Strengthen independent innovation and gradually realize localization of high-end castings and forgings

The comprehensive level of the industry continues to improve

In recent years, my country's large casting and forging industry is in the golden development period in history. The main large casting and forging manufacturers completed the economic goals of the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" for the heavy machinery industry in two years. The entire industry has basically maintained a growth rate of more than 30%, and the profit index has also maintained a high increase.

During this period, large casting and forging manufacturers have also greatly increased their investment in new product development, and the independent innovation capabilities of various enterprises have been greatly enhanced. The proportion of new product output value in the total output value has continued to increase, greatly shortening the gap with foreign advanced large casting and forging manufacturers. Some products have approached and reached foreign levels.

At the same time, large casting and forging enterprises have made a lot of technical transformation investments around products that are urgently needed in my country, cannot be produced independently, and have not yet been fully produced independently, and the equipment capacity of the entire industry has been greatly enhanced.

From 2007 to May 2009, the large free forging presses newly built and put into production in my country's large casting and forging industry include: First Heavy Industries 150 MN hydraulic press, Second Heavy Industries 160 MN hydraulic press, Shanghai Heavy Industries 165 MN oil press, Zhonggang Xingji 80 MN oil press, Zhongyuan Special Steel 50 MN oil press. Under construction and planned: CITIC Heavy Machinery is building a 185 MN oil press, Taizhong plans to build a 125 MN oil press, and Daqi Heavy Industries plans to build an 80 MN oil press. In addition, some private enterprises also have plans to build large forging hydraulic presses, which can increase the annual production capacity of large forgings by about 300,000 tons.

From the technical level, the largest high-quality alloy vacuum steel ingot produced by my country's large casting and forging manufacturers is 560 tons, which is produced by Second Heavy Industries for the half-speed rotor of 1100 MW nuclear power units. In addition, the alloy steel forgings produced by the Second Heavy Industries are 310 tons, which are used for the half-speed rotors of nuclear power units; the stainless steel vacuum ingots are 146 tons, which are used for the high and medium pressure rotors of supercritical units; the weight of molten steel provided at one time is 773 tons, which is used for Baosteel's 5500 mm rolling mill stand; the stainless steel parts are 194.5 tons, which are used for the crown of the 700 MW unit in the underground powerhouse of the Three Gorges; the steel castings are 492 tons to 500 tons, which are used for the 5500 mm rolling mill stand.

In addition, the hollow steel ingots produced by the First Heavy Industries are 150 tons, which are used for nuclear power cylinders; the electro slag remelting ingots produced by Shanghai Heavy Industries are 240 tons; CITIC Heavy Machinery has produced the upper crossbeam of the 185 MN oil press.

At present, First Heavy Industries and Second Heavy Industries have been able to produce mature large-scale castings and forgings for 600 MW subcritical units, and are developing and producing large-scale castings and forgings for 1000 MW thermal power units. They have been able to produce castings and forgings for 600 MW to 1000 MW supercritical and ultra-supercritical units, large-scale castings and forgings for 700 MW turbine units, and large-scale rollers with 5% Cr. Among them, First Heavy Industries has been able to produce 2000-ton hydrogenation reactors, and Shanghai Heavy Industries and Shanghai Heavy Industries have produced large-scale marine crankshafts, etc.

At present, China has the manufacturing capacity of large-scale castings and forgings for "two-generation plus" nuclear power equipment. In response to the technical requirements of the third-generation nuclear power, First Heavy Industries, Second Heavy Industries, and Shanghai Heavy Industries are developing and manufacturing PA1000 "third-generation" nuclear power equipment large-scale castings and forgings, and have made breakthrough progress.

High-end products are not fully localized

Although my country's large casting and forging industry has achieved remarkable results, some high-end core technologies have not been fully mastered, some key components and raw materials still rely on imports, localization research and application performance research is still relatively weak, and some high-end products have not yet been localized. In summary, there is still a certain gap compared with foreign advanced industrial countries in terms of overall product quality, output and technical level.

my country's large casting and forging products are mainly used in power stations, ships, large machinery, metallurgy and petrochemical industries. Among these industries, the technical barriers of castings and forgings used in power station equipment are the high, followed by marine and large machinery.

According to Yang Jianhui, in the power generation equipment industry, the dependence on imports of large castings and forgings for nuclear power is the serious. Compared with conventional island rotors and other forgings, nuclear island forgings have higher technical content, and independent products are almost zero, so the road to independent industry is even longer. Among the large castings and forgings for thermal power generation, the high and medium pressure rotors and forged valve bodies used in supercritical and ultra-supercritical power station turbines, and the special steel rotors used in 1 million kilowatt ultra-supercritical steam turbine generators all have technical difficulties and are also the focus of achieving industrial independence breakthroughs.

"Due to the bottleneck constraints of the above-mentioned large castings and forgings, the manufacturing cost of power generation equipment has increased, and it has also created hidden dangers for the use safety of major national technical equipment." Yang Jianhui said.

New market brings new demand

Since the second half of 2008, due to the invasion of the international financial crisis, the large casting and forging industry, which provides important basic parts for heavy equipment, has inevitably been affected.

Since 2009, on the basis of the promulgation of the "National Medium- and Long-Term Science and Technology Development Outline" and the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" for the development of major technical equipment and major industrial technology development plans, the state has successively issued revitalization plans for nine major areas such as automobiles, electronics, ships, petrochemicals, steel, and energy. The equipment manufacturing industry adjustment and revitalization plan directly related to large castings and forgings has also been announced. The national "Technological Progress and Technological Transformation Investment Direction of Equipment Manufacturing Industry (2009~2010)" has also clearly included large castings and forgings in the key areas, and has emphasized more on improving independent innovation capabilities, improving the level of basic supporting facilities, and promoting enterprise mergers and reorganizations, supporting the and the strongest.

Yang Jianhui said: "These national measures will drive another round of domestic development and bring a new round of market demand. my country's large castings and forgings must seize this opportunity to comprehensively improve the independent innovation capabilities of the entire industry, and comprehensively improve the technical level of my country's large castings and forgings manufacturing enterprises and their ability to participate in and control the market."

From another perspective, the financial crisis also brings us a warning: my country's large castings and forgings products must consider the market's potential and long-term needs while considering the current market demand, and should pay attention to the huge role of reasonable product structure and reasonable market division of labor in dealing with market risks.

At the same time, we should also see that my country is currently in a critical period of expanding domestic demand, accelerating infrastructure construction and industrial transformation, and there is a huge market demand for advanced equipment; the financial crisis has accelerated the adjustment of the world's industrial structure, providing my country with an opportunity for industrial redivision, and the fundamentals of the equipment manufacturing industry and large casting and forging industries have not changed.

Therefore, my country's large casting and forging manufacturing enterprises must promote the localization of products and technologies through technological innovation, accelerate the pace of independent innovation and new product development, and break through the technical bottleneck of large castings and forgings; at the same time, they must continue to study and pay attention to the adjustment of the industrial structure of large castings and forgings abroad, pay attention to the adjustment of the product structure of large castings and forgings, form their own reasonable product structure, achieve product types and levels of complementarity, and form the core competitiveness of enterprises. In this way, we can maintain the coordinated and healthy development of my country's large casting and forging product market while resisting risks, fundamentally break through the current and future situation where large casting and forging technology is subject to foreign countries, and enable my country's large casting and forging industry to occupy a place in the world.