The Lion of El Español Publicaciones SAYangqu Weibo dam constructionChina has been overtaking the United States for several years as the country with the largest infrastructure in the world.Among the endless high-speed rail lines and bridges that exceed 50 kilometers in length are the most powerful hydroelectric plants ever built.Some of them even have more capacity than the entire nuclear network of Spain.[This is the longest bridge over the sea in the world]This desire for large-scale construction has led a team of scientists from Tsinghua University to go one step further and choose to use a concept more typical of 3D printers than traditional engineering.Until now, the infrastructures printed with this technique have been limited to small houses that have nothing to do with the complexity of a dam on the Tibetan plateau.The researchers have been working in this field for 10 years, as reported by the South China Morning Post, and have reflected the project in the magazine of the university itself.In addition, the entire project is supported with large doses of artificial intelligence that aim to make the dam rise as efficiently as possible.One of the objectives of the next Chinese project is to remove humans from the most repetitive and risky jobs.In its place, a complex artificial intelligence system will be the control center of the entire work and who will command the work of all the machinery, also autonomous.Once truck drivers and excavator operators have been eliminated, human participation on site will be restricted to the extraction of some materials necessary for construction.These algorithms are being developed to become the most efficient construction manager possible, who will command and order all the work.Baihetan Dam, where SCMP artificial intelligence was partially appliedAccording to the calculations provided, the automation of all processes will result in a shorter execution time and with fewer errors compared to human work."Especially in hostile and dangerous environments", as the scientific team points out in the study.One of the preliminary processes of the project has been to dissect the construction of the dam in sheets.A way of working typical of 3D printers and that artificial intelligence is capable of managing to assign the necessary robots.Layer by layer of concrete, they plan to finish the dam in 2024. According to some local media, the first works on the ground began at the end of 2021.CGTN Yangqu Dam Work ZoneThe first step of the entire construction process has as its protagonist the autonomous excavating machines developed to identify and load the materials into a hopper;where a fleet of trucks —without driver— will be loading them in an orderly manner.The central artificial intelligence will organize the routes of these trucks and control the traffic so that it is as fluid as possible until it reaches the point of unloading.There, another batch of excavators will feed the concreting machines, which will lift the dam layer by layer.Without forgetting the road rollers —yes, also autonomous— that will ensure the compaction of the material.Precisely, this last type of machinery will serve as a field data collection center to feed artificial intelligence.It will analyze the vibration of the ground when the rollers pass to know how the concrete is settling.The sensors on board the vehicles have recognition of people and obstacles in the surroundings of the area of ​​operation.Another of the technology's arguments is that human errors will be avoided.According to the researchers themselves, it is common for a driver to make the wrong unloading location or for roller operators to be unable to maintain a straight path due to vibrations.Dam construction with concrete 3D printingWhen it is finished, the Yangqu dam, as it is called, will have an altitude of 180 meters and will house a hydroelectric plant inside it capable of generating some 5,000 million kWh (5 TWh or Terawatt hour) for a whole year.Applying artificial intelligence to this type of infrastructure is not really new in China.One of the great engineering achievements of recent years is the Baihetan dam —the second largest in the world— which was built in just 4 years.Baihetan Dam in operation ReutersPart of the success in construction time is attributed to the use of artificial intelligence to manage heavy traffic by taking data from the cement plants to know production and demand.They also included sensors inside the machinery to obtain real-time status data.Although at that time the vehicles were driven by humans.It was built on the Jinsha River, a tributary of the Yangtze, and is made up of a double curved arch made of concrete with a maximum height of 289 meters by 709 meters of chord.It is scheduled to start operating next July and has an installed capacity of 60.24 TWh, about 12 times more than the Yangqu dam.The symptoms of kidney cancer: this is how one of the most common tumors in...The 'miracle' pill against baldness that restores all hair in less than a...Rodrygo: "When the final was over, Modrić told Salah 'next time you try...What cars do Shakira and Piqué have?This is how her 'hippie' van and the Porsche are...NASA receives "impossible data" from the Voyager 1 probe from the limits of the Solar System...Sign up for free and receive the news in your email every morningJosé Antonio García breaks his PP card against Macarena Olona,...Queen Letizia shows off her long hair and rescues, a...Adriana Lastra asks to go vote on Sunday in...Pictures of the Day: Helen Lindes, recovered from her latest health setback, dazzles on the streets of ParisProtest in a school in Puertollano, Short Festival in Ciudad Real and music in AlbaceteAll the images of the fire that originated in the Finca Zurraquín de ToledoStargazer, the hypersonic plane that promises to fly between Madrid and Los Angeles in 1 hourGarbage on Mars?The Perseverance rover spots a shiny object that shouldn't be thereCombat Sent, the US spy plane at the center of the military escalation between China and TaiwanVirtual tourism after the pandemic: technologies to save the most unknown SpainStargazer, the hypersonic plane that promises to fly between Madrid and Los Angeles in 1 hourHackers pose as feminists to trick teenage victims into scamming them