"Deep Sea Astronaut" Han Chao: Let Chinese become the top player of ROV

"ROV (Underwater Robot) Central Control"

"Central Control ROV"

"Give you another half an hour at most, or the catheter rack may be at risk of losing its position!"

......

On April 30, the second episode of "Great Country Craftsman" was broadcast in multiple prime-time blockbusters on CCTV. As soon as the news began, the audience was drawn to the tense atmosphere.

What is less known is that the picture of the news comes from the real scene of the offshore construction site of Asia's first deep-water conduit frame "Haiji No. 1" independently designed and built by the mainland not long ago, and the young man in the news who is not in danger is Han Chao, director of the ROV of CNOOC Offshore Oil Engineering Co., Ltd. At this time, the wet trailer cutting work on the catheter frame has entered the most critical juncture, if there is a slight deviation, it is possible to make the two stick, resulting in the mechanical hand tearing, ROV locking and the suspension of the entire project.

In the rapid walkie-talkie prompt, only Han Chao stared intently at the operation screen, controlled the underwater robot ROV located in the nearly 300-meter deep sea, and in the rapidly changing strong internal wave flow, agilely grasped the moment when the manipulator and the wet tow cable were just 90 degrees, and completed the cutting with the appropriate strength and speed, and the scene instantly sounded a round of applause.

In fact, this is not the first time that Han Chao has appeared on the CCTV screen. In August and October 2021, the story of his battle for the "Deep Sea One" atmospheric field was successively listed on CCTV's "Instant China" and "Youth Say". As the first generation of ROV navigators independently trained by the mainland and the first Chinese to obtain the qualification of "ROV Director" certified internationally, Han Chao has "sneaked" for more than 20,000 miles in the silent deep sea. Despite just turning 36, Han Chao has become a leader in the application of work-grade ROV engineering in China.

"You foreigners, I Chinese certainly can do it"

300 meters below sea level, is a dark area that cannot even be illuminated by light, even with the help of the most advanced equipment in the world, it is also the limit of saturation diving construction that is difficult for humans to break through, and here, it is the home of ROV. Its operators are called ROV navigators, and due to the difficulty of training and the extreme scarcity of talent, this group of people is also known as "deep-sea astronauts".

For more than half a century, the field has been monopolized by the same European and American faces, and some have even asserted that China can send astronauts into space, but it is impossible to train its own navigators in a short period of time.

In 2007, after graduating from the Chinese Super League, he joined CNOOC and became an ROV navigator. The first time he went off the workshop, looking at the same ROV as the "Bumblebee" in Transformers, Han Chao was full of hopes for his future career, however, this sense of honor was soon replaced by frustration.

At that time, there were only two "elder-level" ROVs in front of Han Chao, without any training system and without any practical opportunities. At the construction site, foreign supervisors and navigators worked in the control room, and Han Chao and his colleagues could only do chores on the deck. He was eager to enter the control room to observe and learn, but "foreign personnel often turned a deaf ear to the questions he asked for advice," and even said contemptuously, "Want to fly deep-sea?" Wait another 20 years! ”

Inferior to people can only be blinded. At that time, the 22-year-old Han Chao was angry and unwilling, and he rushed up and held back with anger.

"What you foreigners can do, we Chinese certainly can do!" Han Chao secretly made up his mind.

In order to learn the technique, Han Chao began to play the emotional card. Seeing that the foreigner's coffee was gone, he diligently refilled a cup for others. When the foreigner overhauls the ROV equipment, he is on the side to help get tools and study hard. Over time, this studious Chinese boy won the trust of foreign ROV supervisors. Every time after putting the ROV down in the water, the foreigner shouted in the headset: "HAN, you come down to the control room." ”

Taking the first step hard did not make Han Chao much easier. ROV has extremely high requirements for operating ability, in order to fly ROV, it is necessary to achieve man-machine integration, the eyes are staring at nine monitors and sonar, positioning, oil level, oil pressure and other sensor data, the right hand ROV, the left hand exercises the manipulator, the foot steps on the retract pedal, and at the same time, the position of the ship, ROV, and underwater facilities is well understood. And these are just the basic skills. ROV is composed of more than 30,000 precision components, involving more than 20 disciplines such as computers and electrical automation, and is a multidisciplinary integration system of Bo, Miscellaneous, High and Fine. Relying only on some of the skins learned from ordinary observation is obviously far from enough. After work, Han Chao soaked in the control room and maintenance room almost every day, holding thick English materials, while using the xiaobawang learning machine to check English words, while digging hollowly study the principle of ROV, and finally figured out the "internal organs" of the underwater robot.

In order to practice flying skills, Han Chao took advantage of the gap between foreign supervisors to rest, seized every practical opportunity to practice, and did not let go of the time after work, in the eyes of others, even to the point of being a little "crazy". Colleagues often see him holding a mouse or ballpoint pen and chanting words, and they don't pay attention to others greeting him. When I asked him later, I learned that he was using them to practice flight routes.

Kung Fu pays off, and under his own talent and hard training day after day, Han Chao's operating techniques have matured day by day. After an operation, the foreign navigator wanted to operate the ROV back to the cage, flew round and round, the ROV was unable to return to the cage accurately, after five laps, Han Chao stepped forward: "You let me, I will fly." With that, he successfully flew the ROV to the designated location.

In this way, Han Chao reached the level of senior navigator that can only be achieved in 8 years abroad in 5 years, and at the age of 31, he obtained the ROV director certificate issued by the International Maritime Contractors Association, not only becoming the first certified ROV director in the mainland, but also becoming the world's youngest ROV director, regaining the operation right and voice that has been controlled by Europeans and Americans for a long time.

"Chinese, that's great!"

The battlefield of ROV is not in books, but in the depths of the vast sea. In 2012, Han Chao led the "All China Class" ROV team for the first time to be responsible for the underwater operation of the Sea Pipe Laying of the Liwan 3-1 Project, the largest deep-water oil and gas field in China at that time. In the final stages of construction, they caught up with the typhoon season. Because of the large surge, the pipe hook weighing more than 10 tons rises and falls more than 5 meters, like a dragon dancing its teeth and claws in the sea, and the ROV wants to catch the dragon and snap the ring into the hook. The underwater is turbid, the line of sight is extremely limited, the hook head of the hook is very likely to be directly smashed on the ROV, and the equipment worth tens of millions of dollars is immediately scrapped; without hanging, the standby cost of the ship is as high as several million a day, the construction period will be delayed, and all previous efforts will be in vain.

The voice on the walkie-talkie was non-stop, and everyone was asking the same question: when would it be hung up. Success or failure in this move, Han Chao was eager to put his head into the screen to see where the hook was. Under tremendous psychological pressure, he gritted his teeth and concentrated, forcing his tense nerves to relax and relax again... By observing the undulating law of the hook head, he saw the stable interval of less than 1 second between the surges, and stuck into the hook head in one fell swoop, and the one-shot action made everyone breathe a long sigh of relief.

Later, he led the team to develop a new scheme of "guiding cable into the hook", shortening the hook operation that originally took several hours to 30 minutes, helping the project to be completed 10 days ahead of schedule, saving tens of millions of yuan in costs.

Since then, Han Chao has begun to lead the team to underwater projects in Iran, Thailand, Qatar and other countries, polishing the beautiful business card of China's ROV Corps with excellent performance. In the Qatar project, Han Chao in the team of small manpower, technical difficulties, through the ROV manipulator action instruction programming, one key to get the complex operation operation, the Middle East owner exclaimed: "Chinese, too powerful!"

In the overseas market, Han Chao has also gradually made a personal reputation - British manufacturers praised: "Mr. Han, your idea is worth ten thousand US dollars!" He has successively received the "olive branch" thrown by foreign institutions, and some industry intermediaries have also offered high annual salaries.

In the face of "temptation", Han Chao smiled, in his heart, there is a more tempting goal than an annual salary of one million - to break the wrist with the international ROV industry giants, so that the Chinese ROV team can enter the world's advanced ranks as soon as possible.

"Fly" deeper and farther, so that China becomes the top player of ROV

In 2019, Han Chao won the gold medal of the ROV Operator Competition of the 9th CNOOC Skills Competition with excellent technology. This year, a number of deep-water projects of CNOOC have been launched, and he is looking forward to the moment when he realizes his dream of deep water.

The "Deep Sea No. 1" atmospheric field is the first 1500-meter self-operated ultra-deep-water atmospheric field on the mainland, however, the underwater construction is as large as a complete equipment in place, as small as the installation of a bolt, all of which need to be completed by ROV. The design, construction, installation, commissioning and other processes of underwater facilities must rely on ROVs to "tailor-made". The requirements for construction accuracy are extremely harsh, and even if the navigator's finger is uncontrollably jumped, it may bring immeasurable huge losses.

"We're in charge of taking the lead!" In the face of difficulties, Han Chao led the team to make a military order. It is not easy to go to heaven, and it is even more difficult to go to the sea. Under the huge water pressure, the ROV with the tail remotely dragged at a distance of two kilometers, the operation of the underwater navigator must be extremely precise. On March 9, 2021, the construction of the main umbilical cable of the "Deep Sea One" atmospheric field was carried out at night, and in the process of docking UTH (umbilical cable terminal joint) and SDU (underwater distribution unit), due to the deep water level, the UTH deflection reached 140 degrees, and the two ROVs tried to correct the deviation several times, but none of them worked.

"Pause docking!" Han Chao issued decisive instructions through the intercom. Based on his many years of work experience, he predicted that under the huge torque, continued operation may lead to damage to the umbilical cable joint or damage to the entanglement of two ROVs, which will have a significant impact on the project to be put into production on schedule.

Han Chao calmly commanded the two ROVs to cooperate closely, first pulling the UTH to a distance of 100 meters from the seabed, and then relying on accurate spatial perception to judge the twist angle of the cable, and then ordering the ROV to turn around in the opposite direction, and finally successfully turned the cable back to the correct angle. When UTH and SDU finally docked, there was a round of applause over the intercom.

Under the close cooperation of Han Chao and the team, the offshore installation of 7 umbilical cables in the "Deep Sea No. 1" field was successfully completed, 22 days earlier than the planned construction period as a whole, saving more than 28 million yuan in costs.

In more than a year, from the first 1,500-meter submarine pipeline laid in the mainland, to the world's first 100,000-ton semi-submersible production and storage platform ultra-deep water anchor chain mooring, to the mainland's first deep-water SCR (steel catenary riser) backconnection, the main umbilical cable laying... Han Chao led the young team to create one miracle after another at sea, and firmly anchored the footprints of the Chinese in the depths of the sea of 1500 meters.

Over the years, Han Chao has been going to sea for an average of more than 200 days a year, the ROV flight time has accumulated more than 12,000 hours, and the "stealth" distance has exceeded 20,000 miles, which is equivalent to "walking" a "Long March Road" underwater, and the operating water depth has ranged from 9 meters of ultra-shallow water to 1500 meters of ultra-deep water...

This is a process of continuous climbing, and every inch of deep diving is imprinted with Han Chao's footprints of wandering blue. For him, the hardships of his fledgling years and the tempering of his experience overseas are the only way to achieve today. With the continuous improvement of technology, Han Chao also looks forward to moving forward with the industry - promoting the professionalization of the ROV industry in China and the localization of ROV equipment is his goal today.

"I never imagined that I couldn't do it, and I believed that there were always more ways than difficulties, and if it didn't work, I would try again in a different way, and I could always do it." In the face of a more difficult journey, Han Chao's will and determination are more firm.

"This era needs us, this is our time." Han Chao's eyes burned as he looked deeper and farther into the sea, where there was his next dream. (Workers Daily client reporter Wang Dongmei)

Column Editor-in-Chief: Gu Wanquan Zhang Wu Text Editor: Li Linwei

Source: Author: Workers Daily Client