A J-20 fighter jet of the Chinese Communist Party military during a military exercise in Inner Mongolia, July 30, 2017.
Recently Xi Jinping inspected the aviation forces in Guizhou and boarded a special aircraft, allegedly to show the outside world the strength of the Chinese Communist Party’s force, especially warplanes. However, in 2017, the CCP’s civil-military integration project document in the field of composite materials, a key aerospace technology, disclosed that carbon fiber composite material technology is “still a big gap” from advanced countries, and the project is trying to find another way to seek a breakthrough.
Research and development of glass fiber composite materials 2017 civil-military integration project to find another way?
The 2017 civil-military integration document of the Ministry of Defense of the Communist Party of China (CPC), “Super-strong, ultra-high elastic modulus composite materials and new functional engineering structural body molding process and equipment” project proposal, proposes the use of low-cost functional materials glass fiber, “through the empowerment process, the manufacture of new composite materials.
Screenshot of the 2017 project proposal for “Processes and Equipment for Forming Ultra-Strength, Ultra-High Elastic Modulus Composites and New Functional Engineered Structural Bodies” by the Ministry of Defense of the Communist Party of China
The project document describes the technology as “the direction of future military equipment development. In particular, “the development of intelligent cartridges (L-115, W-400 intelligent cartridges)” “will play a pivotal role in the rapid progress of China’s weaponry and the leap forward in the aerospace industry.” According to the document, the development of L-115 and W-400 smart cartridge cases is to produce and manufacture missile cases for the Communist Party of China.
The document focuses on TORAYCA T1100G, a carbon fiber composite material developed by Japan’s Toray, which according to foreign media reports will be used in Japan’s development of the God of Heart stealth fighter. Japan’s Toray is a major manufacturer of carbon fiber, its launch of T300, T700, T800, T1000 and other different specifications of carbon fiber products have become the industry standard, usually the larger the number of the standard represents the higher the carbon fiber performance level.
According to the project document, the CPC attaches great importance to the development of composite materials, and functional composite materials are listed as the “cutting edge of national defense” in the “Ninth Five-Year” and “Tenth Five-Year” national defense plans.
According to the CCP’s 2017 Civil-Military Integration Project document, there is a big gap between composite material technology and advanced countries, and the CCP attaches great importance to it, listing functional composite materials as the “cutting edge of national defense”. The picture is a screenshot of the document.
The document also admits that in scientific research, high-strength functional composite materials research “from the advanced technology countries is still a big gap”, “especially in the actual transformation into applied technology and product industry, such as carbon fiber T-800 products, China still does not have, can only turn to modify the design. The use of ‘coarse’ mechanics to start solving.”
Domestic fast boat 11 solid launch vehicle with carbon fiber shell (web screenshot)
Carbon fiber is known as the “king of new materials” in the 21st century because of its excellent performance. Carbon fiber composite is also an important material for the manufacture of advanced warplanes, rockets and missiles.
Carbon fiber is generally divided into T-grade and M-grade; T-grade is equivalent to aviation grade, widely used in aircraft and automobiles, and M-grade is equivalent to aerospace grade, used in rockets, spacecraft, satellites and so on.
The so-called composite material is a new material made by optimizing the combination of materials with different properties. The matrix materials of composite materials are divided into metal matrix such as aluminum, magnesium, copper, titanium and its alloy, and non-metal matrix such as synthetic resin, rubber, ceramics, graphite, carbon, etc. The reinforcing materials are mainly carbon fiber, boron fiber, glass fiber, etc.
According to this 2017 civil-military integration document, the project is to study new composite materials with glass fiber as the reinforcement, “technically, replacing the current resin-based composites with carbon fiber as the reinforcement with low-cost nanoscale glass fiber.”
According to the document, the current glass beads and glass fibers developed by Fuzhou University “will substantially improve the international market competitiveness of our country’s related special functional materials and products”.
The document also claims that “new low-cost new high-strength, high-modulus, high-toughness resin-based composite materials, has completed the development of the third generation of advanced composite materials, can be applied to the design of future aerospace, military equipment ‘trial production, testing and so on.”
“At present, research and development works are crossed, has entered the preparation stage of glass-based functional base material development raw and strict, process design, preliminary tests have begun, has taken shape.”
The reporter checked and found that the civil-military integration project is in line with the [157] Fund-61409220101-New high-strength, high-mode, high-tough resin-based composite materials basic research (key project) in the 2017 Field Fund Preliminary Research Guide (Open Project) of the Department of Equipment Development of the CPC Military Commission.
Screenshot of “2017 Field Fund Pre-Research Guide (Open Project)” by the Department of Equipment Development of the CPC Military Commission
The CPC Military Commission publishes its annual guidelines for equipment pre-research and other civil-military integration policy documents on the “All-Military Weapons and Equipment Procurement Information Network” (www.weain.mil.cn); it also publishes the documents on campus through major Chinese universities. The field fund project mainly researches technologies with maturity level 3 and below; the shared technology is for the key technology attack with maturity level 4 to 6.
Only, this 2017 project uses glass fiber as the reinforcement, and the research objectives are not quite in line with the mainstream direction of the CCP’s equipment research guidelines.
Project document leaks key CCP military science and technology dilemma
The project document states that the technical keys are: “resin plug composite materials with low-cost glass fiber as reinforcement for one-Time overall molding”; “reduce the cost of new composite materials and mechanical properties no less than T800 grade carbon fiber composites, significantly improve the compression and tensile symmetry of the composite. “
In other words, the project goal is to develop a glass fiber composite whose performance can replace T800 carbon fiber, but this goal does not seem to be in tune with the direction of the then and current Communist Party-led equipment research.
According to the public pre-research annual guidance document of the CCP, there are 18 research projects on composite materials in the Common Technology and Field Fund Guidelines in 2017, 15 in 2018, and 9 in 2019; however, these composite materials research mainly target reinforcements such as carbon fibers, graphite fibers, and organic molecules, and none of them mention glass fibers.
Carbon fibers and glass fibers are the two most commonly used types of reinforcing fibers in composites. Both have high tensile strength as reinforcement materials, but carbon fiber usually has higher performance and lower cost than glass fiber; more importantly, carbon fiber has far better options than glass fiber in the choice of composite matrix.
For example, the world’s first mass-produced fifth-generation fighter aircraft – the U.S. F-22 fighter jet on a large number of composite materials, the proportion of mass-produced aircraft using composite materials (by weight) up to 35%, of which carbon fiber composites as the main body.
In fact, the proportion of composite material usage has become an important indicator of the tactical and technical performance of modern military aircraft.
For example, in Europe and the United States, the main UAVs are mainly used for military purposes, and even the main structure has been made of composite materials, i.e. not only the small parts such as fairings, but also the main structure such as wings and tail fins are made of carbon fiber composites. For example, one of the world’s most advanced UAVs, the U.S. RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV, uses about 65 percent of the total weight of the structure in composite materials.
According to public reports by the mainland media, there is a big gap between the carbon fiber composite technology in mainland China and the international advanced level, from raw silk to molding, from R&D to mass production.
According to a 2014 report by Tencent Military Channel, China had just completed a technological breakthrough in the production of T800, a product of Toray of Japan and Hexcel of the United States in the 1980s, with carbon fiber technology lagging behind the United States and Japan by 30 years. Some industry insiders on the Internet revealed that some mainland media have reported for years that China has made a breakthrough in carbon fiber, but most of them are inaccurate or confusing propaganda, because there is a huge technological and production gap between R&D, pilot testing (small-scale trial production) and mass production of compound material technology.
In 2016, the 1,000-ton T800 raw silk production line of Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Company was put into operation. The picture shows the T800 carbon fiber production line of Zhongfu Shenying. (Web screenshot)
As reported by the mainland media, Jiangsu Hangke built the first T800 production line in China in 2012, but the real mass production reflecting the level of carbon fiber application was in 2016, when the 1,000-ton T800 raw filament production line of Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Company was officially put into operation.
Jiangsu AeroTech broke through the T1000 carbon fiber technology in 2014, but it was not until 2018 that Zhongfu Shenying started China’s first 100-ton T1000 carbon fiber production line. And during the same period, the United States, Japan and other countries have long manufactured the T1400 carbon fiber with superior performance.
Due to the military importance of composite materials, especially carbon fiber composites, the U.S., Japan and other democratic countries strictly prohibit the export of high-performance carbon fibers that can be used for military purposes to the CCP.
The highest grade of domestic composite materials publicly reported to be used in China is the J-20, the fifth generation of the Chinese Communist Party’s warplane, which uses T700 grade carbon fiber. One of the main obstacles is the bottleneck in the application of composite materials, including carbon fiber and other advanced composite materials are not enough.
In 2012, the U.S. FBI arrested a mainland businessman who tried to smuggle 20 tons of military-grade carbon fiber T-800 to China. 2013, the FBI arrested another Chinese businessman who smuggled carbon fiber T-800. 2015, Japan arrested three Japanese who smuggled carbon fiber to China. 2016, the U.S. government arrested a Chinese businessman who tried to smuggle M60 carbon fiber to China after five years of layout. Chinese businessman who tried to smuggle M60 carbon fiber to China.
These cases are seen as evidence that the Chinese Communist Party has acquired T-800 and higher grades of carbon fiber from certain sources and has been trying to acquire more advanced carbon fiber composite technology.
The reporter was unable to find any information on the glass fiber composite materials mentioned in the civil-military integration project from public information.
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