to take root in the sea, focused on maritime safety technical services, and never forgot the original mission of "becoming a leader in the field of marine operation safety", and contributed to the construction of a maritime power and a digital power.
Editor|Wang Minjie
Text: Lu Jinyu
Process Editor|Chen Shang
Image source: Zhejiang Future Transportation Industry Development Co., Ltd
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