On June 6, the first large cruise ship built-in-China "Adora Magic City" has finally been launched in SWS, a subsidiary of CSSC, opening the decisive period of dock mooring testing, sea trial, naming and delivery. It is only one step away from winning the "last crown pearls" of the shipbuilding industry, filling the gap of domestic large cruise ships, and achieving breakthrough in the field of large cruise ship construction, which will have a significant and far-reaching impact on China's construction of a high-quality and high-level local cruise industry ecosystem, as well as building China into a maritime, manufacturing, and technological power.
Validate critical items
Large cruise ship is a giant system project with more complex technology, higher design and construction requirements, and more risks and challenges. Therefore, a series of technical verifications for some key items in the floating state of the cruise ship are indispensable operating processes to ensure its overall safety.
Since the early morning of June 1, the Adora Magic City started a six-day floating, displacement and launching. During this period, the weight/center of gravity and stability of the entire cruise ship are measured by the ship tilt test. Weight/center of gravity control is one of the three core technologies throughout the cruise lifecycle. For large cruise ships, a small deviation in the weight of an empty ship can lead to a large loss of deadweight tonnage, while a deviation in the position of the center of gravity can have a large impact on stability and safety or passenger comfort. SWS has mastered the key technology of cruise ship weight/center of gravity control by introduction and independent innovation. Through this tilt test, the design and development results were verified again perfectly, and the weight and center of gravity data were controllable.
Through decouple and cruise tests, the function of the whole ship lifeboat was verified. The Adora Magic City is equipped with a total of 20 extra large lifeboats, with a rated crew of 314 people per boat, which can accommodate more than 90% of the maximum lifesaving capacity of the ship. Under the premise of completing the frame load and lifting test, each lifeboat is decoupled, moving and recovered one by one to verify the performance under normal working conditions and emergency conditions.
High-pressure water guns are used to flush the door of the cruise ship to verify its tightness. After the first large cruise ship built-in-China floats in the dock, the internal stress of the hull structure is released, and the structure may slightly change, which will have a certain degree of impact on the tightness of the side doors. There are a total of 42 doors on the left and right sides of the Adora Magic City, and 40 doors are flushed according to the requirements of the design code. In order to ensure the perfect function of the side door, by simulating the state of sea navigation, the sealing performance of each door is tested by high-pressure water gun flushing at a distance of 1.5 meters from the door.
After scientific and rigorous tests, a series of major scientific research achievements made by the first large cruise ship built-in-China in the stages of design, technology, production preparation, final assembly construction, interior engineering and system integration have been further verified, demonstrating that the Adora Magic City has fully met the technical requirements of launching and can be transferred to a new stage of dock mooring test, sea trial, naming and delivery.
Currently, the overall progress of the Adora Magic City is 94.62%, and the construction progress is 92.159%. According to the plan, the first and second sea trial will be carried out in July and August to fully verify the functions related to cruise ship safety, such as power and propulsion system, fire fighting, fire alarm, lifesaving, communication and navigation, vibration and noise, and Safe Return to Port, which will complete the acceptance and delivery of cabin and public area interior engineering, and be named and delivered at the end of this year.
Represent the highest level
As we all know, aircraft carriers, large cruise ships, and large liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers are known as the "three pearls" in the crown of the world's shipbuilding industry, representing the "supreme level" of today's global shipbuilding industry and symbolizing a country's comprehensive strength.
With a gross tonnage of 135.5K DWT, the Adora Magic City is classified by LR and CCS, which has a total length of 323.6 meters, a molded breadth of 37.2 meters, the maximum draft is 8.55 meters and the maximum speed of 22.6 knots. It has 2,125 guest rooms and can accommodate up to 5,246 passengers. It uses podded electric propulsion system with two 16.8 MV, three 62.4 MV, a total of 62.4 MV main diesel generators and two 16.8 MW pod thrusters. In the huge superstructure life and entertainment public area of more than 40,000 square meters (nearly 6 standard football fields) up to 16 floors, there are large performing arts centers, large restaurants, specialty restaurants, various bars, cafes, art corridors, SPAs, water parks and other colorful leisure and entertainment facilities, as well as the largest duty-free shop on the sea, Mahua FunAge drama, marine exploration camp integrating artificial intelligence, STEAM courses and 5G coverage... It’s more luxurious than a five-star hotel, and it is known as a mobile "modern city on the sea".
As one of the most difficult ship types to design and build, large cruise ship is the only high-tech and high-value-added ship products that China has not conquered. The number of parts and components on the entire ship reached 25M, which is equivalent to 5 times that of the “C919” large aircraft and 13 times that of the "CR" high-speed rail. The total cable arrangement length of the whole ship reaches 4.2K kilometers, which is equivalent to the distance from Shanghai to Lhasa.
In particular, the division and system types of the air conditioning system of the Adora Magic City are complex and diverse, which mainly equipped with 5 sets of main refrigerant water system and 7 sets of emergency refrigeration system, and the system also includes about 100 central air conditioners, nearly 2,500 sets of fan coils and more than 14,000 user terminals. There is also a high-pressure water mist fire protection system with a total length of more than 40 kilometers, and the number of atomizing nozzles exceeds 11,000. Through the segmented design, it not only meet the fire protection needs of more than 2,800 cabins, public areas and mechanical areas of the ship, but also meet the requirements of ship owners and class society teams specifications.
On October 18, 2019, the Adora Magic City officially started steel cutting at SWS, and entered the substantive construction stage. On November 10, 2020, it transferred to the stage of continuous erection and assembly in the dock, realizing a major leap from detailed design, production design to actual ship final assembly. On October 18, 2021, the whole ship was fully connected. The first floating in the dock was realized on December 17, 2021, and was successfully launched on June 6, 2023.
Through the introduction and independent innovation, and the application of digitalization, informatization and intelligentization, SWS has successively carried out special research on cruise ship design, construction and project management. It has successively mastered a series of core key technologies for the completion and commissioning management of giant system projects such as weight control, vibration and noise reduction and Safe Return to Port, and formed a series of scientific and technological innovation achievements. At the same time, it has also played a great role in helping Shanghai accelerate the construction of cruise tourism development demonstration zone, international cruise industrial park, international cruise tourism resort and form a world-class cruise industry agglomeration area with international influence.
