The production and sales of domestic shield machines ranked first in the world for five consecutive years
From Chinese products to Chinese brands
Our reporter Wang Yajing
Recently, the "Donghu" large-diameter shield machine developed by China Railway Engineering Equipment Group (hereinafter referred to as China Railway Equipment) is ready for hoisting and downhole installation, and will soon be excavated in the Wuhan Lianghu Tunnel, the world's largest "urban lake tunnel project".
Tunnel boring machines are high-end engineering equipment for the construction of underground projects such as subways and hydropower stations, including mud-water balance shield machines and full-section hard rock boring machines. Some people call it an "underground aircraft carrier".
As the core equipment of tunnel engineering construction, this "big guy" with tens of millions of parts and thousands of tons has complex manufacturing technology and is an important symbol of the level of a country's equipment manufacturing industry.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized during his inspection in Sichuan a few days ago that my country is a big manufacturing country, and we must strive to improve our independent innovation capabilities and speed up the transformation to a manufacturing power.
As a high-end field in the manufacturing industry, in recent years, the shield machine manufacturing enterprises represented by China Railway Equipment have developed rapidly, from relying on imports to independent innovation, from zero export to now being exported to more than 30 countries and regions... In the past ten years, Many "world firsts" were born here, breaking countless "impossibles", and achieved the first place in the country in terms of production and sales for ten consecutive years and the world's top for five consecutive years.
1
Once controlled by others, now one by one "world's first" has filled the gap at home and abroad
Wang Dujuan, deputy general manager of China Railway Equipment, has been in the industry for 20 years. She has designed more than 1,000 shield machines and has overcome many worldwide construction problems.
Rectangular, horseshoe-shaped...all kinds of shield machines can't beat her.
However, 20 years ago, when she and her colleagues participated in the development of my country's own shield machine, many people had not even seen the actual shield machine.
In the past, tunnel boring machines represented by shield machines were a rarity in China.
At that time, almost all the equipment used in the construction of large-scale projects were imported at a high price, and sometimes they even bought second-hand products used in other countries.
In the 1990s, the Xikang Railway Qinling Tunnel Project purchased two full-section hard rock boring machines from Germany at a cost of about 700 million yuan.
Relying on this equipment, the construction period was shortened by 10 months, and the safety problems were greatly reduced.
However, foreign equipment is not only ridiculously expensive, but also has higher after-sales service costs.
Wang Dujuan recalled that once we wanted to process a simple steel structure of a trailer, and found that there were errors in the external drawings.
Originally it was the designer's problem, but they could be asked to deal with it, but the service fee was 10,000 yuan per day.
Without core technology, it can only be controlled by people.
Holding a sigh of relief, in 2002, China Railway established an 18-member "Dream Building Team" and began to develop its own shield machine.
At that time, Wang Dujuan, who was only 23 years old and had just started working soon, was also selected into the team. Most of the other team members, like her, were young people who had not worked for a long time.
The components of the huge shield machine are complex. During that time, in order to understand the principle and structure of the shield machine, Wang Dujuan and his colleagues traveled almost all the subway construction cities, and observed one after another in the dark underground tunnel. Shield machine.
After 6 years of hard work, in 2008, China's first composite earth pressure balance shield machine with independent intellectual property rights was successfully rolled off the production line, achieving a zero breakthrough.
The key to realizing the autonomy of the shield machine is to realize the autonomy of the core components.
In the following years, China Railway Equipment started technical research around the problem of "stuck neck" of key core basic components.
The shield machine can break the rock without the sharp "teeth" of the knife.
Zhao Hua, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of China Railway Equipment, introduced that in 2020, China Railway Equipment will cooperate with Tsinghua University and other colleges to develop high wear-resistant hob materials. Circle 1.2 times more.
Zhao Hua said that the original high-quality hob cutter rings are mostly imported. At present, the market occupancy rate of the hob series products of the China Railway Equipment brand ranks first in China.
With the breakthrough of each core technology, the domestic shield machine has not only achieved from scratch, but also moved from existence to excellence.
The world's largest diameter hard rock roadheader, the world's first high-pressure hydraulic coupling rock breaking TBM... In the past ten years, one "world's first" has filled the gap at home and abroad, allowing my country to realize "there is a Shenzhou in the sky, a dragon in the sea, and a dragon in the sea." There are shields on the ground."
Wang Dujuan recalled the process of participating in the development of the first domestic shield machine, and she still remembers one thing.
At that time, a ceramic ball valve was needed to manufacture the shield machine. Wang Dujuan first found a foreign company and found that a German company could produce it, but the other party refused to sell it to a Chinese company due to technical blockade.
In all kinds of anxiety, she found a factory producing ball porcelain valves in Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province. After trying it out, she found that the ball valve is not only of good quality, but also one-tenth of the price of imported valves.
Now it seems that the emergence of domestic shield machines is not only a result of the field of tunnel excavation, but also a microcosm of the overall improvement of my country's manufacturing level.
2
The first overseas order was won in 2012, and now it is exported to more than 30 countries and regions
On June 1, China Railway Equipment Group Equipment Company won a new batch of overseas orders through "cloud signing".
At the end of May this year, the total number of orders for China Railway Equipment has reached more than 1,300 units. The products are all over the country and exported to more than 30 countries and regions on five continents. It has become the leading brand in the shield industry with the highest market share and the most export countries in my country.
In 2010, that is, the first year after China Railway Equipment was officially established, the total number of shield machines ordered was only 17, and the export countries and regions were 0.
Today, more than 90% of the shield machines used in China's tunnel projects are made in China, and the market share of Chinese shield machines in the world is close to 70%.
But ten years ago, my country just had its own shield machine not long ago, not to mention the export, that is, in the domestic market, most of the construction parties used foreign brands, and even many people had doubts about the domestic shield machine.
Zhao Hua recalled that in 2012, the brand recognition of China Railway Equipment was relatively low, and the difficulty of market development can be imagined.
In January of that year, the construction of Chengdu Metro Line 2 and Line 4 started, and the construction geological conditions were very complicated.
With the mentality of trying it out, the construction unit made the left and right lines of the domestic shield machine and imported shield machine produced by China Railway Equipment to tunnel at the same time.
After 10 months, the results were unexpected: the performance indicators of the domestic shield machine were excellent, and the time was two months less than the imported shield machine, and the name of the domestic shield machine was launched.
Walking into the workshop of China Railway Equipment, there is a slogan that is very eye-catching: "Build the Chinese's own shields, build the best shields in China, and build the best shields in the world." High quality and good price, domestic shields are With hard power, it has reversed the market prejudice and won the favor of customers at home and abroad step by step in the cruel market competition.
In 2012, China Railway Equipment won the first overseas order, realizing the leap of "China Shield" to go abroad and go to the world.
At that time, a project in Malaysia required the purchase of a shield machine.
At first, the Malaysian side did not trust "Made in China", and bluntly stated that China Railway Equipment has no overseas market experience.
After many in-depth communications and on-site inspections, Ma just signed two shield machines.
Unexpectedly, during the use process, the "Chinese speed" exhibited by the Chinese shield machine created a new record for shield construction in Malaysia: the highest daily excavation was 21 meters, and the planned construction period was 43 days in advance.
In 2013, Zhengzhou Hongzhuan Road underway through the Zhongzhou Avenue Tunnel was launched, which was the rectangular shield tunnel project with the largest cross-section, the shallowest covering and the longest distance in the world at that time.
International experts in the same industry asserted: "This is an impossible task." However, at the end of the same year, the world's largest cross-section rectangular shield independently developed by China Railway Equipment was successfully used, and its innovative equipment and construction methods attracted many national municipalities. Company personnel made a special trip to Zhengzhou for inspection.
It was this inspection that allowed Singapore to choose the "China Railway" rectangular shield for the subway construction project the following year.
In May 2014, when General Secretary Xi Jinping inspected China Railway Equipment, he pointed out: "Promote the transformation from Chinese manufacturing to Chinese creation, Chinese speed to Chinese quality, and Chinese products to Chinese brands." A few days ago, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council released the 2021 state-owned enterprise brand 100 typical cases were constructed, and the case of China Railway Equipment Brand Construction was selected among them.
In the past 8 years, with its excellent quality, China Railway Equipment, which was once unknown in the world, has successfully launched its own brand, allowing more and more products to "go out".
Zhang Zhancheng, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Secretary of the Disciplinary Committee of China Railway Equipment, said: "This year, we received an order from Germany for a hydropower project in Hamburg, Germany. This is of great significance to us, because at the end of the last century, our country imported hardware from German companies. Rock boring machines, and the world's No. 1 brand of tunnel boring machines is in Germany."
3
Overcome the world-class technical problems of the full-section hard rock shaft boring machine, and realized the first unmanned underground tunneling
As early as 2020, China Railway Equipment was rated as a benchmark enterprise of "Science and Technology Reform Demonstration Enterprise".
Zhao Hua said: "Science and technology reform demonstration, we will mainly implement the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping's 'three transformations' and the deployment requirements of 'science and technology reform demonstration', actively explore the reform of the scientific and technological innovation system and mechanism, and continuously improve the scientific and technological innovation governance system, strive for excellence. Be the 'source' of original technology."
Zhao Hua introduced that China Railway Equipment Co., Ltd. has jointly undertaken 13 national science and technology projects in the past three years, forming 16 international leading technologies. Quality Award R & D and manufacturing enterprises.
Continuous innovation and excellence are the passwords for enterprises to become the first in the world.
200 meters is not a long distance in large-scale engineering construction.
However, in the ventilation shaft project of Ninghai Pumped Storage Power Station in Zhejiang Province, it took China Railway Equipment Technology R&D team a full 10 years to overcome the intelligent unmanned excavation of just 200 meters.
At the end of 2021, with the sound of rocks breaking and falling, the world's first full-section hard rock shaft boring machine independently developed by China Railway Equipment - China Railway No. 599 successfully passed through the exhaust shaft of Ninghai Pumped Storage Power Station.
This move is of great significance.
Shafts and tunnels seem to be drilled underground, but before, shield machines could only drive horizontally.
Many foreign experts have also studied vertical digging, but the results are not ideal.
This time, China Railway Equipment successfully overcame the world-class technical problems of the full-section hard rock shaft boring machine, and realized the first unmanned underground excavation.
In December 2012, China Railway Equipment put forward the idea of developing a new product by hitting the shield machine vertically.
But it is a long and arduous process to turn ideas into reality.
There is a horizontal and vertical difference between the shaft boring machine and the traditional shield construction orientation, which solves a series of problems such as the small available space of the vertical construction face.
In those years, the project team squatted in the dark and hot coal mine shaft and slept in the laboratory. However, the propulsion technology, as one of the key technologies, has not been able to break through after repeated simulations and tests.
After brainstorming again and again, combined with multidisciplinary exploration, until 2014, in a discussion meeting, the ring-shaped boot technology proposed by team member Yang Juhui was unanimously recognized.
There are many such examples in the development of shield machines.
The shield machine is a customized product, and each shield machine must be designed according to the customer's project.
In order to improve production efficiency, China Railway Equipment has reconstructed the structure of the technology center, established an inter-departmental coordination and linkage mechanism, and coordinated and shared resources in the process of product and technology design, research and development, and manufacturing, so that the shield design cycle and production cycle can be greatly improved. shorten.
The control of details is the guarantee of product quality.
Don't look at the huge body of the shield machine, but it has many parts and complex structure. To build a shield machine, "embroidery work" is also required.
This kind of meticulousness is most vividly reflected in Wang Juping, an employee of the production line of China Railway Equipment Shield Company's overseas projects.
Wang Juping's apprentice said: "When running the pipeline, he asked us to use a ruler to measure the 1-meter hose after installation, and the error should not exceed 0.5 cm. This does not mean that it will affect the performance of the equipment. This is the standard of our equipment. "