Build the best "bad road"

　　How they are tested is crucial to the development and production of new automobiles. In order to test these vehicles, there must be different kinds of bad roads with typical geographical features. In the past, China relied on public transportation roads and temporary fields for new vehicle testing.

　　Nowadays, A 667km2 auto testing ground established by the PLA General Armaments Department in Anhui Province is the largest one in Asia. There, on the wide ground, various kinds of roads were constructed to resemble different complicated conditions of roads a vehicle may passed, including stone roads, washboard roads, twisted roads, pebbled roads, potholed roads, graveled roads, asphalt roads and concrete roads. These special roads are connected to form a 6.6 km long closed testing road. In addition, raining experiment platforms, water pools, automobile centroid testing platforms, standard slopes, holed roads, vertical roads, ditches, mountainous roads and field roads were constructed to build a complete first-class system of vehicle testing ground.

　　This testing ground was completed at the end of 1989 and passed all required examinations in test run. Then, it was authorized to test various kinds of new automobiles produced in China, including U.S. General Motors, German Volkswagen, Japan Hino, and Sweden Volvo. A Western expert pointed at the reinforced experimental road, cheerfully saying: "Great! It's the best 'bad road' I've ever seen."

　　Build a standard high-speed ring road

　　In addition to the tests of vehicles' fatigue and weariness on roads of bad conditions, tests of power, speeds, gas consumption and waste gas emissions of vehicles are needed to be carried out on roads of good conditions. To have an internationally advanced auto testing ground, a high-speed testing ring road should be constructed.

　　"Expansive soil" is a serious problem in constructing a high-speed ring road. Directed by famous Chinese experts, designing and construction teams solved the problem by working together. Their solution was to stop water leakage, that is, "no water out and no water in". Thus, the water was stabilized and the problem of "expansive soil" no longer troubled the testing ground.

　　No real high-speed roads have curves of high curvature, but high-speed roads for testing must have. More specifically, it should be built into a high-speed ring road. According to the most advanced designs of roads in the world, the high-speed ring road was decided to be oval. It looks very much like the track of a playground, but as many as 10 times bigger with a perimeter of 4km. Curves of the road mattered a great deal whether the ring road was qualified or not as first class. After much research and survey work in road curves, technicians adopted a new approach in the design and made the ring road a first class testing ground. Test drivers could drive their cars on the ring road with their hands off the steering wheel.

　　The construction of the ring road made many technological breakthroughs and was given "Luban Award" (Luban was a very famous Chinese master carpenter in ancient China) and "Military Quality Project Prize".

　　By Zhang Meng, Cao Kaisheng and Si Wujun

　　(August 6, PLA Daily)