Chapter 287 Shock
Magic City, Hongqiao Airport.

An Airbus passenger plane slowly lands.

When Omar, Ali and his group came out of the airport and looked at the prosperous international metropolis in front of them, they were really shocked.

Omar came back to his senses and turned to look at the middle-aged translator beside him: “Suman, haven’t you been to Shanghai before? Take us to the hotel first.”

“No problem, Manager Omar.” Suman nodded with a smile. He had not expected that his resume of studying abroad in Seris more than ten years ago would make him so popular.

Suman came here to study in 2012, and also studied in Shanghai. After graduation, he returned to Egypt. After returning to Egypt, he also engaged in translation work, but his business has been lukewarm.

The reason why it is lukewarm is very simple.

On the one hand, Chinese is not the core language of international business communication. When Seris companies conduct foreign trade, they mainly use English, mainly to accommodate customers.

On the other hand, the emergence of various translation software and AI has also replaced a large part of translation work.

The reason for the change in the past two years is mainly that Seres has a lot of monopolized high-value technologies and products, and Hailufeng Company pursues an active strategy of banning exports, which makes it very difficult for many foreign companies and foreign forces to obtain related products, and they can basically only negotiate in person.

Anyway, Hailufeng Company will not actively visit your door to sell products, and the conditions are very harsh.

For example, in the case of water purifier technology, many countries in West Asia and North Africa sent people to negotiate, but not only did they fail to obtain the technology, they couldn’t even get the products.

Of course, Minqin Group is not dead, but the technology is not mature and the cost is still relatively high, so further research is needed.

The Minqin Group did not deceive them on this point.

However, Minqin Group’s research direction is not how to reduce costs and increase efficiency, but how to reduce the service life of silicon nanotubes in core components. It is also studying how to quickly destroy silicon nanotubes to prevent anyone from obtaining this material.

At present, research in this area has achieved a lot of results. One of the more convenient solutions to reduce the service life is to use continuous X-ray irradiation and high-temperature treatment. Within half an hour, the service life of silicon nanotubes can be reduced to only 5 to 6 years.

The rapid destruction solution is more troublesome. Although the use of hydrofluoric acid combined with nitric acid or hydrofluoric acid combined with hydrogen peroxide can quickly destroy the structure of silicon nanotubes, this chemical substance is too corrosive and cannot be stored for a long time. It is easy to leak out. Once it pollutes the surrounding water, it may cause huge problems.

Of course, Minqin Group has now found a relatively quick self-destruction solution, which is a destruction method based on thermite reaction.

As long as someone destroys the protective shell of the water purifier, the thermite reaction agent hidden inside the entire water purifier will be instantly activated, generating a high temperature of two thousand degrees Celsius, instantly destroying the silicon nanotubes.

However, this kind of thing must not be used on domestic civilian water purifiers, otherwise, if someone with careless hands opens the protective shell of the water purifier, it may cause a tragic fire accident in minutes.

Water purifiers with protective shells are mainly exported to foreign countries.

Moreover, Minqin Group is ready to bring in several state-owned enterprises with overseas infrastructure experience to build this special seawater desalination plant in areas in need, such as West Asia and North Africa.

Not only does it take charge of the construction and supply of core equipment, but it also manages these desalination plants.

As for whether the other party is willing to accept such conditions?

Are you kidding? This is a world-exclusive technology. If you don’t want it, forget it. Minqin Group has no intention of giving in on this matter.

The core equipment of these desalination plants are all equipped with special protective casings. If the other party dares to use force, the Minqin Group will naturally not fight to the end. It will directly throw the factory to the other party, and then blacklist this area and stop providing follow-up services. Within a few years, the factory will be scrapped.

This is an important means to counter the opponent.

In order to control the water resources in these areas, Minqin Group does not mind adopting the strategy of small profits but quick turnover to let the locals develop a new habit of using more water. As long as they are highly dependent on fresh water from seawater desalination plants, they will become more cautious and dare not act rashly.

…

Suman’s situation has become better and better in the past two years because of Seris’s rapid progress in technology.

Since many regions now need to beg Seris, they naturally dare not put on airs.

As the weaker party in the negotiations, if we don’t bring an interpreter with us, can we expect the host to provide one?
This is why many foreigners who can speak Chinese have suddenly become popular. Even those with average Chinese proficiency can easily find jobs as Chinese translators or Chinese teachers. Some people have even opened Chinese training classes.

Suman runs a Chinese training institution in Cairo and currently has more than fifty students.

If Omar had not been his father’s friend this time, he would not have come here to be a translator. After all, he runs a training class and earns a very good monthly income. He can also stay at home with his wife and children, so there is no need for him to fly back and forth.

Led by Suman, Omar and his party came to a hotel that could accommodate foreigners.

The hotel is across the river and you can see the Oriental Pearl Tower.

Since Omar and his team had already contacted COFCO Group in advance through official Egyptian channels, they only needed to wait patiently for notification.

Before receiving any further notice, they decided to take a tour of the Magic City.

Although Su Man studied in Shanghai for more than ten years, after more than ten years of development, some areas of Shanghai are no longer the same as they were a decade ago. Fortunately, he has registered on the social software of Seris and has some classmates and teachers who he frequently contacts, so he can adapt to some changes in Shanghai.

Omar, Ali and others were here for the first time and seemed a little at a loss.

After strolling around the city, they unknowingly arrived at the Yangtze River Estuary in Pudong New Area.

Standing on the sidewalk on the shore, you can see Hengsha Island in the distance.

“What is that? A hot air balloon?” Ali widened his eyes and pointed at the air not far away.

Everyone looked in the direction of Ali’s finger and found a huge creature floating in the air.

Su Man took a look and explained to everyone: “That should be Ceris’s unique transport airship.”

“airship?”

Although the shore of Pudong New Area is at least 10 kilometers away from Hengsha Island, the airship is so large that its outline can be seen very clearly.

The locals passing by were already used to it and were going about their business very calmly.

Currently, the Blue Whale Airship Company can produce 10 Blue Whale Type 5 airships, 2 Blue Whale Type airships, and Blue Whale Type airships every month.

The original plan of Shanghai for Hengsha Island was to build a super deep-water port, so they took the initiative to seek cooperation with the Blue Whale Airship Company and planned to build a joint sea and air port.

The airship in front of us is the engineering transport airship of the Blue Whale Special Transport Company. It is a professional transport airship specially used to transport various large equipment, building materials and reclamation earth and stone to the Hengsha Island project.

In addition, the Hengsha Island-Pudong cross-river bridge project is also being constructed simultaneously.

However, the design of this cross-river bridge is not a traditional bridge, but is planned to use silicone foam material.

Due to its cheap materials and excellent performance, the clearance height, pier span and bearing capacity of this bridge far exceed other bridges.

The bridge type is a cable-stayed bridge. The cables are made of high-strength silicon carbide nanotube braided ropes, the bridge frame is made of silicon foam, the piers below the waterline are made of special reinforced concrete, and the bridge deck is made of asphalt sand.

Since silicone foam is very light, the bridge body of this cable-stayed bridge is not the previous open-air design, but a fully enclosed type, which is equivalent to an overhead tunnel.

However, the silicone foam is not covered with other materials on the surface and is breathable, which is different from the tunnel.

Therefore, asphalt sand will be laid on the bottom of the bridge body; photovoltaic panels will be installed on the outside to generate electricity; and the sides of the bridge body will be left as a breathable layer.

This design plan mainly takes into account the wind and wave problems in the Yangtze River Estuary, especially the Yangtze River Delta region which may encounter typhoon weather and strong winds and rainstorms. The main purpose of this bridge is to provide logistics support for the Hengsha Island sea and air ports, so it cannot be stopped at will.

The all-inclusive cable-stayed bridge can ensure that vehicles will not be disturbed by strong winds, heavy rains, typhoons, snowfall, heavy fog, etc.

Suman and others arrived too early. If they had arrived a few months later, they would have been able to see the construction cofferdam of the bridge piers.

After Shanghai and Hailufeng Company reached an agreement on cooperation last year, they immediately arranged for exploration personnel to conduct a comprehensive geological survey of the Yangtze River Estuary area between Pudong New Area and Hengsha Island to find a location for the construction of a cross-river bridge.

In fact, this location is quite easy to find, mainly because the emergence of new materials has caused the overall weight of the bridge to drop by about 80%. Since the weight of the bridge has dropped, it means that the bearing capacity requirements of the bridge piers have dropped, which makes the location of the bridge piers much easier.

After all, the load-bearing requirements for bridge piers when a bridge weighs tens of thousands of tons or thousands of tons are two completely different concepts.

With the emergence of new materials, not only Magic City is taking action, but other regions are also gearing up. Recently, they are secretly holding internal seminars to prepare to build some bridges that could not be built before.

For example, the Qiongzhou Strait Cross-sea Bridge and the Bohai Strait Cross-sea Bridge, which had been shelved for a long time, were also brought up for discussion locally.

The reason why the Qiongzhou Strait Cross-sea Bridge was not built in the past was not because there was no money, but because the risks of the Qiongzhou Strait were too great.

The sea surface in the Qiongzhou Strait is windy and the waves are high, which is a common problem in many straits. This is because of the narrow channel effect caused by the terrain, which will cause the fluid speed, water speed and wind speed to suddenly increase when encountering a narrow area.

But if that were the only issue, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

The real problems that plague the Qiongzhou Strait Cross-sea Bridge are actually the water depth, dense earthquake zones, typhoons, heavy fog, etc.

Now that Qiongzhou sees that Shanghai is cooperating with Hailufeng Company to build the Hengsha Island Bridge project, they are also eager to make a move. However, Qiongzhou is not in a hurry. They want to see the effect of the Hengsha Island Bridge first. If the cost is really only half of that of an ordinary bridge, and all indicators are very good, then they will do everything they can to build the Qiongzhou Strait Cross-sea Bridge project.

As for the problems in the Qiongzhou Strait, they are not completely unsolvable.

For example, if there are dense earthquake belts, we can directly avoid the earthquake belts and adopt the East Outer Line Plan or the West Outer Line Plan. Although the distance is increased by more than ten kilometers, at least the core earthquake belt is avoided.

As for the problems of typhoons and heavy fog, the fully enclosed bridge solution of Hengsha Island Bridge can be adopted to avoid the impact of typhoons and heavy fog.

The issue of sea water depth is also an important reason for choosing the outer line plan. Due to the existence of the narrow channel effect, the water depth in the central area of ​​the strait is obviously deeper than that in the outer edge areas on the east and west sides.

Therefore, we chose the outer edge waters on the east and west sides of the Qiongzhou Strait, where the water depth is generally shallow.

The last difficulty is the geological problem of the Qiongzhou Strait. The strata here are composed of a very thick layer of mud and sand, and the bedrock layer is very deep. It is very difficult to build bridge piers.

For this problem, several domestic construction companies with experience in building large bridges have already found a solution.

How to solve?

The answer is very simple.

That’s an offshore drilling platform.

That’s right, their solution is offshore drilling platforms.

You should know that the average depth of the Qiongzhou Strait is about 44 meters, and the maximum depth is about 114 meters. At this depth, a pile-legged offshore platform can be firmly fixed on the sea surface.

Although pile-legged offshore platforms require piling, the piling process is different from traditional construction piling.

A pile-legged offshore platform generally refers to a self-elevating offshore platform. After arriving at the operation site, the pile legs of the platform will be lowered to the seabed.

Under softer seabed geological conditions, the pile legs will gradually penetrate into the seabed soil layer relying on their own weight and the pressure provided by the platform. This process is similar to pile driving, which can enable the pile legs to penetrate a certain depth into the seabed and provide stable support for the platform.

If the seabed geology is hard, it may be necessary to use special piling equipment to assist the pile legs in inserting into the seabed. For example, use a pile hammer or other equipment to hammer the pile legs to overcome the resistance of the soil layer and reach the designed depth of penetration to ensure the stability and safety of the platform during operation.

Obviously, the seabed of the Qiongzhou Strait is a soft muddy seabed, which does not require piling to fix it. It only needs to use the platform’s own pile feet to insert into the muddy layer on the seabed.

If it is an ordinary bridge, this solution cannot be adopted at all, because the weight of an ordinary bridge is too large and the offshore platform may be crushed into the seabed.

Only by using silicone foam materials to compress the overall weight can we consider using this method to replace fixed reinforced concrete piers with offshore platforms.

The high strength of silicone foam materials can also make the span of cable-stayed bridges very large, avoiding the need to build a large number of offshore platforms crowded together.

Since this movable offshore platform is used, it brings a benefit.

No need to worry about earthquakes.

The reason why movable offshore platforms don’t have to worry about earthquakes is that there is no rigid connection between the entire platform and the seabed.

In this way, even if a major earthquake occurs and tears the seabed strata of the Qiongzhou Strait, it will only cause a portion of the bridge to shift. By adjusting the position afterwards, the bridge can return to normal.

And this solution has another advantage, which is that it is easy to build and maintain.

After all, offshore platforms can be pushed by barges and can be built in other areas and then towed to designated sea areas for deployment.

If it needs repair or is scrapped one day, a spare offshore platform can be built and the two platforms can be directly swapped, allowing for quick repair and replacement to ensure that the bridge is unobstructed.

Moreover, this design hides a potential special use.

What special purpose?
That is, if there is a need, a cross-sea bridge can be quickly built. If all the offshore platforms are prepared in advance, it only takes a few days to build a high-load-bearing cross-sea bridge.

This kind of use will definitely be used in the future.

After all, several large islands and three core straits in the country will require high-speed railways by 2035. How can this be achieved without the ability to quickly build cross-sea bridges?
Anyway, as long as the technical verification of the Hengsha Island Bridge is completed, the cross-sea bridges across the three major straits in the country will basically be a done deal.

Suman, Omar and others who came from afar naturally didn’t know about these things, but this didn’t prevent them from marveling at the rapid changes in Seris.

Just as they stood on the shore admiring the scenery of this “developed country”.

Another airship took off from Hengsha Island not far away.

Moreover, this airship actually flew towards Pudong New Area.

As the airship approached quickly, Ali couldn’t help but swallow a mouthful of water: “Gulp… It’s so big!”

Others were also shocked.

After all, it was more than ten kilometers away, and it looked like a hot air balloon floating in the air. There was no contrast in size, so there was no strong visual impact.

At this moment, the airship had already arrived above their heads.

“Modu Fire Department?” Su Man muttered to herself as she looked at the paint on the side of the airship.

The airship was seen flying towards a building.

At this time, Su Man and others turned their heads and saw a building in the distance that was smoking, and the building was at least more than fifty floors high.

The fire-fighting airship is a model specially customized by Shanghai from the Blue Whale Airship Company. It can carry 100 tons of water and 100 tons of carbon dioxide dry powder at a time.

The specially modified outer shell, plus a layer of helium airbag, can isolate the hydrogen in the internal main airbag to prevent it from being affected by the fire.

The airship arrived near the building where the fire broke out and, taking advantage of its high vantage point, extended a robotic arm.

The firefighter, who was remotely controlling the fire, pressed the water spray switch, and immediately a stream of water rushed directly to the fire area.

Then another robotic arm extended down, followed by carbon dioxide dry powder, covering the fire location.

Less than twenty minutes.

The fire was put out, and the sporadic fire spots inside the room were put out by firefighters who climbed up from below.

The efficiency is amazing and the effect is very good.

After the airship put out the fire, it quickly flew back to the Hengsha Island base for supplies and standby.

(End of this chapter)