Professor Yao Damao (front left) and Yu Yunqing (front right), chairman of Wuhan Essence, talk about the research and development manufacturing process.

Photo by Peng Zhong

Wuhan Evening News (reporter Peng Zhong) "Quickly take me to see the reducer." Yao Damao, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences, couldn't wait to make a request just after walking into Wuhan Essence Reducer Co., LTD. (" Wuhan Essence ") on Qijiawan Street in Huangpi District on Tuesday.

"It will be mounted on an 11-meter-long robotic arm to maintain the operation of the 'artificial sun' in a nuclear fusion reactor," Professor Yao Damao excitedly told reporters at the warehouse where a 1.1-meter-diameter, 1.3-meter-high "black giant" was being tested on electricity. On the same day, three 450,000 newton-meter cycloid gear reduction machines developed and manufactured by Wuhan Essence were officially delivered to the Hefei Institute of Material Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which will be used in the International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor (IETR) facility.

The ITER Project is one of the largest international scientific research cooperation projects in the world. It seeks to solve the energy problem of mankind in the future by conducting nuclear fusion research through global cooperation. China is taking part in the ITER project, commonly known as the Artificial Sun, along with the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States.

The Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is responsible for more than 80 percent of the ITER project's Chinese procurement. According to Professor Yao Damao, the artificial Sun is a large nuclear fusion reactor with an internal temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius. It can only be maintained and operated by a multi-functional heavy load manipulator that can resist high temperature and radiation. It requires heavy load and high precision. The core "joint" of the manipulator is cycloidal gear reducer. The Institute searched for Wuhan Essence in many ways around the world.

Wuhan Essence chairman Yu Yunqing told reporters, cycloid gear reducer core technology has been foreign monopoly in the past. As one of the first national-level "specialized, special and new" key enterprises, Wuhan Essence began to research and development cycloid gear reducer from 2012, now has 6 series of more than 300 varieties, its 2017 research and development of the world's smallest cycloid gear reducer, weight only 370 grams, has been applied in high-end medical robots "body".

In the face of high load, high precision, high temperature radiation resistance and other harsh requirements, the technical team began a more than 3 years of research. From the material selection link, continuous destructive test. After hundreds of failures and nearly 50 materials, we finally found the right one.

Yu Yunqing proudly said that before the world's largest cycloidal gear reduction airborne weight is 25 tons, this one can carry 45 tons, a new world record. The error of its control arm should not exceed 10 mm. "You can precisely tighten nuts up to a centimeter from 11 meters away." Yu Yunqing said.