Zhang Shourong Chen Zhuo

　　Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, my country's electrical steel industry has relied on the introduction of advanced technology and has embarked on a self-development road of digestion and absorption, mastery of technology, and ability to form. The 40 years of reform and opening up are also 40 years of rapid development and growth of my country's electrical steel industry. Today, my country's electrical steel output ranks first in the world. Today, reviewing the development history of my country's electrical steel industry, summarizing development experience, and analyzing current problems, the purpose is to achieve better development of this industry.

　　1.7 meters rolling mill and the development of my country's electrical steel

　　When New China was founded in 1949, my country's annual crude steel output was only 158,000 tons. The technology and equipment of the iron and steel plant are very backward, without a full set of smelting and cold-rolling production technology, nor its own cold-rolled electrical steel products, let alone an electrical steel industry that meets the needs of the country’s economic construction.

　　In August 1972, after Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai approved the report of the State Planning Commission on the introduction of a 1.7-meter rolling mill, WISCO (now Baosteel’s Qingshan base, the same below) constructed the WISCO’s one-meter facility in the Ministry of Foreign Trade, the Ministry of Metallurgy and Hubei Province. Under the leadership of the Seven Rolling Mill Engineering Headquarters, the introduction of the 1.7 millimeter system was started. The contract was finally signed in 1974, construction and production preparations began in 1975, and trial production began at the end of 1978.

　　Before 1978, we did not have cold-rolled silicon steel technology, and could only produce hot-rolled silicon steel sheets. A large amount of cold-rolled silicon steel was imported every year. After the trial production of the silicon steel project introduced by WISCO in 1978, the output was very small. By the end of 1981, the trial production was 132991 tons, of which 21,846 tons of oriented silicon steel and 33,377 tons of non-oriented silicon steel were qualified products. By 1982, due to insufficient pre-process matching and technical limitations, my country's main spare parts such as silicon steel raw materials, surface coatings, and rolls had to rely on imports.

　　In 1981, WISCO Silicon Steel Sheet Plant introduced technology to promote Japan’s total quality management (TQC) experience. In 1982, WISCO established the technological process from smelting to cold-rolled silicon steel in accordance with Japan's Nippon Steel's patented silicon steel technology, laying the foundation for my country's electrical steel production. In 1996, WISCO introduced technology for the second time, which mainly introduced the production technology of general-oriented electrical steel represented by Z8 and HIB steel represented by Z6H.

　　From 1978 to 2008, my country's national economy developed rapidly. At that time, the domestic steel production and varieties could not meet the increasing demand, and it was necessary to import millions of tons of steel each year, including high-end cold-rolled products and silicon steel. From 2001 to 2008 , The average annual import of silicon steel is about 1,156,200 tons.

　　The author believes that in the past 40 years, China's electrical steel industry has embarked on a self-development road of digesting and introducing advanced technology to form production capacity. Innovation is an attempt based on the introduction of advanced technology.

　　Transition from introduction and digestion to self-development

　　Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, my country’s electrical steel industry has continued to grow and develop through learning foreign advanced technology, digesting and mastering foreign advanced patented technology. Over the past 40 years, we have developed a series of products with independent intellectual property rights, perfected the production process, and continuously improved the equipment. After long-term efforts, China's electrical steel production technology has developed rapidly, and the output of electrical steel ranks first in the world. The development stages of my country's electrical steel industry can be roughly divided into the following periods:

　　One is the introduction of the digestive period (1974~1986). Approved by the state in 1974, Wuhan Iron and Steel introduced for the first time the world's advanced cold-rolled electrical steel production patent technology and a complete set of process equipment from Japan’s Nippon Steel. The project has an annual production capacity of 70,000 tons, including 42,000 tons of non-oriented steel , Oriented steel (including HIB steel) 28,000 tons. The project began construction on September 5, 1974, and was put into trial production in the second half of 1978.

　　The second is the introduction and absorption period (1987 ~ 1997). Over the years, on the basis of digesting and introducing technology, in order to meet the country’s needs for high magnetic induction oriented electrical steel, we have made continuous management innovations and continuous quality improvement to tackle key problems, so that electrical steel’s various economic and technical indicators and product physical quality have reached At the level of similar products in foreign countries, it has completed the comprehensive technical transformation of high magnetic induction and low iron loss product of oriented electrical steel, and realized the stable production of high magnetic induction oriented electrical steel (HIB steel). Since 1986, we have developed domestically-made oriented silicon steel grade magnesium oxide, domestically-made T4 and other non-oriented silicon steel coatings, domestically-made rolls and other ancillary products, the first domestic tunnel-type oriented electrical steel high-temperature annealing furnace, and Wuhan Iron and Steel's second silicon steel production equipment. There are also some self-developed models, including the world's first double-layer steel strip continuous annealing furnace and related processes for the purpose of complete decarburization annealing of oriented electrical steel, and two high-temperature ring annealing furnaces, a total of 23 silicon steel production lines. .

　　The third is the rapid development period (1998 ~ 2015). During this period, my country's electrical steel production technology has developed rapidly, and the output of electrical steel ranked first in the world.

　　Since entering the "13th Five-Year Plan", my country's electrical steel industry is moving towards high-quality development. As of the end of 2017, my country has obtained a total of 5497 patents related to electrical steel, including 2,993 invention patents and 2,504 utility model patents. As of the first half of 2018, there were about 21 non-oriented electrical steel manufacturers and about 18 oriented electrical steel manufacturers in my country. Their production capacity has reached about 12.375 million tons, of which 10.82 million tons of non-oriented electrical steel and 1.555 million of oriented electrical steel Ton.

　　Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, my country's electrical steel industry has undergone earth-shaking changes. The output of oriented electrical steel increased from 3 tons in 1978 to 1.1046 million tons in 2017, and the output of non-oriented electrical steel increased from 991 tons in 1978 to 8,994,400 tons in 2017. In 1993, my country's non-oriented electrical steel began to be exported, and in 2001, oriented electrical steel began to be exported. In 2017, my country changed from a net importer of electrical steel to a net exporter, breaking the long-term dependence on imports. As of the end of August 2018, WISCO had produced 23,863,18 million tons of electrical steel in the past 40 years, including 6,551,679 million tons of oriented electrical steel and 17.311501 million tons of non-oriented electrical steel.

　　At present, China Electrical Steel has been widely used in large transformers, large generators, motors and household appliances, such as the Xiaolangdi Project, the Three Gorges Project, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project, the Beijing Positron Collider Project, the Shenzhou VI and Shenqi manned spacecraft. National key projects and fields such as engineering, high-speed rail, robots, and new energy vehicles.

　　Prominent problems existing in my country's electrical steel industry

　　At present, the outstanding problems in my country's electrical steel industry are as follows:

　　One is the overcapacity caused by structural repeated construction. Judging from the existing capacity and output, my country's electrical steel is mainly structurally surplus, with a surplus of 20% to 30% for medium and low grade non-oriented electrical steel, and a surplus of 20% for general oriented electrical steel (CGO). Therefore, it is necessary to prevent new overcapacity of high-grade, high-efficiency non-oriented electrical steel and other production capacity. At present, there are more than 30 domestic enterprises producing cold-rolled electrical steel, but 80% of them are new electrical steel production enterprises that have emerged in recent years. In the meantime, many enterprises have introduced equipment, expanded production capacity, increased output, and obtained benefits, and there is a certain degree of blindness in their development. The current quality level and technology accumulation of many companies are still at a relatively early stage, and the products they produce are mostly low-tech and low-quality products; most of the production technology is tracking and imitating, not paying attention to the core technology of independent intellectual property rights. No time to pay attention to the development of new technologies and new products. Some companies rely on cost, price, and sales to compete in a limited market. Quality improvement and technological progress have also been placed in a secondary position. There are still companies building electrical steel production lines. The state should formulate policies and regulations in terms of supply, energy saving, environmental protection, innovation, etc., to control the release or expansion of production capacity, and accelerate the elimination of low-end and backward products. At the same time, the national regulatory authority should increase supervision Or control the intensity of approval of electrical steel projects.

　　The second is that the number of top high-end products is small and the quality stability is not enough. From the perspective of China's high-end electrical steel output in 2017, the proportion of top-end products is not high, and user needs cannot be fully satisfied; the level of production control must be improved, and the qualification rate of original grades must be increased to reduce the number of unqualified or defective products. Improve management level and comprehensive product quality; for the new needs of downstream industries such as domestic large-scale power generation equipment, energy-saving transformers, high-efficiency energy-saving motors, transportation drive motors, new energy electric vehicle motors, drones and high-end home appliances, the development of low-noise transformers should be focused Preparation technology of oriented electrical steel, heat-resistant oriented electrical steel for three-dimensional wound cores, thin-gauge non-oriented electrical steel, non-oriented electrical steel for high-end and high-efficiency motors, non-oriented electrical steel for medium-frequency high-efficiency motors, and high-strength non-oriented electrical steel .

　　The third is the lack of awareness of implementing product national standards. On May 1, 2017, the country officially implemented the new national standard (GB/T2521.1-2016) "Full-process cold-rolled electrical steel Part 1: Grain non-oriented steel strip (sheet)" and (GB/T2521.2 -2016) "Full-process cold-rolled electrical steel Part 2: Grain-oriented steel strip (sheet)". The implementation of the new national standard not only eliminated backward product brands in the original standard, and raised the technical threshold of magnetic performance levels and indicators, but the new standard was in line with international standards and had Chinese characteristics, forming two separate product standards. The revision and implementation of the new standards will further standardize corporate behavior and realize the organic combination and application of national standards and corporate standards. Through the implementation and implementation of the new standards, it will help improve market competition and the supply environment. We must take advantage of the implementation of the new national standard for electrical steel, vigorously promote the new national standard, so that users can better understand and understand the importance of the new national standard, and under the precondition of meeting the new national standard, we will sign a higher standard with the user. Technical agreement to meet the needs of users and promote the healthy development of the electrical steel industry and downstream industries. At the same time, it calls for strengthening the authority of national standards and market execution, so as to realize the uniformity of market platforms and the fairness of competition methods.

　　In addition, we must also pay attention to maintaining market order and standardizing corporate market behavior. Newly put into production enterprises should enter the market after the products are qualified, further standardize the silicon steel raw material market and strengthen the technological progress of private enterprise electrical steel.

　　How to achieve high-quality development of my country's electrical steel industry

　　Practice has proved that WISCO’s decision to introduce patented cold-rolled electrical steel technology is correct. Therefore, my country’s electrical steel industry has embarked on a self-development path of digestion and absorption, mastery of technology, and formation of capabilities. However, in the future, my country’s electrical steel industry will introduce advanced technologies from abroad. The possibility of technology is small, and technological development has to rely on independent development and original innovation. During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the electrical steel industry must follow the national "One Belt One Road" policy and overall plans for power grid upgrades and central and western development, as well as energy conservation and emission reduction in related industries, and continuous market demand for higher-end products. The road to sustainable development.

　　The author suggests that the following work should be done:

　　One is to increase investment in science and technology, focusing on supporting research work on key common technologies of electrical steel. For example, the texture in electrical steel is a key factor to improve the magnetic properties, but the concept of texture is relatively abstract and difficult to understand and master. Moreover, the texture control in the processing of electrical steel involves many metallographic theories, some of which are still world-wide problems. Therefore, this issue is highly academic and technical, and it is one of the key scientific issues in the development of electrical steel technology, and it is also an academic issue that is generally concerned about the development of electrical steel in the world today. The challenge of this problem is that the application potential of conventional texture control technologies and principles seems to be exhausted, and new technologies and related principles need to be developed to achieve breakthrough progress in electrical steel.

　　The second is to make use of the advantages of industry associations and colleges and universities, carry out high-level international exchanges and cooperation, and strengthen the training of electrical and steel technology talents.

　　The third is to focus on reducing the production cost of electrical steel, in-depth development of CSP (thin slab continuous casting and rolling) process production of oriented electrical steel technology research, to achieve the industrialization of electrical steel short process technology and create a new process with Chinese intellectual property rights. China is the country with the most intensive thin slab continuous casting and rolling production lines in the world, and its production costs are low. Existing industrial studies have shown that this process can be used to produce qualified oriented electrical steel and achieve large-scale industrial production. If the research continues, it is expected that the overall production cost will be close to that of high-grade non-oriented electrical steel, forming China's innovative technology, and achieving significant energy-saving effects.

　　The fourth is to focus on the development of ultra-low iron loss oriented electrical steel preparation technology and ultra-high magnetic induction oriented electrical steel preparation technology based on the national energy saving and consumption reduction requirements to meet the development needs of the national power grid; focus on the sustainable development requirements of the electrical steel industry and strengthen the implementation of national standards Strengthen the national standards for electrical steel, cancel low-end product grades that do not meet market demand, and eliminate the backward production capacity of electrical steel production enterprises; focus on the development of thin-gauge non-oriented electrical steel preparation technology, high-end high-efficiency electrical steel preparation technology, intermediate frequency High-efficiency motor electrical steel preparation technology, high-strength electrical steel preparation technology, meeting the requirements of steel for more than 1 million kilowatts, ultra-supercritical motor steel, pumped storage power generation steel, high-efficiency energy-saving motor steel, transportation drive motor, high-end home appliances, etc. Promote and carry out the whole life cycle pollution-free electrical steel preparation technology, the whole life cycle low energy consumption electrical steel preparation technology, and the low noise electrical steel preparation technology to truly meet the requirements of the rapid development of China's national economy.

　　In the future, China's electrical steel industry will face the world, fully realize China's production, development, and technology transfer, and reach the goal of serving the world; it will be at the forefront of the world in terms of production capacity, quantity, and quality, and its production technology, product research and development, and technical reserves The world is synchronized, making greater contributions to intellectual property rights, patented technologies, and the number of invention patents.