Chapter 286 Aegis
“I remember that the 14th Institute of Electronic Technology Group should have a sea-based phased array radar project, right?”
The topic came to surface ships After the air defense, Yang Shuyu asked Guo Lin and others.
With his position, he naturally knows about the existence of these projects, but he may not be very clear about the specific progress.
Unless it is a key model in your field of competence.
Guo Lin obviously did not expect that the Electronic Technology Group he represented would be mentioned so suddenly, so he was stunned for a moment, but quickly nodded:
"Yes, we call this radar a sea radar. Star, the specific model is tentatively designated as Type 346, but it is still in the process of transitioning from technical pre-research to the official start of the project. Director Zhou Wanxing should be in charge. I roughly know that the technical route determined now is The source phased array and T/R components use bipolar silicon components. If it can be produced domestically in the future, or a stable channel can be found to import gallium arsenide, then gallium arsenide-bipolar silicon hybrid components can be used instead.”
< br>Star of the Sea is considered the number one project among the current 14 institutes. Guo Lin has also done work such as determining technical indicators, so although he is not involved now, he still knows some general parameters.
“What about the number of T/R components?”
Although the Chinese Navy currently does not have a phased array radar, it is obvious that naval officers are already in the forefront of the equipment, at least for related Understand some basic knowledge.
Of course, for professionals like Guo Lin, such a question is still too general, and it is not easy to answer. So he lowered his head and organized his words for a while before speaking again:
"Now discuss the T/R component The quantity is too early, and it is not very important, because first the specific size of the radar array must be determined based on the ship design given by the shipbuilding industry, which in turn involves your navy's overall plan for future air defense destroyers. The potential of a five-thousand-ton ship and an eight-thousand-ton ship is obviously different in this regard.”
“If we estimate based on the average of a single front of 4*4 meters square, then use bipolar. In the case of silicon, the number of components can be about 3,500-4,000. After upgrading to gallium arsenide-bipolar silicon hybrid devices, it should be increased to about 5,000. "
Due to packaging, heat dissipation, and electromagnetics. Difficulties in engineering practice such as shielding. When the area of the radar array increases to a certain extent, it is difficult for the number of T/R components to increase simultaneously with the size of the array. Therefore, the array of more than 5 square meters on the Air Police 200 Nearly 2,000 components can be stuffed in, and the 16 square meters of the 346 is only twice as much.
Of course, there is also the factor that the working environment of airborne radar is inherently more conducive to heat dissipation. In short, it is not a simple mathematical problem.
"Then this radar should be considered relatively advanced in terms of technical level?"
Yang Shuyu is quite familiar with foreign military equipment, especially since 1994, Lockheed Martin began to use Aegis The Navy's Advanced Distributed Combat System (DANCS) developed based on Baseline 5.3 has been put into export. Although it cannot be sold to non-allied countries, many basic parameters have been disclosed, which can be regarded as giving China a conceptual understanding of regional air defense ships. Know.
“Based on the previously determined overall performance, it is at least at the same level as the Baseline 7 version of Aegis, which is also being developed in the United States, mainly due to our research and development level of semiconductor components and data processing computers. There is a gap in chip performance, which evens out the mechanical advantages of active phased arrays compared to passive arrays."
Although Guo Lin's tone still sounded a bit regretful, it was from the perspective of an engineer. Starting from the beginning, it is difficult to express our regret that we cannot convert technical advantages into performance advantages.
However, for these naval officers here...
This TM is simply a blessing from heaven!
China's newest warship, the Daocheng, which was put into service last year, is even slightly inferior to the second batch of Charles Adams-class ships after the No. 14 ship in terms of air defense capabilities alone.
The latter was a ship commissioned in the mid-1960s.
As a result, someone suddenly said that they are developing an air defense system here, which can compete with the new version of Arleigh Burke in the future.
There is a sense of deja vu as if a poor boy who has been in poverty for twenty years suddenly learns that he is the only illegitimate son of a rich man.
"So... Engineer Guo, I wonder when this Sea Star system is expected to be finalized and put into service, or at least a prototype will be built?"
The person who asked this question obviously did not know these details before, so Even his voice was shaking with excitement.
"According to the plan when the project was established, it will be finalized in about 10 years." Guo Lin answered without thinking, but then he looked up at Chang Haonan sitting opposite and hesitated:
"If According to a more optimistic scenario, it can probably be shortened by a few years.”
In fact, just recalling all the things that have happened since he met Chang Haonan, Guo Lin felt that if the other party could participate in this thing, it would be conservatively estimated that it would take four or five years to win it.
This time is mainly because the comprehensive test ship to be used for testing is still in the shipyard and we don’t know when it will be delivered, and the time required for modification, prototype manufacturing and other processes is not available. There is no way to compress it, otherwise it might be shorter.
But thinking about it, he couldn't go overboard and make this decision for Chang Haonan. After all, the latter seemed to be very busy now, and he was a member of the aviation industry system, so he couldn't abandon his job and devote himself wholeheartedly to it. The great electronics and shipbuilding industry came...
"Ten years..."
Although intellectually speaking, this time should be considered quite reasonable. After all, when the United States developed Aegis, it was It took 12 years, but after all, I just drew an almost perfect pie, and now I know that even the wheat for making the pie has not been grown yet, and I have to wait 10 years before I can eat it. I feel a little disappointed.
Even Yang Shuyu feels this way.
So he asked with some reluctance:
“Then if we lower some technical requirements, for example, we can temporarily use passive phased array antennas, is it possible to shorten some research and development? Time, let the troops have something to use first?”
This idea is basically to run in small steps, and everyone here is familiar with it.
However, Guo Lin shook his head directly after hearing this:
"No, in fact, although the active array is more advanced than the passive array, they are technically branches in two different directions and are not on the same line. Our Electronic Technology Group has been in the field of electronic scanning since the beginning. Going in the direction of active arrays, if we go back to passive arrays now, it will distract our research and development efforts."
"And the biggest problem facing Sea Star now is not actually the active arrays, but the active arrays. They are some more basic parts. For example, the most basic one is that the antenna array structure requires a composite material box. Aluminum honeycomb sandwich panels and aluminum alloy diaphragms are used internally to separate thousands of honeycomb-shaped components for the T/R components. In the diamond-shaped space, large-diameter aluminum alloy fasteners must be used to rivet the composite materials and aluminum alloy parts, and we cannot complete any of these processes now.”
“Another example is the reflective panel of the antenna array. It is the benchmark for the entire phased array radar structure. To manufacture this thing, a 4m*4m aluminum alloy billet is required. The current solution can only be imported from the Samara Aluminum Plant, but the Rusal label is the same as what we are used to. Alcoa has a different label, so its mechanical properties need to be re-estimated, or we can use two domestic 4-meter by 2-meter δ70 aluminum plates to weld together, but the welding requirements are not up to standard..."
Even if you just listen When Guo Lin described these problems, all the officers present expressed their confusion.
Obviously, the engineering problems involved are far more complex than ordinary people think, and they are by no means something that can be built by working overtime in a short period of time.
Wang Xiaomo and Chang Haonan mentioned it before when they talked about the design plan of the early warning aircraft. At present, the high-silicon aluminum alloy required for the phased array radar array can only be processed in China through manual milling. The processing efficiency and yield rate are average. For It is not satisfactory for a balance beam or wedge tail antenna.
Now the square antenna area of the 346 radar is at least three times that of the Air Police 200, and a ship needs 4 sides...
I am afraid it is not feasible to do it by hand alone.
In fact, what Guo Lin did not say is that these processing problems can only be considered relatively less complicated among the difficulties faced by the Star of the Sea project.
The more troublesome part is the design.
However, those contents were more professional and profound. Even if they were spoken, few people present would be able to understand them.
And judging from Yang Shuyu's expression, what he just said has had a good enough effect, and there is no need to continue with the long speech.
So forget it.
Today’s protagonists are, after all, our comrades from the Navy.
(End of this chapter)