The rolling mill of the Ma Niao Iron and Steel Complex is large in scale and very modern by the standards of this time and space. [No pop-up novel website] Because almost all its main equipment was installed after being unloaded from the ship. However, according to the standards of the old time and space, this steel rolling mill is a typical backward production capacity that should be eliminated. According to several well-informed industrial veterans, once you walk in, you feel like you have returned to a rural steel factory in the 1990s. Even the supporting power equipment is powered by steam engines - before the large-scale power grid layout was established in the 1980s, all regions relied on their own urban power plants to provide power, and even civilian electricity could not be fully guaranteed. Therefore, many small steel plants in towns and villages at that time used steam engines as power. China's most successful private steel company, Shagang Group, initially used steam engines to drive rolling mills.
Continuous casting and rolling were something the veterans of the metallurgical industry didn't dare to think about, so the rolling mill used steel ingots for processing and also forged wrought iron. Several huge wrought iron truss-type workshops house the main rolling equipment of the steel rolling mill: 2 preliminary forging machines, 2 hot rolling mills, 2 hot punching machines, 2 cold rolling mills, and 2 cold drawn steel pipe machines. 2 cold-drawn bar machines and 2 cold-rolled steel pipe machines. It can roughly cold-roll and hot-roll various commonly used specifications of steel plates, strips, wire rods and various types of steel.
Although the equipment is fully equipped, most of the equipment is not used frequently - firstly, there are very few workers who can use these equipments, and even if the veterans can use them, there are not many people, so it takes a long time to accumulate skilled workers; secondly, the steel rolling mill needs The supporting equipment is very complex, including annealing, pickling and a series of supporting projects, which seriously hinder the full capacity operation of the equipment. Finally, both hot and cold rolling require lubricating oil and coolant. Although it is simply said that Lingao Industry can currently supply substitutes for these things, except for the open supply of cooling water, other grease lubricants are not available. Subject to supply quotas. Therefore, many equipments are in a state of starting and stopping. The technical requirements of cold rolling are higher than those of hot rolling, and the post-processing requires a very high technical level. The cold rolling yield rate of steel rolling mills has not been high. This is why Ji Wusheng decided to only manufacture hot-rolled silicon steel plates.
The process of hot-rolled silicon steel plates is also very complex, and the production cycle is as long as 12 to 15 days. If silicon steel sheets are produced for transformers, the time may be as long as 20 days. Therefore, an annealing furnace must be specially equipped to avoid long-term occupation. The manufacturing and debugging of these supporting equipment took the steel complex a long time.
During hot rolling, the one-time heating rolling method is used. The silicon steel ingot is loaded into the heating furnace for preheating. The temperature of the heating furnace should be maintained at 950°C to 1020°C, so that the final rolling temperature can be roughly controlled above 700°C.
The heating furnace uses a chain type, which has low thermal efficiency. The advantage is that it heats evenly, which is more suitable for an industrial level like Lingao. Silicon steel plate rolling has high requirements for uniform heating. Losing some thermal efficiency is also a helpless choice.
First, the silicon steel ingot is rolled into a billet of a certain size through a rolling mill. It is first rolled into a thin slab using a transverse rolling mill, and then hot rolled, so that the slab tolerance can be controlled to a level of ±0.3mm. Generally meet the tolerance control requirements.
After the slabs are rolled and formed, they are stacked and formed according to a certain number of blocks, and then the slabs are heated to the rated temperature in the heating furnace for formal hot rolling.
After hot rolling, natural stack cooling must be carried out first. However, this process is not good for decarburization, so the veteran technicians of the metallurgical port chose the rapid water cooling technology once used by Shanghai Silicon Steel Plant. The hot-rolled silicon steel sheets are plunged into water for rapid cooling within 10 seconds. This process not only reduces the natural cooling time, but also greatly improves the level of decarbonization.
However, since being put into water is equivalent to one quenching, the hardness of the steel plate will be greatly increased. This has little effect on the silicon steel of the motor, but will affect the machining performance of the silicon steel of the transformer with a higher silicon content, so it is only used in the silicon steel of the motor. On production.
After cooling, the silicon steel plate is manually lifted for the first composition inspection to determine whether the element content is appropriate. It is then hot-rolled and flattened, and finally enters the annealing furnace for annealing.
Annealing is a key step in the decarburization of silicon steel plates. The carbon content of silicon steel plates must be reduced to 0.02% during the annealing process to be considered qualified. The veterans of the industrial port unanimously believe that the conditions in Lingao can be relaxed - in any case, it is stronger than low carbon steel. The stacking method is still used during annealing. The annealing furnace of Majiao Steel Rolling Mill uses gas as fuel for heating - if you are careful, you can use pure hydrogen for heating and annealing, which has the best decarburization effect. Ji Wusheng can only be satisfied with gas.
During annealing, the temperature is gradually raised to 690°C to 750°C at a rate of 15°C to 30°C per hour, then maintained for 11 hours, and then lowered to complete cooling at a rate of 10°C to 15°C per hour.
The temperature control of the annealing furnace is very labor-intensive. Lingao Industry does not have automatic temperature control equipment. It relies entirely on manual inspection of the thermometer to increase or decrease the air volume of the heating nozzle to control the temperature. It is difficult to achieve accurate temperature control in a small range.
After struggling like this for twenty days, the first batch of silicon steel sheets for motors was produced. Ji Wusheng immediately sent someone to Ge Xinxin for spectral composition analysis.
The composition analysis results were unsatisfactory. According to the standards of the old time and space, the metallurgical department worked hard for several months and spent a lot of manpower and material resources to produce the silicon steel sheets. This was followed by magnetic testing. The results obtained were even more disastrous, and the test results of the best magnetic part were also unsatisfactory. The veterans of the electric power industry who are eagerly looking forward to silicon steel sheets are like cold water pouring on them, holding ice in their arms: most of the silicon steel sheets that have been made with great efforts cannot even meet the national standard or even the brand number, and about 10% can barely meet the national standards. Low grade silicon steel. The most tragic thing is that about 20% of the finished products have mechanical properties problems and are waste products that cannot be processed.
This is the first time in Lingao's industrial history that such a failed trial production has occurred. However, the veterans of the Metallurgical Port know that there is not much effort in this area. To further improve the quality, they can only wait for the overall industrial level to rise to a higher level and then slowly explore and improve.
"This is too much trouble for the electrical machinery industry." Qian Liushi said with a frown when he saw the test report.
Faraday was not as pessimistic as him: "I think it's okay. No matter what, it's better than nothing. That's the first one. Secondly, the worst one is better than low carbon steel, isn't it?"
"That's true, but with such performance, is it still possible for you to copy off-the-shelf motor designs?" Qian Liushi said, "I'm very concerned."
"Although these silicon steel sheets are not the silicon steel sheets we hoped for, they are still not low-carbon steel." Faraday said, "Of course, they are limitedly better than silicon steel sheets. But there is finally a hope. Only after babies can we have adults, right? Low-carbon steel." From steel to silicon steel, it is a qualitative leap, we can only work hard to adapt to the existing conditions."
"That's all. It's just that the motor may need to be redesigned." Qian Liushi said, "Silicon steel sheets are good for this. Let's not make too complicated expectations. How do you plan to solve the permanent magnets of the permanent magnet motor?"
"I checked the information and found that Shilu iron ore is magnetite with a purity of 42%, which is a very good sintering raw material for iron oxide. You can use this to make permanent magnets first. Of course, the efficiency is a bit poor, but ours Unbranded silicon steel sheets are ready to be launched, let alone nothing."
"The Shilu Iron Mine has not yet been developed. And I heard that external transportation is difficult, so the Planning Institute did not put it in the first five-year plan."
Although since the stable supply of slaves from Southeast Asia has been available, more than one elder has suggested advancing the development of Shilu into the First Five-Year Plan. After Operation Engine, some elders brought up the old matter again. However, the Planning Institute has always held a veto attitude towards this.
The main difficulty in the development of Shilu Iron Mine is not mining, but the transportation of iron ore - Shilu Iron Mine is located in the mountains. Not only is it not close to the sea like Tiandu, it is also surrounded by rugged mountains. Railways must be built to enable large-scale export. In the beginning, the Japanese relied on killing people to build the Eighth Route.
If Shi Lu can be repaired from Shi Lu to Ba Suo or Shi Lu to Tian Du by just consuming human life, the Planning Institute will not hesitate. It was the huge material consumption of building the railway that discouraged Wu De, not to mention some engineering problems - such as how to construct tunnels. Moreover, Hachisuo is not a natural harbor and must be artificially renovated before it can be used by ore ships.
At the moment, the Planning Institute can only be content with building a simple road leading to Shilu in Changhua to provide basic transportation between the two places and ensure the influence of the Senate on this area.
"That's true." Qian Liushi thought for a while, "But magnetite is not a rare thing. It is not difficult to find if you look carefully. If it doesn't work, we will take a company with people on horseback and go to Changhua. Take the land route over there to Shilu, transport a dozen tons and use it first. This doesn't require much investment and project establishment."
The report on the silicon steel project also arrived at the office of the manufacturing director immediately. Mechanical mouths are not as picky as electric mouths. In Zhan Wuya's opinion, the first step is to decide whether they are available and then discuss whether they are good or not. He now urgently needs to expand the power supply to supply the non-ferrous metal smelting industry. In addition to providing electrolytic copper, he also hopes to obtain nickel, cobalt and other non-ferrous metals to smelt stainless steel - the demand for stainless steel in the chemical industry has been raised for a long time. A large number of pipes and containers that require corrosion resistance in chemical equipment need to be made of stainless steel. If it continues to stay at the level of manufacturing ceramic or glass equipment, Lingao's chemical industry will essentially be just an enlarged laboratory production, and it will not be able to complete the self-replication of the chemical industry, let alone upgrade.
Therefore, as soon as the trial production of silicon steel sheets was successful, he immediately reported it to the Planning Institute and requested that the electrolytic copper workshop project be officially launched.
