"Someone from the Wenchong shipyard is coming to visit me?"

Cao Yang looked at Mi Ying in surprise.

"Yes, they want to talk to you about a special steel, it seems to be called Yinwa steel, and I will report back to you later after sorting out the specific information."

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 recoordinate as soon as possible.

Generally speaking, if the personnel of the big factories in the Yangcheng area want to visit Caoyang, he will meet them.

It was based on this situation that Mi Ying directly arranged the visit to Wenchong Shipyard to Cao Yang's schedule.

The name of the Wenchong shipyard is unknown to most Chinese people.

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

But its strength is actually not bad at all.

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

It is the main construction base of Huaxia feeder container ships and large and medium-sized dredgers.

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

The company's management team inspected the circle and set their sights on the LNG ship.

However, if you want to produce LNG ships, there is one of the biggest difficulties, that is, they can't handle the most critical Yin tile steel.

There is no domestic enterprise in China that can produce.

The French GTT is the only company in the world to produce this steel and holds a number of patents for storage tanks.

In this way, if Wenchong Shipyard wants to make a breakthrough in LNG, it has to find a way to get Yinwa Steel.

Otherwise, all the hard work will be 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 time, Nanshan Special Steel acquired Shaogang and immediately made a huge breakthrough in nib steel, and Wenchong Shipyard had more expectations for Nanshan Special Steel.

After figuring out these circumstances, Cao Yang naturally would not refuse to meet.

"Academician Xie, is this Yin tile steel difficult?"

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

But there were so many things he had to worry about, and it was really impossible to learn about all the special types of steel.

Most of the time, he is like a firefighter, where there is a fire, he goes to put out the fire.

"Mr. Cao, only the French in the world have come up with qualified Yin tile steel, and even the United States, polar bears and Dongying can't produce it."

"From this result, you can feel the difficulty of producing Yinwa steel."

Although Cao Yang is not familiar with the situation of Yin Wagang, Xie Lingyun is different.

He even arranged a special 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, the profits of Nanshan Special Steel are rich enough, and Cao Yang attaches great importance to the independent research and development of various business divisions.

That's why Xie Lingyun was able to set up various material research groups so generously.

If you change to other steel mills, how can you try it in so many fields in one go?

"What's so hard?"

During this time, he was worried about special steel, and Cao Yang was really interested.

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

Cao Yang was interested in learning about it, and Xie Lingyun was naturally very active in explaining there.

"The discovery of Yin tile steel dates back to 1896, when the French physicist . While researching a nickel-iron alloy, Guialme accidentally discovered the peculiar properties of this alloy. ”

"The composition of this alloy is 36% nickel, 63.8% iron and 0.2% carbon, and it hardly changes its volume due to changes in temperature in the temperature range below 230 ° C, that is, it has a very low coefficient of thermal expansion, even close to zero."

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

"The stability of this alloy makes it very versatile. For example, it can be used to make the pendulum of a clock, because the length of the pendulum does not change with the change of temperature, thus guaranteeing the accuracy of the clock. ”

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

"But ......"

Speaking of this, Xie Lingyun paused deliberately, "The most important use of Yinwa steel is still in the manufacture of LNG carriers. ”

"This is what Mi Ying said just now, only one company in France can produce this kind of Yin tile steel, Wenchong Shipyard wants to produce competitive LNG ships, so it hopes to be able to purchase Yin tile steel from China?"

Combined with the information reported by Mi Ying just now, as well as the content of Xie Lingyun's explanation, Cao Yang probably had some impressions.

Before today, I really didn't know that there was such a thing as Yin tile steel, and I was actually stuck in my neck.

"Yes, at present, Hudong Shipyard in China can produce LNG ships, and LNG is an environmentally friendly and clean energy source, and its prospects are promising."

"This means that the demand for LNG ships will continue to increase, and at present, the world's main countries are the United States, Korea and Huaxia can produce such ships."

"The most important production capacity is still on the Goryeo side, and Wenchong Shipyard still has a good vision, if they can really make a breakthrough in LNG ships and reduce costs, then it can be said that the future is unlimited."

Xie Lingyun further explained.

The shipbuilding industry is a bit far away from ordinary people, and everyone has no special feelings.

But in the hearts of shipbuilders, there are three "pearls" 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 carrier.

It is conceivable what the prospects of LNG are (money prospects).

"Everyone is optimistic about the prospect of LNG carriers, and there are so many steel mills in China, there must be people who want to break through Yinwa Steel, right?"

Cao Yang followed normal logic and raised his own questions.

As long as Huaxia can't produce something, the price of imports will definitely be expensive.

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

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

You must know that the steel used in the shipbuilding industry is often relatively large.

This is different from the case of nose tip steel.

"Yinwa steel requires a very high level of technology and advanced production equipment to achieve, in addition to the production process to go through the general steel manufacturing process, such as smelting, rolling, annealing, etc., but also to overcome the difficulties brought by the characteristics of Yinwa steel itself."

"Therefore, in the process of manufacturing intile steel, it is necessary to control the temperature, pressure, speed and other parameters of rolling very precisely, and at the same time, the surface of intile tile steel must be extremely sensitive to detection and treatment to ensure the surface quality of intile tile steel."

"It can be said that the manufacture of Yin tile steel has very strict requirements for the purity, composition, and industrial accuracy of the material."

"The detailed control in this area is precisely where the domestic steel mills are relatively weak."

"In addition, although the price of Yin tile steel is very expensive, because the annual production of global LNG ships is not large, in fact, the real demand is still relatively small."

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

"Especially before 2008, there were no domestic shipping companies that could produce LNG ships, and in this case, there would be no steel mills to study Yinwa steel."

"That is, the situation in the past two years has slowly begun to change, so there is a demand for their own research and production of Yin tile steel."

Marine steel is a field with a relatively large amount of special steel.

Xie Lingyun has read a lot of papers on this subject.

So when it comes to related content, it is naturally the head of the road.

"Yinwa Steel is imported from France, why can China produce LNG ships in 2008?"

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

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

The point is that now Goryeo and American enterprises are also unable to produce Yin tile steel, which is a bit strange.

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

"The characteristics of Yin tile steel are very different from ordinary steel, and its alloy content is much higher than that of ordinary steel, so its welding performance is poor, and it is easy to produce welding defects, such as porosity, cracks, oxidation, etc."

"These defects can affect the strength and tightness of the intile steel, and even lead to the scrapping of the intile steel."

"Therefore, in the process of welding invar steel, it is necessary to control the temperature, current, voltage, speed and other parameters of the welding very precisely."

"At the same time, it is also necessary to carry out extremely sensitive inspection and treatment of the weld seam of the intile tile steel to ensure the welding quality of the intile tile steel."

"It can be said that Yin tile steel is one of the most difficult materials to weld in history!"

Hearing Xie Lingyun say this, Cao Yang was really surprised.

I didn't expect welding technology to be stuck in the neck.

Although it must have been solved now, Hudong Shipyard can barely do it.

"Nanshan Robot's welding robot technology is the world's leading, if they are responsible for researching the welding technology of Yin tile steel, it shouldn't be particularly difficult, right?"

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

To a certain extent, the research of welding technology is also a development process of a large number of manpower and material resources for experimentation and trial and error.

Different temperatures, currents, voltages, and welding speeds are compared to see how good the weld is.

Finally, the parameters that meet the requirements are found.

Judging from the results, you may think that welding is very simple, and you can weld directly after the parameters are set.

But how to set these parameters and why to set them like this, this is where domestic enterprises are very weak.

I don't know why.

This is a very common situation.

"If you really want to tackle key problems, you can definitely solve it."

"After all, there are relatively few companies that will study the welding technology of Yin tile steel before, and the manpower and material resources invested are relatively limited, so there are many people who have mastered it."

"But that doesn't mean the technology has a particularly high bar 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 will, then as long as France, Korea, the United States and other Congress, he is confident that Nanshan Robot can master this technology.

Even the breakthrough time does not need to be particularly long.

After all, Nanshan Robot has mastered a large number of material welding data, and selecting the appropriate parameters for debugging in combination with the material properties of Yin tile steel can greatly improve the speed of debugging.

In the end, there is no problem in 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 whom.

"Compared with other domestic steel mills, Nanshan Special Steel is the best at setting and adjusting parameters in various technological processes, and a lot of technical information of this Yin tile steel is public, and we only need to set and study the process parameters in a targeted manner."

"There's no problem with me understanding that, right?"

Through the communication with Xie Lingyun just now, Cao Yang is obviously interested in cooperating with Wenchong Shipyard to tackle the production technology of LNG carriers.

At that time, Nanshan Group was responsible for the production of Yinwa steel, and even provided related welding equipment, and Wenchong Shipyard was responsible for the production of ships.

When the time comes, all the orders from Korea and the United States will be snatched.

The value of an LNG ship alone has reached $100 million or two, and if it can produce dozens of LNG ships a year, there is still a lot to be done.

"Yes, no problem at all."

"However, it is a bit difficult to say when the specific technological breakthrough will be made, maybe it will take a month, or it may take a year."

Xie Lingyun didn't dare to exaggerate too much.

At that time, Cao Yang wants him to be the same as making nib steel, and if he makes it out so quickly, he will definitely have to sit on wax.

After all, although the amount of Yinwa steel in the world is not very large, the French GTT can be monopolized for decades, and it is obviously a bit of a threshold to get stuck in everyone's neck.

People have been studying things for decades, and you want to break through in a month or even a week, which seems to be too underestimating the accumulation of others.

After communicating with Xie Lingyun, Cao Yang met with the group of Wenchong Shipyard, and he felt a lot more confidence in his heart.

"Mr. Cao, the situation is just like what was introduced, LNG ships are carrying liquefied natural gas at minus 163 degrees Celsius, and ordinary steel plates will be brittle and crack immediately if they come into contact with liquefied natural gas at minus 163 degrees Celsius."

"The special properties of Yin tile steel determine that it is an indispensable material for the manufacture of large LNG ships in the shipbuilding industry, which is used to prevent the hull structure from cracking in an ultra-low temperature environment."

"And Yin tile steel is extremely delicate, 0.7mm thick Yin tile steel, touch it empty-handed, it will rust in 24 hours, so you must be extremely careful in the welding process."

"If we can develop Yinwa steel together, the cost competitiveness of the LNG carriers produced must be very huge."

"At that time, whether it is a domestic customer or a foreign customer, a large number of orders will be placed."

"We at Wenchong Shipyard can promise that all the related equipment that Yinwa Steel and Nanshan Equipment can produce will be purchased from your company."

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

LNG carriers are the key breakthrough direction he has chosen.

As long as Wenchong Shipyard can handle this technology, then his achievements in office will definitely be very eye-catching.

It is not impossible to go further when the time comes.

"Insulated boxes, Yin tile pipes, and pump towers are the three important core components of LNG ships, which are difficult to manufacture and require high precision."

"Our shipyard has not produced before, and we are also considering finding a suitable supplier to help with production."

"If the subsidiaries of 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 express his position directly, Chief Engineer Wei Tianyuan made a supplement on the side.

Of course, this information was all in the company, and he had already communicated with Xiang Jianghui.

Otherwise, who would dare to make such a promise casually.

"The purpose of the establishment of Nanshan Special Steel is to solve the problem of foreign enterprises stuck in the field of special steel."

"Whether it is our own subordinate enterprises or other domestic enterprises that have this demand, we are naturally obligated to carry out technical research."

"Yinwa Steel is very important, and it is completely worth investing a lot of manpower and material resources to carry out technical research."

"When the time comes, the French GTT will no longer be able to suck blood in the Chinese market."

I had already thought about making Yin tile steel.

This is the second major move after Nanshan Special Steel's acquisition of Shaogang, which provides a solid foundation for further laying Nanshan Special Steel's position in China.

Besides, after investigation, in fact, Nanshan Precision Instruments, when the production of some high-end instruments is to be carried out in the future, it is also necessary to use Yin tile steel.

Although the dosage is not large, it is likely to be a stuck neck at a critical moment.

Therefore, if you can do localization, it is naturally the best to localize.

Anyway, the relevant manpower and material resources can recover the cost.

Even with the increase in orders for LNG ships in Huaxia, 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 a ton of Yin tile steel is more than 20 times that of ordinary marine steel, and the supply time is still full of uncertainty."

"I believe that this situation will definitely not be acceptable to the Hudong Shipyard."

"So when the time comes, not only Wenchong Shipyard will use domestic Yinwa steel, 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.

His goal is one step closer to being achieved.

According to what he learned, the technologies that Nanshan Group wanted to overcome over the years were finally successfully overcome.

He doesn't think Yin Wa Steel will be the exception.

What is uncertain now is when this technology will be overcome.

However, he was patient, because the production of the first LNG ship must have taken a long time.

Being able to produce it in two or three years is considered a speed.

Now they have just started the design stage, and there is no specific order, no specific production technology, and there is no point in worrying about so much.

"Academician Xie, if we need the help of Wenchong Shipyard for the research and development of Yinwa Steel, you just need to bring it up, and we will fully cooperate."

"If you need to use a sample of French GTT's invar steel during the research process, we also have a few tons in our warehouse, which can be sent to you for use."

Wei Tianyuan and Xiang Jianghui are grasshoppers on a rope, and naturally they also hope to get the LNG ship out as soon as possible.

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

"If we have these samples and related technical data for reference, it will definitely be very beneficial for our research and development."

"We strive to give the production process of Yinwa steel in the laboratory within this year, and officially transform and invest in the production line to produce Yinwa steel next year."

"In the trial production, we will continue to improve the relevant technical parameters to ensure that the performance of our domestic Yinwa steel is better than that of the French GTT."

Wei Tianyuan stretched out the olive branch, Xie Lingyun naturally did not hesitate to follow.

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

However, then Wei Tianyuan raised another question, saying: "French GTT has not only formed a global monopoly in Yinwa steel, but also has a large number of patents in liquid cargo enclosure technology. ”

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

"Otherwise, although we have gotten rid of our dependence on GTT in terms of raw materials, we still need to use their technical patents in the production process."

Wei Tianyuan told in advance about the pitfalls that may be encountered in the production process of LNG carriers.

Lest Nanshan Special Steel find out that something is wrong when it comes to it, and feel that Wenchong Shipyard deliberately cheats 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 interjected.

"At present, GTT has two liquid cargo enclosure technologies, MARK series and NO series, and occupies more than 90% of the world's market share in the field of LNG liquid cargo enclosure system."

"These two technologies are actually decades old."

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

"As a result, other companies in the world are doing less research on this technology, and GTT has more and more patents."

"Slowly, everyone is used to using GTT's technology, and it is even more difficult for new technologies to break through."

As soon as Wei Tianyuan said this, Cao Yang immediately grasped the key point and said: "In other words, the technical difficulty of this piece is not necessarily particularly high, and even if you want to circumvent other people's patents, it is not necessarily difficult, but it is more difficult to get the recognition of customers?" ”

Cao Yang has encountered a lot of similar situations in the auto parts business, so he can immediately understand what he means after listening to it.

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

But for the thriving China, there is no way.

(End of chapter)