7.7. Automotive Application Market
Market demand in 2021 was 9,500 tonnes, compared to 12,500 tonnes in 2020, a decrease of 3,000 tonnes, mainly due to BMW's discontinuation of the composite model I8 at the end of 2020 and the I3 in July 2021. We estimate that the demand for carbon fiber of nearly 5,000 tons has been impacted, and the growth of other components and modification markets has reduced the total by about 3,000 tons.
In 2021, in the field of automotive composites, there are the following major events: Saint Jean Industries (France) using hybrid carbon fiber/aluminum suspension knuckles produced by Hexcel prepreg; CFRP wishbones developed by Williams Advanced Engineering (UK) are molded in 90 seconds with recycled carbon fiber and RraceTRAK processes; Rassini (Piedras). Negras, Mexico) developed a carbon fiber rear suspension system for the MY2021 Ford F150 pickup truck; Italian Polynt Composites, Swiss AOC and Teijin Automotive Technologies (formerly Tangshan, China) have all added new SMC production lines in the past few years, and all new SMC lines have the capacity to produce carbon fiber SMCs. Polynt has also introduced Polynt-RECarbon recycled fiber SMC products into its products, as well as UDCarbon and TXTCarbon blends with UD and fabric enhancements, respectively; Bucci Composites SpA (Faenza, Italy) has announced the development of 22-inch all-carbon fiber wheels for British carmaker Bentley's Bentayga SUV. It is said to be the largest all-carbon fiber wheel ever built, and it is made from high-pressure RTM (HP-RTM) that reduces the weight of 6 kilograms per wheel.
The trend in 2021 for battery boxes for new energy vehicles is to replace carbon fiber or other materials with glass fiber composites. The carbon fiber car wheel hub has a small batch of ultra-luxury cars, and gradually move towards the standard of larger batch luxury cars, which may bring 10,000 tons of demand for carbon fiber.
7.8. Construction Application Market
This field is a wide sense of architecture, not only including our usual sense of architecture, but also includes construction machinery, bridges, tunnels and industrial pipelines, etc., the application of composite materials is mainly in the following areas: 1. building and bridge structure reinforcement: 2. the main structure of art-type buildings; 3. construction machinery; 4. new large span / space structure; 5. pipeline reinforcement.
In the above application market, 80-90% of the carbon fiber is used for the reinforcement and reinforcement of buildings and bridge structures, in the context of urban renewal, the relevant ministries and commissions in the "Transportation Power Construction Outline", "Construction Project Seismic Management Regulations" and other documents mentioned the importance of structural reinforcement, 2022 Central No. 1 document once again emphasized rural road safety and dangerous bridge reconstruction, the domestic structural reinforcement market at a rate of about 20% per year at a rapid growth rate of more than 20%. At this stage, in the field of infrastructure reinforcement materials, in addition to foreign brands such as Forres, Sika, Andray, the domestic brands represented by Shanghai Hummer are rising rapidly and have been widely recognized by domestic and foreign markets, and the rise of high-quality enterprises in these industries has also made a reshuffle of the once chaotic domestic market, and the situation of "mixed fish and dragons" has fundamentally changed. In addition, with the completion of carbon fiber cable structures such as Sanya Stadium and Liaocheng TujiaoHe Bridge, the application of carbon fiber composites in the field of new large-span/spatial structures has developed rapidly, and it is expected to significantly replace the traditional steel cables in the next few years.
In December 2021, the first domestic cable-stayed carbon fiber cable-stayed bridge hanging rope ceremony was held. The total length of the bridge is 388 meters, the main bridge adopts the steel tower double cable surface lotus type, and the innovative use of Φ7-121 carbon fiber composite cable-stayed cable, the maximum bearing capacity of more than 1000 tons, is the largest specification of domestic engineering applications, the largest bearing capacity of carbon fiber cable. This is the first application of carbon fiber cable in the domestic car cable-stayed bridge, forming the largest tonnage of domestic carbon fiber cable anchor system, the bridge will become the world's largest span carbon fiber cable cable-stayed bridge after completion. The project was led by the Eighth Engineering Bureau of China State Construction Group, Liugong Group Ovim Machinery Co., Ltd. undertook the design and manufacture of carbon fiber composite cable-stayed cable anchoring system, Nanjing Haituo Composite Material Co., Ltd. undertook the manufacture of carbon fiber composite cable body, and Zhongfu Shenying provided carbon fiber.
The cable-stayed cable bridge is the main form of bridge in China, and China is also the largest market, and the successful demonstration of the bridge across the Tujiao River is of landmark significance. This can be fully developed into a characteristic market with great demand for China's application ecology!
7.9. Market for Electrical and Electronic Applications
In 2021, in the field of electronics and electrical, the market is growing steadily.
The first is the functional application field: short-cut carbon fiber reinforced plastics have anti-static, electromagnetic shielding and other functions in copiers, printers, digital cameras, data transmission cable connectors and other products have long been mature applications, compared with other such as carbon black, metal and other similar materials, carbon fiber reinforced plastics Cost reduction, will bring about a stable expansion of this market.
Mechanical reinforcement: The main product forms are long carbon fiber reinforced plastics (LFTs) and continuous carbon fiber reinforcement materials. LFT is actually a promising product form between short cut and continuous, taking into account both cost and performance, and then, the problem of the thermoplastic interface, how to maintain a long length in the plastic and the problem of uniform dispersion, these technical obstacles hinder the wider application of this product. Continuous carbon fiber reinforced materials, mainly for thin and light notebook housings, including classic process thermoset housings, but also thermoplastic housings.
In 2021, the industry's key news are: Carbon Mobile launches Carbon 1 MK II smartphone manufactured by LANXESS TepEX DyalLITE thermoplastic reinforced 1K continuous carbon fiber filament; Toray unveils HP Buffalos laptop housing made from Cetex TC920 PC/ABS carbon fiber braided laminate at CAMX2021; Isotruss Carbon Fiber Launch Tower releases support global 5G telecom deployments, compared to steel towers, The innovative IsoTruss dot matrix design requires less carbon fiber to manufacture communication towers, further narrowing the price gap and competing with traditional steel structures while providing additional added value.
7.10. Marine Application Market
At present, the demand for carbon fiber in the marine field is mainly: competition ships, ultra-luxury yachts, high-speed passenger ships and ships for military purposes. Over the years, in addition to competition ships, in recent years, electric hydrofoils, water taxis, and high-speed passenger ships have adopted carbon fiber composite materials, forming a new growth hotspot.
In 2021, the marine market maintained sustained high growth (National Association of ShipMakers reports statistics). According to Composite World Information: The 7.7-meter electric hydrofoil Candela C-7 claims to be 4-5 times more energy efficient than aerodynamic coasters and reduces costs by 95% due to its carbon fiber/epoxy resin and lightweight hull; in May 2021, Candela launched a P12 electric hydrofoil water taxi to replace the diesel-powered ferry. The 9.5-meter-long P-12 can carry up to 12 passengers in a panoramic cabin. Candela reports that using the same CFRP hydrofoil system and hull structure already validated in C-7, the P-12 consumes less energy per passenger than a family car and has 90 percent lower operating costs compared to ships with internal combustion engines.
In November 2021, network information: The first domestic high-speed passenger ship "Haizhu Bay" with a total length of more than 40 meters built by Zhongwei Company, a subsidiary of Pearl River Shipping, a subsidiary of the Port and Shipping Group, was successfully launched at the dock of The Shipbuilding Base of Xiaohudao in Nansha, and the ship will soon be put into use by Pazhou Passenger Transport Company.
Image credit: Candela Boats
Image source: International Ship Network
7.11. Cable Core Application Market
In 2021, our global demand is 1,100 tons, which is a certain increase compared to 2020. According to the internal statistics of the industry, it is estimated that it is only 750 tons, which is slightly lower than last year.
In 2021, Zhongfu Carbon Core developed fiber carbon fiber composite core wire and multi-stranded gynostemporum carbon fiber composite core wire on the basis of carbon fiber composite core wire. On the basis of multi-stranded gynostemma composite core technology, the development of multi-stranded gynostemma composite noose cable is expanded. The optical fiber carbon fiber composite core wire developed by Zhongfu Carbon Core has been applied on the domestic State Grid test line. The multi-strand carbon fiber composite core wire makes the bending diameter of the carbon fiber composite core increase from 55D to 45D, which is more friendly to the construction of complex terrain and ensures the quality of products in line construction. The multi-stranded gynostemma composite core wire developed by Zhongfu Carbon Core has been exported to Ecuador, and the Liaoning Provincial Electric Power Company has jointly applied for a scientific and technological project for flexible composite wires. Carbon fiber composite nooses have also been trialled on the Linquan Bridge.
Jiangsu Yiding Composite Technology Co., Ltd. has developed a metal-carbon composite molding line, which is currently in the experimental testing stage.
Internationally, carbon fiber composite core wire representative company CTC Global has been focusing on technological innovation in this field and the application of products in various national grid projects, from the EPO patent technology shows that it applied for a patent for fiber optic carbon fiber composite core wire in 2019 and laid out in 24 countries. In the past two years, it has undertaken the construction of carbon fiber composite core wire old line transformation projects or new cables for photovoltaic power plants in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Portugal, Bangladesh, Mexico, Vietnam, Bhutan and other national grids.
7.12. Other Application Markets
Rail transit
On January 15, 2021, the high-temperature superconducting maglev principle prototype was successfully rolled off the production line of the Southwest Jiaotong University Maglev Test Line, which adopted an all-carbon fiber composite body and a low-resistance head type, marking a breakthrough in the engineering research of high-temperature superconducting high-speed maglev from scratch; the carbon fiber side girder of the advanced structure bogie was 80% lighter than the weight of the traditional steel plate welded side girder, providing support for the weight reduction, energy saving and cost reduction of the bogie. The body was jointly developed by Shanghai Jinfei Carbon Fiber Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Petrochemical and CRRC.
In January 2021, CRRC's seventh-generation 200 km/h maglev train debuted: the carbon fiber body and suspension frame were developed by Tangshan Locomotive Company and Shanghai Jinfei Carbon Fiber Technology Co., Ltd., which reduced the weight of the original metal body by 30%, the weight of the optional accessories by 33%, and the passenger load by 20%, improving the traction efficiency and reducing the suspension energy consumption.
In July 2021, the 600 km/h high-speed maglev transportation system with completely independent intellectual property rights developed by CRRC was successfully rolled off the production line in Qingdao, and the model widely used carbon fiber composite materials.
Maglev carbon fiber body at a speed of 200 km/h
High temperature superconducting magnetic levitation carbon fiber car body
Carbon fiber side girders for advanced structural bogies
In December 2021, shanghai Pudong New Area Lingang capacity hydrogen power digital track rubber wheel tram rolled off the production line, CRRC and Shanghai Jinfei Carbon Fiber Technology Co., Ltd. developed a fiber composite driver's cab and operator platform, reducing the weight of the body, and greatly improving the comfort of the optimization of the cab structure.
Medium-capacity hydrogen-powered digital rail rubber-wheeled tram
Based on the current application analysis, although the application of carbon fiber composite materials in the field of rail transit is still a certain distance from achieving large-scale industrial production, with the mature development of the upstream and downstream industries of carbon fiber composites in mainland China, the cost of raw materials and process manufacturing has dropped significantly, which will accelerate the engineering application process of carbon fiber composite materials for rail transit vehicles, so that advanced composite materials will become the first choice for intergenerational replacement of vehicle primary/secondary bearing structural materials.
Carbon fiber functional materials
The main functional applications of carbon fiber, in addition to the traditional flame retardant materials: pre-oxygen wire, pre-oxygen felt, there are also traditional thermal field materials: carbon felt, graphite hard soft felt, electric blanket; as well as traditional anti-static, electromagnetic shielding materials: short-cut carbon fiber, grinding powder reinforced plastics and so on.
The new carbon fiber functional materials mainly include:
Gaseous diffusion layer (GDL) of fuel cells;
Carbon felt (graphite felt) of electrode material for flow batteries;
Carbon felt plates for lead plate electrodes that replace lead-acid batteries;
Replace the energy density of lithium-ion batteries with microporous carbon fiber materials;
Pre-oxygen felt + silica aerogel composite
In 2021, the main news is: Grupo Antolin (Burgos, Spain) announced the study of carbon nanofibers, and the results of the laboratory tests were very satisfactory, and the meA (membrane electrode assembly) device produced was produced in the production of electricity equivalent to that of the market. They achieved this using half of their platinum, reducing degradation levels by a factor of 10 after the same run cycle; Hexcel announced its participation in the Dolphin project to develop a disruptive PEM fuel cell stack, and Hexcel offers lightweight PrimeTex spread silk fabrics, HexMC molding compounds, and HexPly prepreg and prepreg laminates that will be applied to end plates, gas diffusion layers, and bipolar plates.
8
Observe and think
2021-2022 will be an important turning point for China's carbon fiber: it is not only a summary period for the carbon fiber industry to work hard and achieve great results in the last decade, but also the starting point for the next round of development strategy. In the last round of development, we not only solved the problem of "from scratch" and "from small to large", the varieties urgently needed for national defense have a basic normal supply; more importantly, we have built an industrial foundation for industrial application of carbon fiber, formed a number of enterprises that can survive and develop in the market, and to a considerable extent, achieved comprehensive and systematic localization, and most of the technology has entered a high level of independent research and development and forward design. This ability is crucial to the national industrial security, has solved the problem of "card neck" to a considerable extent; carbon fiber itself has the natural attributes of dual use, Toray as the world's top carbon fiber manufacturer, the United States for the sake of military industry security considerations, Toray's carbon fiber is almost not used in its national defense and military industry, but no one will question the applicability of Toray products in all kinds of military industry; therefore, the comprehensive construction of industrial capacity is the most solid guarantee of national security!
Reflecting on the last round of development, what problems do we have? Or the above aspects that we affirm, the construction of technical quality capabilities is insufficient, from the perspective of a free competitive market, we have not yet had a company with international competitive advantages. Of course, this is directly related to our industrial history of only two decades. Any of our carbon fibers, no matter what grade, in terms of cost performance, if we compete fairly with our opponents in overseas markets, we will lose. Another serious problem: in the last round of development, especially in the past three years, mainly due to the strong demand for wind power blades, coupled with photovoltaics and pressure vessels, etc., resulting in short-term short-term supply and demand, price increases, which has stimulated a number of carbon fiber companies to expand production too enthusiastically, including some new entrants who do not know the depth. We are not opposed to the expansion of production, we instead support the greater expansion of technological value-added, such as large tow carbon fiber, is the standard of many industrial applications, from 2012, we openly call for great development, until ten years later today, the supply of the market is still far from enough, please note that the current internationally recognized large tow refers to 48K or above, not the concept of 24K or above in early years; the global supply of large tow is seriously insufficient, Toray's ZOLTEK has been desperately expanding production these years, it is said, Its fiber price is 13 US dollars / kg, there is still a good gross profit, if your 24-30K, can also have similar low-cost technology, your expansion is of course effective, the cost can not be done, performance and quality have been greatly improved, such as your 48K can do T700 performance, of course, there is a strong cost-effective competitive advantage, expansion should be! What we oppose is a simple and repetitive expansion that does not help to improve quality and efficiency.
There is still huge room for technological progress in the field of carbon fiber. Improving quality and efficiency has at least the following significance: 1. Performance improvements, 2. Improvement of quality, 3. Increase in production efficiency, 4. Cost reduction. There are many factors that determine these: such as process technology, equipment technology, operation skills, engineering construction and management, production management, enterprise management, resource factor costs, etc. Carbon fiber application industry was once inferior "fake and inferior", using black fiber to impersonate carbon fiber, in order to "cut corners" to reduce costs, there is basically no operating space. Can only rely on technology to reduce costs, today, ask carbon fiber companies, which cost reduction technology is not a high-difficulty technology? Can the PAN basal filament to carbonization yield be closer to the theoretical value? This is a technology worth hundreds of millions of dollars; in the difference between acrylic fiber and raw silk production, how to evaluate the cost performance and make the best decision? This involves the cost difference of thousands of yuan per ton of raw silk; the cost of raw silk oil agent is high, and has anyone in the silicone industry come to overcome this problem and reduce the amount of raw silk per ton from thousands of yuan to hundreds of yuan? Save 100 million yuan in small costs for large-scale raw silk enterprises every year? Pre-oxidation takes a long time, high energy and high emission, can it be greatly reduced, so that the cost of a single line can be reduced by tens of millions of yuan? Low temperature muffle life above 800 °C less than a year, can we develop long-life equipment to save tens of millions of yuan for users? The entire carbonization line consumes a lot of nitrogen, can there be a significant reduction in technology? Saving millions for a single line? It's all a problem that technology has to solve!
Some people ask: What is the international carbon fiber giant doing? Is there a magic trick to carbon fiber technology? Can we cross the field in one step and directly "overtake in the corner"? This is a problem that often arises at the beginning of the industry engaged in the carbon fiber industry. The longer we are immersed in the industry, the more we can appreciate and perceive the actions of carbon fiber giants. They do have strange tricks in research and development: for example, the so-called second-generation carbon fiber technology of Japan's NEDO, which aims at "energy saving and consumption reduction, carbonization of single line 10,000 tons", this generation difference technology to enter the scale industry, from beginning to end, it takes at least 25-30 years, and there is still a risk of success in the technology. Therefore, I firmly believe that all the giants are actually around the above-mentioned complex technical problems to do long-term accumulation and improvement, which is the usual practice of "hard technology": it is difficult to appear "one trick, eat all over the sky" beautiful things and shortcuts, more is the complex technical problems in the large system, one by one, long-term accumulation, and finally form an indestructible system competitive advantage! And this is something that is usually difficult for Chinese-style cleverness to accept and practice. More than 20 years of big waves and sand, precipitated a generation of carbon fiber people, have such tenacity and persistence, which is the fundamental reason for the great achievements in the last cycle. Under the social environment with huge pressure and impetuousness, I hope to drive the younger generation to continue to be tenacious and persistent, which is the right way for the industry to prosper!
1. New supply and demand relations and countermeasures
In recent years, the main driving force for the growth of the carbon fiber market is wind power blades, let's first understand some of the development of global wind power in 2021, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) "Global Wind Energy Report 2022" information: in 2021, the global wind power installed capacity will increase by 93.6 GW (grid-connected capacity). New onshore wind installations in China and the United States, the world's two largest wind markets, declined at 30.7 GW and 12.7 GW, respectively, but other regions set record highs. New onshore installations in Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East increased by 19%, 27% and 120%, respectively. Global offshore wind achieved 21.1 GW of new grid-connected in 2021 (more than three times as many as in 2020), the best in history. China is thriving, accounting for 80% of the world's offshore wind power increments, which also allows China to surpass the UK to become the country with the largest cumulative installed capacity of offshore wind power in the world. For supply, Bloomberg Energy Finance released the following rankings, six of the top ten Chinese companies, the other foreign companies are the top four in Europe and the United States: VESTAS, SIMENS GAMESA, GE and NORDEX.
Characteristics of the entire wind power market: China's market and supply are about half of the world's, Chinese manufacturers mainly play the Chinese market, Europe and the United States four mainly play the non-Chinese market (in China's market share is almost negligible). Another feature of wind power is that the domestic pricing is based on the unit price of the rated power of the wind turbine, while the international pays more attention to LCOE (levelized electricity cost), the former fights hard to reduce costs, pays more attention to reducing costs, the latter fights for cost performance, pays more attention to the comprehensive benefits of technological progress, and obviously the latter is more scientific internationally; back to the amount of carbon fiber used, we estimate that VESTAS last year was about 25,000 tons, Chinese wind power companies consumed about 4,500 tons, and other enterprises in Europe and the United States consumed 3,500 tons.
For the current level of industry development: carbon fiber is used for wind power, obviously it cannot be cost-driven, but technology-driven, but the rules of the game in the domestic wind power market are not in line with international standards, it is cost-driven, how to solve this dilemma?
From the perspective of the wind power industry, whether it is through going abroad or through industry associations, promoting the domestic wind power market to be in line with international standards, forming a pricing mechanism for LCOE, and not forming a "technology-driven" industry culture, not to mention that carbon fiber is not used, and many innovative technologies have no room to play. From the perspective of carbon fiber, improving the cost performance is the need of the industry's own competition, no matter which industry your carbon fiber is applied in, even if it is a lucrative aerospace field, there is no basis for sustainable and healthy development without improving the cost performance. From another point of view, if you can survive under the "cruel" cost pressure of wind power, you can "laugh at the rivers and lakes".
Only when the wind power and carbon fiber industries cooperate sincerely can they produce unique results: First, both industries are still booming, and there is no reason to look at the problem with static thinking. Looking back at VESTAS 20 years ago to try to use carbon fiber, that era, carbon fiber is not only expensive, the quality is also very poor, they have persevered all the way, to have today's brilliance; carbon fiber people should also have the vision of development to deal with cooperation, our products today are indeed less cost-effective than ZOLTEK, and ZOLTEK developed PX-35, is not a tailor-made variety for wind power! Customized products and composite processes for wind power are still promising, and there is also a huge amount of room for reducing costs. These require sincere cooperation between two parties or two industries. Some wind power companies plan to enter the carbon fiber industry, recognizing the strategic significance of carbon fiber for future wind power, there is a little advice: decision-makers in scientific research, if they do not find headaches of technical difficulties and empirical and effective solutions; actuarial costs long-term competition but existing carbon fiber enterprises, I hope you calm and cautious! Because your enthusiasm is likely to not only burden your business with heavy burdens, but also plague the carbon fiber industry.
In addition to the wind power market, the market that is currently determined to continue to grow is carbon carbon composites, pressure vessels; sports and leisure will also maintain stable and strong growth; rail transit has great potential, through years of scientific research accumulation, has gradually demonstrated its demand potential; despite the impact of the epidemic, commercial aviation has been frustrated, but the UAV boom, flying cars will soon enter mass production, the trend of international single-channel aircraft using carbon fiber has been obvious, this market is worth looking forward to The development of these application markets and the development of the carbon fiber composite material industry are also complementary, and it is necessary to form sincere cooperation, not only stay in the buying and selling relationship, but also need to form an application ecological chain research alliance.
Through the last round of development, the carbon fiber industry has formed a certain "territorial division", engaged in aerospace carbon fiber enterprises, we call it "strict certification of small tow", industrial applications: high-performance small tow, conventional performance small tow, large tow (including high performance), a total of four types of production technology, each with its own characteristics. According to their respective advantages and different application markets, they can match the in-depth development and establish their own characteristics and depth of the ecological chain. If the entire industry develops according to this idea, it will once again fall into the trap of low-level repeated construction and blood-shopping prices.
2. High-quality materials are the eternal love of the market
In the nearly three years of red-hot development in the mainland, due to the shortage of carbon fiber supply in the world, the business of each of our enterprises is very prosperous, and we can achieve inventory-free sales. Among them, there are also many users who are not satisfied with the quality of performance and swallow their voices. Compared with the previous Japanese, especially Toray's fibers, our performance quality is unstable, the fiber processing performance is poor, and there is no fundamental improvement through this round of expansion, which is undoubtedly a hidden danger for the sustained and healthy development of the industry. Each of our factories needs to clearly understand that the hot sales in this round are mainly due to the shortage of market supply, not the result of product quality. When the market supply and demand balance, or even oversupply, the right to choose will return to the hands of users, at this time, quality problems will once again become the most headache for enterprise managers. And this day, according to our analysis of the Chinese market in the previous chapter, will definitely come in 2022. Naked swimmers will show up after the tide recedes.
In the last round of development of China's carbon fiber (2002-2012), in addition to the problem of "simple technology repeated investment", there is another problem, which is similar to the "mu production of 10,000 pounds" bragging competition: the Zhang family made A T700, the Li family must T800, and the Wang family can only T1000. Of course, aerospace does have certain needs, and there are indeed some companies that are down-to-earth to do these key problems, and people and enterprises that do practical things are more low-key, rarely bragging about the outside world, and the most fierce bragging companies have long disappeared into the sea of people.
In this round of development (2012-2022), because there are practical things to do, everyone has little time to brag, and few people have to compete with T700\T800\T1000; the big waves and sand, people who rely on bragging and pits to deceive have also sunk to the bottom of the river. The biggest achievement we have achieved is that the carbon fiber urgently needed by the country has been basically guaranteed, for civilian use, efficient construction of production lines, and soon open production lines and products, just in time for the market to be good, everyone is busy expanding production capacity; the consensus of "improving quality and increasing efficiency" proposed at the beginning of this round has completed half of the "efficiency increase", and the work of "improving quality" has not been fundamentally improved.
The quality of carbon fiber is mainly composed of the stability of performance and processability. The stability of the properties includes the discrete coefficients of mechanical properties (mainly tensile strength and modulus) and physical properties (line density). Composite structural designs typically use a B-reference value (at least 90% of the data is higher than it at 95% confidence). The smaller the performance dispersion coefficient of carbon fiber, the greater the permissible value of the composite material, which can reduce the weight and cost of the structure. Therefore, the importance of the discrete coefficient is even greater than the mechanical properties themselves. Processability mainly includes yarn ingot length, less hair wool mass, no splitting, no flipping and twisting, good silk spreading, slurry matching of different post-processing processes, etc. At present, the biggest problem of our domestic carbon fiber is the hair problem. The same prepreg or weaving equipment, compared with the previous imported silk, the manual cleaning of the silk channel has increased significantly. The spread of fibers, domestic and Japanese fibers also have a large gap, which leads to the uneven width of the tow, the uniformity of the prepreg and the fabric is not good, for the manufacture of ultra-thin thermoset prepreg belt and thermoplastic prepreg belt formed a difficulty.
We do not encourage enterprises in T300/T700\T800\T1000 to do bragging competitions, we hope that our enterprises in the quality: in the discrete coefficient, wool, silk spreading and other aspects to do market competition, dare to "brag" to the market, to ensure; because we believe that as long as the enterprise pays attention to quality, as long as a period of experience accumulation, the steady improvement of performance is a natural thing.
3. The carbon fiber industry must hold high the banner of "technology driven" for a long time
Looking at the enterprises in the industry that use the resources of the industrial chain to control and use the scale to enhance competitiveness, we dare not agree. The main reason is the judgment of the stage of industrial development, we have repeatedly said: carbon fiber is still in early childhood, and its technological development space is still very large. Therefore, the main contradiction in early childhood is the competition of technology; when the development of technology encounters a ceiling, the technology of enterprises in the industry tends to be consistent, and the main contradiction in the mature period is the scale effect and the integration strength of upstream and downstream resources. Therefore, there should be corresponding strategies for different periods.
Technological competition is "eight immortals across the sea, each showing its magic", not only everyone is convinced, but also respectful, hard to learn, which is the right way to bring the industry into sustainable and healthy development, and the scale effect and the key to the integration of upstream and downstream resources is the financial ability of enterprises. At present, China's major carbon fiber enterprises are large central enterprises and state-owned enterprises, and they must "expand their armaments and engage in confrontation" and everyone has this strength. When no one can stand up to anyone on this road, everyone sits together to talk about how to destroy "nuclear weapons", or like OPEC, how many production lines are closed in each house? Is it cost-effective to do so from the perspective of national interests? In the process of everyone's scale and resource confrontation, someone must have killed the red eye and began to "malicious human resources integration" (digging people and digging corners between each other), so that the core technology spread between manufacturers. In the past few years, these barbaric and disorderly competitions will inevitably bring the industry into the tragic situation of "no return", watching several giants in Europe and the United States still dominate the leading position, how can our generation of carbon fiber people be embarrassed?
Carbon fiber technology is an extremely complex technical system: from the quality of raw materials and accessories to the various processes of raw silk and carbonization, it contains a large number of basic research, process and equipment cognition, parameters and experience. Among them, the most basic is cognition. Where does our perception come from? The degree of understanding of basic research, the learning of advanced enterprises and experts, and the experience of their own engineering practice. There are several textbooks in the industry, which used to be the introductory textbook for many enterprises, the significance is very important, although there are many mistakes; then learn from international advanced enterprises and experts, many of which have been proved and supported by practice, and gradually become our own cognition. But in general, the perception of the industry is still mainly external. We have not yet developed enough R&D capabilities to continuously produce advanced cognition.
The weakness of research and development capabilities is a major problem in the current carbon fiber industry: one is the research of academic and technical foundations, before the development of the industry, it is mainly guided by longitudinal topics to do research, and adopts the idea of product development that follows international advanced enterprises. After the development of the industry, the energy of many professors and scholars has been put into the vigorous industrial construction, and the research work has been somewhat delayed; the other is the research of enterprise engineering technology, when the early business is not good, everyone can still do some research, the business is good, the few engineering and technical personnel are mainly focused on the construction of the new production line, the previous improvement and upgrading work, there is no time to do, and the research and development work has stopped. As a result, the R&D investment and capacity of the entire industry have declined.
How to enhance the R&D and innovation capabilities of the industry? First of all, we must change the following mentality and build technical self-confidence. Indeed, for many industries, we are all learning from Europe and the United States, and we must have a stage of "knowing what is natural and not knowing why it is", and we will not think without copying. When we gradually become familiar with key technologies, especially with positive design capabilities, we need to think about problems according to basic principles, practice more, and make more mistakes! We don't need to be afraid of making mistakes, we don't need to be afraid of failure, we need to get used to failure, to welcome failure, because innovation is always hidden in a room of failures in some corner. Look at the vast majority of human engineering and technological innovations, and you will also find this law.
4. The carbon fiber industry should explore the way of industrial civilization
Since the reform and opening up, our manufacturing industry has made remarkable achievements in the world, and a large number of products rank first in the world. Made in China has indeed become a national business card with "low price and good quality". Then, under the fine number, most of them are products with low technical content. For high technology, especially hard technology, we have too many "card necks", which is a very complicated problem. The term "industrial civilization" here is not aimed at the meaning of "agricultural civilization", but refers to: for emerging industries with huge space for technological development, to avoid the low-level repeated construction of homogeneous and disorderly competition, and to establish an advanced industrial and commercial culture and social culture that gives priority to technological competition, ecological chain construction, competition, and cooperation.
As mentioned earlier, the expansion of carbon fiber in the mainland of 2021-2022, most of which is still in the field of conventional small tows, and the trend of market development (wind power, carbon carbon composites, gas cylinders, etc.) is large tows (including high-performance large tows) and tailor-made special small tows, and the serious oversupply of conventional products will inevitably produce a fierce price fight, and under the price war, there is no winner in the entire industry. Downstream enterprises are also happy for a short period of time and are dragged down for a long time. Some people say: "Shopping malls are like battlefields, competition is inevitable." Why is there competition? Is the competition that loses all in the industry a healthy competition or a malicious competition? According to this logic, Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cannot Coexist, Boeing and Airbus cannot coexist, and the world does not need anti-monopoly law to abolish martial arts.
Back to our carbon fiber field, I understand the following points of industrial civilization:
Understand the laws of the industry, and gradually learn and master the advanced business ideas that match it: We take the three carbon fiber companies in Japan as an example: Toray has entered the industry since 1961 and has not been profitable for decades. They are not in a hurry, they are not lying flat, they are still striving for decades, and they know that human beings are still in the learning curve of carbon fiber, and time is the most important input parameter. Most of the entrepreneurs on the mainland have succeeded in undertaking mature industries transferred from developed countries, and success has brought self-confidence and pride, mistakenly believing that they are omnipotent. These mature industries have completed most of the learning curve internationally, more technical work with small changes, and not too many pioneering, disruptive, zero-to-one difficult technologies. The carbon fiber industry still has a lot of difficult technologies waiting for human beings to learn, explore and overcome. We need to understand the laws of the industry and earnestly learn from international advanced enterprises the business ideas of engaging in hard science and technology. Instead of the "Great Leap Forward" thinking of "rushing for quick success" and "how bold people are, how productive the land is" to engage in the hard technology industry.
We must resolutely abandon the backward thinking of vicious competition. "Can one mountain accommodate two tigers"? This mountain in Japan, for decades, has been allowing Toray, Toho and Mitsubishi three tigers, there is competition, have not heard of these three engaged in price shopping, kill opponents for happiness. In modern commercial civilization, in addition to the "law of the jungle" model of "the law of the jungle" that we once believed in, there is also a model of benign symbiosis and common development that creates more value for society through innovation and collaboration. Carbon fiber actually gives us a very broad space for survival and development, regardless of fiber varieties, composite design, molding process, wide application, each of our existing enterprises, can find a suitable space for themselves, no need to peep at the territory of others and infringe on it, we should respect the "frontier" enterprises and the legitimate profits they obtain, to despise because of the red eyes and kill into this field, harm others and harm themselves.
The capital behind the industry needs to be smarter than value investing. In the lessons of the development of Carbon Fiber in China for more than two decades, in addition to the hot heads of some entrepreneurs, there are also factors of "capital restlessness and blindness" behind them. There are many large enterprises in Japan that have been in contact with and engaged in carbon fiber, looking at the carbon fiber business so good, how come there are no new entrants, Japanese capital is not as smart as our money or not as smart as mainland capital? There is a famous saying in the Internet industry that "standing on the outlet, pigs can fly", when the capital said that our carbon fiber is now the "outlet", I told him: "There are no pigs in the carbon fiber industry, they are a group of people who do technology in a down-to-earth manner." If you think that carbon fiber is now the "wind outlet", congratulations, the pig thinks the same way, and this pig can't fly up against the wind outlet, only the fate of slaughtering." China's carbon fiber in 2021-2022 is at a new historical turning point. For capital, there will be a new type of torture: "want to cry without tears, can't stop wanting, bleeding non-stop, life is better than death." "Invest with caution!
Carbon fiber enterprises should be brave enough to be the leader of the industrial chain and promote the ecological construction of industrial technology innovation
In the industrial policy of the development of new materials, the mainland will always put forward the concept of "market or application traction". In the arrangement of R&D projects, it is also natural to use leading enterprises as the lead unit of the project team. This leads to a problem, because the application unit is not familiar with carbon fiber and its composite materials, they think that carbon fiber is a similar material to steel, aluminum alloy, plastic, they themselves are very familiar with the structure of the application, it is not difficult to do a material replacement. This kind of thinking will lead to the premature or reluctant intersection of R&D projects, which is not practically helpful for the country's R&D strength in this regard.
What's the problem? We know that the completion of a structure requires the analysis of the load, and then the structural design according to the load, and then the choice of material and molding process. For traditional materials, application units only need to understand the properties of the material to fit into their existing design and molding processes. But for carbon fiber composites, the design and molding process is very different from traditional materials. The final result is that the application unit gives the carbon fiber industry structural load and working conditions, and the carbon fiber composite material field completes a large design (including structural design, molding process design, quality control design, material and form selection, etc.). Technically only, who should take the lead?
Let's learn from the experience of developed countries, the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Evaluation OTS, which published "Advanced Material by Design" in 1988, introduced: "U.S. commercial application users believe that the application of these materials will not be profitable in the next 5 years, and it will take 10 to 20 years to solve technical problems and develop fast, low-cost manufacturing methods." And the rapid pace of technological evolution could make these processes obsolete. As a result, there is very little commercial market pull on advanced materials technology in the United States. In contrast to the United States, foreign countries, especially Japan, are pursuing a "technology push" approach, where materials companies sacrifice short-term profits to gain the necessary experience to secure huge market share in the future. Such a bold approach would give these companies a significant advantage in developing global markets. OTAs have found that long-term experience with advanced materials is a prerequisite for competition, and U.S. commercial application companies should not expect that technical problems will be resolved by other companies before they intervene in competitive advanced material products. We simply review the application history of carbon fiber will develop, and many industrial applications are "technology-driven" by carbon fiber companies, not the result of "market traction".
In view of the above cognition, our carbon fiber enterprises need composite design companies with strong technical strength inside and outside the United Nations (not only structural design, but also a large design concept, including the entire manufacturing chain of composite materials), and potential application units to jointly promote the construction of industrial ecological chains. Among them, first of all, we must clearly understand the optimal state of the structural load and operating conditions of the application, clarify the best matching carbon fiber varieties, find or innovate an efficient and low-cost molding process, neither for the application of the existing metal process, nor for the so-called traditional or classic composite material process, but also can not be limited by the current carbon fiber varieties of the market, according to the most fundamental needs or expectations of the application, bold creation! When our carbon fiber enterprises have such capabilities, you do not do the faucet, who do you give up?
Just as the glass fiber industry is booming, carbon fiber has a similar bright future. We remain optimistic about last year's report's forecast of 500,000-600,000 tonnes in 2030. The development of the application market provides an opportunity for existing carbon fiber products to bloom; in-depth ecological construction, adding diversified products for the carbon fiber industry. Each carbon fiber company will also deepen its own ecological chain and concentrate on polishing its products to international standards. The whole industry needs to strengthen the research and development of basic technology and engineering technology: in addition to the improvement of existing technologies, it is urgent to carry out the research work of "a new generation of carbon fiber technology", so that our academics can start to prosper again, so that enterprises and scientific research institutions can form a closer and more efficient research and development alliance, and China's carbon fiber must have a better tomorrow!
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