Rebirth 99 to become a car giant

"People from Wenchong Shipyard are coming to visit me?"

Cao Yang looked at Mi Ying in surprise.

"Yes, they want to talk to you about a kind of special steel. It seems to be called Yinwa steel. I will sort out the specific information and report to you later."

Mi Ying quickly explained the situation to Cao Yang briefly.

Otherwise, if Cao Yang didn't want to attend this meeting, she would have to re-coordinate as soon as possible.

Generally speaking, when people from large factories in the Yangcheng area wanted to visit Cao Yang, he met with them.

Based on this situation, Mi Yingcai directly arranged the visit to Wenchong Shipyard into Cao Yang's schedule.

Most Chinese people don’t know the name of Wenchong Shipyard.

After all, compared to several other shipyards, its reputation is too low.

But its strength is actually not bad at all.

Founded in 1955, it is one of the large-scale key enterprises under CSSC.

It is the main construction base for China's feeder container ships and large and medium-sized dredgers.

However, during this period, Wenchong Shipyard wanted to further break through itself and become the leading shipyard in China.

The company's management team made an inspection tour and set their sights on LNG ships.

However, one of the biggest difficulties in producing LNG ships is that they cannot handle the most critical Yinwa Steel.

No company in China can produce it.

Only France's GTT produces this kind of steel in the world, and has mastered a series of related patents for storage tanks.

As a result, if Wenchong Shipyard wants to make a breakthrough in LNG, it must find a way to get Yinwa Steel.

Otherwise, all the hard work would be spent working for the French GTT.

Originally, they were thinking about whether they could cooperate with Baosteel, but after some communication, there was no good result.

It happened that during this period, Nanshan Special Steel acquired Shaogang and immediately made a huge breakthrough in pen tip steel. The Wenchong Shipyard had more expectations for Nanshan Special Steel.

After understanding these situations, Cao Yang would naturally not refuse to meet.

"Academician Xie, is this Yinwa Steel difficult?"

Although Cao Yang has an in-depth understanding of special steels such as aircraft carrier steel plates and bearing steel plates.

But there are too many things that he needs to worry about, and it is really impossible to understand all types of special steel.

Most of the time, he is like a firefighter, putting out the fire wherever it breaks out.

"Mr. Cao, only the French in the world have produced qualified Yinwa steel. Not even the United States, Polar Bear, and Japan can produce it."

"From this result, we can feel the difficulty of Yinwa Steel's production."

Although Cao Yang was not familiar with Yin Wagang's situation, Xie Lingyun was different.

He even specially arranged a group to do relevant forward-looking pre-research.

There are dozens of similar forward-looking pre-research groups in Nanshan Special Steel.

That is to say, Nanshan Special Steel's profits are huge enough, and Cao Yang attaches great importance to independent research and development in each business unit.

That's why Xie Lingyun can be so generous in setting up various materials research groups.

How could any other steel mill try in so many fields at once?

"What kind of difficulty?"

During this period of time, I had been worrying about special steel, and Cao Yang really became interested.

"Before talking about the production of Yinwa Steel, we must first understand the basic situation of Yinwa Steel."

Cao Yang was interested in understanding, and Xie Lingyun was naturally very active in explaining it.

"The discovery of Invar steel dates back to 1896, when French physicist C.E. Guialme was studying a nickel-iron alloy and accidentally discovered the peculiar properties of this alloy."

"The composition of this alloy is 36% nickel, 63.8% iron, and 0.2% carbon. It will hardly change its volume due to temperature changes in the temperature range below 230°C. In other words, its thermal expansion coefficient Very low, even close to zero.”

"This is contrary to the general laws of physics, because most objects, including metals, are affected by thermal expansion and contraction, that is, the volume expands when the temperature increases and shrinks when the temperature decreases."

"The stability of this alloy makes it have many uses. For example, it can be used to make the pendulum of a clock, because the length of the pendulum does not change with changes in temperature, thus ensuring the accuracy of the clock. .”

"It can also be used to make measuring instruments because the scale of the instrument will not cause errors due to changes in temperature, thus ensuring the accuracy of measurements."

"but……"

Speaking of this, Xie Lingyun paused deliberately, "The most important use of Yinwa Steel is in the manufacturing of LNG carriers."

"This is what Mi Ying just said. Only a company in France can produce this kind of Invar steel. If Wenchong Shipyard wants to produce competitive LNG ships, it hopes to purchase Invar steel from China?"

Combining the information just reported by Mi Ying and what Xie Lingyun explained, Cao Yang probably had some impressions.

Before today, I really didn't know that there was such a thing as Yinwa Steel, and I was actually stuck.

"Yes, Hudong Shipyard is currently the only shipyard in China that can produce LNG ships. As an environmentally friendly and clean energy source, LNG has a promising future."

"This means that the demand for LNG ships will continue to increase, and currently the United States, Korea and China are the main countries in the world that can produce such ships."

"The most important production capacity is still in Korea. Wenchong Shipyard has a good vision. If they can really make a breakthrough in LNG ships and reduce costs, they will have unlimited future."

Xie Lingyun explained further.

The shipbuilding industry is a bit far away from ordinary people, and everyone doesn't feel anything special about it.

But in the minds of shipbuilders, there are three "jewels" in the crown of the world's shipbuilding industry today: one is the cruise ship "Maria" which is more luxurious than the "Titanic", the other is an aircraft carrier, and the last one is a large LNG transport ship.

One can imagine what the prospects (money prospects) of LNG are.

"Everyone is optimistic about the prospects of LNG ships. With so many steel mills in the country, there must be some who want to break through to Invar Steel, right?"

Cao Yang followed normal logic and raised his own questions.

As long as China cannot produce something, the import price will definitely be expensive.

There is only one company in France that can produce it in the world, and the price is even more expensive.

He didn't believe that domestic steel mills would not be jealous of such high profits.

You must know that the steel materials that need to be used in the shipbuilding industry are often relatively large.

This is different from the situation with nose tip steel.

"Yinwa Steel requires a very high level of technology and advanced production equipment to realize. In addition to the general steel manufacturing process, such as smelting, rolling, annealing, etc., the production process also has to overcome the characteristics of Yinwa Steel itself. the difficulties it brings.”

“Therefore, in the process of manufacturing Invar steel, the rolling temperature, pressure, speed and other parameters must be controlled very accurately. At the same time, the surface of Invar steel must be extremely sensitively detected and processed to ensure the quality of Invar steel. Surface Quality."

"It can be said that manufacturing Yinwa steel has very strict requirements on the purity, composition, industrial precision, etc. of the material."

"Detailed control in this area is precisely where domestic steel mills are relatively weak."

"Also, although the price of Yinwa steel is very expensive, since the number of LNG ships produced globally each year is not large, the real demand is actually relatively small."

"In addition, this kind of ship is a completely civilian ship. Compared with materials such as aircraft carrier steel plates, major domestic steel mills will naturally not give priority to developing it."

"Especially before 2008, there was no domestic shipbuilding company capable of producing LNG ships. Under such circumstances, there would be no steel mills to study Yinwa Steel."

"That is to say, the situation has slowly begun to change in the past two years, so there is a need to research and produce Yinwa steel by ourselves."

Ship steel is an area that uses a relatively large amount of special steel.

Xie Lingyun has read many papers in this area.

So when it comes to relevant content, it is natural to be clear and logical.

"Everyone imports Yinwa Steel from France. Why was it only in 2008 that LNG ships were produced domestically?"

Cao Yang asked another question that was more difficult to understand.

If Korea and the United States can produce Invar steel, then their shipyards can produce LNG ships, he understands.

The key is that companies in Korea and the United States are now unable to produce Yinwa steel, which is a bit strange.

"That's because the welding of Invar steel is also a very difficult technology."

"The characteristics of Yinwa steel are very different from ordinary steel. Its alloy content is much higher than that of ordinary steel. Therefore, its welding performance is poor and it is prone to welding defects such as pores, cracks, oxidation, etc."

"These defects will affect the strength and sealing performance of Invar steel, and even lead to the scrapping of Invar steel."

"Therefore, during the process of welding Invar steel, the welding temperature, current, voltage, speed and other parameters must be controlled very precisely."

"At the same time, extremely sensitive inspection and processing of the welds of Invar Steel are also required to ensure the welding quality of Invar Steel."

“It can be said that Invar steel is one of the most difficult materials to weld in history!”

Cao Yang was really surprised to hear what Xie Lingyun said.

I didn’t expect that welding technology would sometimes get stuck.

Although it is definitely solved now, only Hudong Shipyard can barely handle it.

"Nanshan Robot's welding robot technology is world-leading. If we let them be responsible for researching Yinwa Steel's welding technology, it shouldn't be particularly difficult, right?"

Cao Yang is still very confident in his company's technical strength.

The research on welding technology is, to a certain extent, a development process involving a lot of manpower and material resources for experimentation and trial and error.

Different temperatures, currents, voltages and welding speeds are compared to see the quality of the welds.

Finally find the parameters that meet the requirements.

Judging from the results, you may think that welding is very simple. After setting the parameters, you can just weld directly.

But how to set these parameters and why these parameters are set like this is a very weak point for domestic enterprises.

Know it but don't know why.

This is a very common situation.

"If you really want to tackle the problem, it can definitely be solved."

"After all, there were relatively few companies that would study Yinwa steel welding technology in the past, and the manpower and material resources invested were relatively limited, so there are many people who have mastered it."

“But it doesn’t mean that this technology has a particularly high barrier to entry for us.”

Xie Lingyun is obviously very confident in the technical level of Nanshan Robot.

Not to mention that Hudong Shipyard has mastered this technology, even if no one in China knows it, he is confident that Nanshan Robot can master this technology as long as France, Korea, the United States and other congresses.

It doesn’t even take a particularly long time to break through this technology.

After all, Nanshan Robot has mastered a large amount of material welding data. Selecting appropriate parameters for debugging based on the material properties of Yinwa Steel can greatly improve the debugging speed.

There is no problem in finally finding a few parameter intervals that meet the requirements.

The so-called one of the most difficult materials to weld in history also depends on who it is.

"Compared with other domestic steel plants, Nanshan Special Steel is the best at setting up various process flows and adjusting parameters. Many of the technical data of Yinwa Steel are public. We only need to carry out targeted Just set and study the process parameters and so on.”

"Is there no problem if I understand it this way?"

Through the exchange with Xie Lingyun just now, Cao Yang is obviously interested in cooperating with Wenchong Shipyard to jointly develop LNG ship production technology.

At that time, Nanshan Group will be responsible for producing Yinwa steel and even providing related welding equipment, and Wenchong Shipyard will be responsible for producing ships.

At that time, we will grab orders from Korea and the United States.

The value of an LNG ship reaches one to two billion US dollars. If dozens of them can be produced a year, there is still a lot of potential for this.

"Yeah, no problem at all."

"However, the specific time for technological breakthrough is a bit hard to say. It may be completed in a month, or it may take a year."

Xie Lingyun didn't dare to exaggerate too much.

When the time comes, Cao Yang wants him to do the same thing as pen tip steel. If he gets it done so quickly, he will definitely be in trouble.

After all, although the global usage of Yinwa Steel is not very large, the French GTT has been able to monopolize it for decades and has stuck in everyone's neck. Obviously, there is still a certain threshold.

If you want to break through something that others have studied for decades, in a month or even a week, it seems that you underestimate others' accumulation.

After communicating with Xie Lingyun, Cao Yang felt more confident when he met with a group of people from Wenchong Shipyard.

"Mr. Cao, the situation is as just introduced. The LNG ship carries liquefied natural gas at minus 163 degrees Celsius. If ordinary steel plates come into contact with liquefied natural gas at minus 163 degrees Celsius, they will become brittle and crack immediately."

"The special properties of Invar steel determine that it is an indispensable material for manufacturing large LNG ships in the shipbuilding industry. It is used to prevent the hull structure from cold cracking in ultra-low temperature environments."

"And Invar steel is extremely delicate. If you touch the 0.7mm thick Invar steel with bare hands, it will rust through in 24 hours, so you must be extremely careful during the welding process."

"If we can develop Invar steel together, the cost competitiveness of the LNG carriers produced will be extremely huge."

"At that time, both domestic and foreign customers will place a large number of orders."

"We Wenchong Shipyard can promise to purchase all related equipment that Yinwa Steel and Nanshan Equipment can produce from your company."

Xiang Jianghui, as the general manager of Wenchong Shipyard, just took office last year.

LNG ships are his chosen key breakthrough direction.

As long as Wenchong Shipyard can master this technology, his achievements in office will definitely be very impressive.

It is not impossible to go further by then.

"The insulating box, insulating tubes, and pump tower are the three important core components of the LNG ship. They are difficult to manufacture and require high precision."

"Our shipyard has never produced it before, and we are also considering finding a suitable supplier to help with production."

"If the companies under Nanshan Group can complete the production of these three core components, we can purchase them directly from your company."

Seeing that Cao Yang did not directly express his position, Chief Engineer Wei Tianyuan made a supplement next to him.

Of course, he had already communicated this information to Xiang Jianghui within the company.

Otherwise, how would you dare to make such a promise casually?

"Nanshan Special Steel was established to solve the problem of foreign companies in the field of special steel being stuck."

"Whether it is our group's own affiliated companies or other domestic companies that have needs in this area, we are naturally bound to carry out technical research."

"The Yinwa Steel side is important, and it is completely worth investing a lot of manpower and material resources in technical research."

"Then the French GTT will no longer be able to attract blood in the Chinese market."

I had already thought about engaging in Yinwa Steel.

This is Nanshan Special Steel’s second major move after its acquisition of Shaogang, and provides a solid foundation for further establishing Nanshan Special Steel’s position in the country.

Besides, after investigation, it was found that Nanshan Precision Instruments will also need to use Yinwa steel when producing some high-end instruments in the future.

Although the dosage is not large, it may be a bottleneck at critical moments.

Therefore, if localization can be achieved, localization is naturally the best.

Anyway, the related human and material investment can recover the cost.

Even with the increase in orders for Huaxia LNG ships, the production of Yinwa Steel will become a more profitable thing.

"That's right, we can't let the French GTT suck blood in our market."

"The price of one ton of Yinwa steel is more than 20 times that of ordinary ship steel, and the supply time is still full of uncertainty."

"I believe that the Hudong Shipyard will not be able to accept this situation."

"So when the time comes, domestically produced Yinwa steel will not only be used by Wenchong Shipyard, but other companies that can produce LNG ships will definitely be very interested."

Hearing Cao Yang's affirmative response, Xiang Jiang Hui breathed a sigh of relief.

My goal is one step closer to being achieved.

According to what he learned, the technologies that Nanshan Group wanted to conquer in recent years were finally successfully conquered.

He doesn't think Yinwa Steel will be an exception.

The only uncertainty now is when this technology can be conquered.

But he is patient, because when producing the first LNG ship, it will definitely take a long time.

If it can be produced within two or three years, it is considered fast.

Now they have just started the design phase. There is no specific order or specific production technology, so there is no point in worrying so much.

"Academician Xie, if you need help from Wenchong Shipyard in our Yinwa Steel research and development, just ask us and we will fully cooperate."

"If you need to use French GTT Invar steel samples during the research process, we also have several tons in our warehouse and can send them to you for use."

Wei Tianyuan and Xiang Jianghui are grasshoppers on the same rope, and naturally they also hope to build an LNG ship as soon as possible.

However, the most critical thing here still depends on Nanshan Group.

"Having these samples and related technical information for us to refer to will definitely be very beneficial to our research and development."

"We strive to determine the production process of Yinwa Steel in the laboratory within this year, and next year we will formally transform and invest in production lines to produce Yinwa Steel."

"During trial production, we are constantly improving relevant technical parameters to ensure that the performance of our domestic Yinwa steel is better than that of French GTT."

Xie Lingyun naturally accepted the olive branch extended by Wei Tianyuan without hesitation.

Since everyone wants to cooperate on this project, there is nothing to be polite about.

However, Wei Tianyuan then raised another question and said: "French GTT not only has a global monopoly on Invar Steel, they also have a large number of patents on liquid cargo containment technology."

"At that time, the layout of the Yinwa pipes and the design and assembly of related protective equipment may need to be considered simultaneously."

"Otherwise, it will happen that although we have got rid of our dependence on GTT for raw materials, we still need to use their technology patents in the production process."

Wei Tianyuan told in advance the pitfalls that may be encountered during the production of LNG ships.

In case Nanshan Special Steel discovers something is wrong, it feels that Wenchong Shipyard is deliberately deceiving people.

"Is the threshold for this liquid cargo protection technology very high?"

Cao Yang listened to the exchange between Wei Tianyuan and Xie Lingyun and intervened.

"Currently, GTT has two liquid cargo containment technologies, MARK series and NO series, occupying more than 90% of the world's market share in the field of LNG liquid cargo containment systems."

"Both of these technologies are actually technologies that were developed decades ago."

"But because the market in this area was not very big before, France first wanted to transport LNG back from Africa, so it started to study related technologies."

"This results in other companies in the world researching less technology in this area, and GTT holds more and more patents."

"Slowly, everyone has become accustomed to using GTT's technology. It is even more difficult for new technologies to break through."

When Wei Tianyuan said this, Cao Yang immediately grasped the key point and said: "In other words, the technical difficulty of this area is not necessarily particularly high, and it is not necessarily difficult to circumvent other people's patents, but it is necessary to Is it more difficult to get approval from customers?”

Cao Yang had encountered many similar situations in the auto parts business, so he could immediately understand what he meant after listening to it.

However, this situation is difficult for other countries to break.

But for China, which is prospering day by day, it is not impossible.