Huang Fuxiang, chief expert of Qianshun Technology Center of Beijing Shougang Co., Ltd., is a leader in the quality improvement of automotive steel, he adheres to the product positioning of "high-end, efficient, green and environmentally friendly", starts with the oxygen control technology of the whole process of automobile exterior plate smelting, and leads the team to develop a number of major key technologies, and the product iteration and upgrading has reached the international leading level. The following is the second issue of the series of reports on "Science and Technology on Model Workers" produced by Beijing traffic radio reporter Zhang Sainan - "Huang Fuxiang: Improve steel defects and write "papers" on the production line
Huang Fuxiang takes samples in the production workshop/reporter shoots
In the production workshop, Huang Fuxiang took a marker pen and a measuring ruler and repeatedly compared on a piece of steel.
Huang Fuxiang: It's a little hot, don't touch it. We often inspect the blank here, we mark it for a sample, and then we go to the processing shop to cut it out.
The workshop was very hot, even though the steel materials that had been stacked were very hot, and the feeling of roasting was overwhelming. Huang seems to have been used to it for a long time, because this is an essential part of research – sampling.
Huang Fuxiang: People who are engaged in steel are basically oriented to high temperatures. The samples that we make here are cut out from here and then processed over there into samples that can be tested. As long as we have experiments, we all need to go to the site, and when it's hot, we must have tens of degrees Celsius on site, and people can only stay there for maybe a second or two.
Huang Fuxiang's work photo/Courtesy of the interviewee
Huang Fuxiang is the chief technologist of the Qianshun Technology Center of Beijing Shougang Co., Ltd., and after receiving his Ph.D. in iron and steel metallurgy from the University of Science and Technology Beijing in 2009, he stayed at the university to engage in related research. Years of scientific research experience have cultivated Huang Fuxiang's rigorous academic attitude, but he has also gradually realized that in order to truly solve technical problems, it is necessary to combine theory and practice. In 2017, Huang Fuxiang officially joined Shougang Co., Ltd.
Huang Fuxiang: In fact, many problems in iron and steel metallurgy still come from production, that is, the problems on site are actually more complicated. I was hired as the chief technologist at the time, and it turned out that we used to read books or listen to other people's lectures a lot of the time, but in the field, many of the situations are ever-changing. If this theory can be combined with practice, then I think it should actually be better for our profession, including the technical personnel who study this specialty.
After joining the company, Huang Fuxiang served as a technician in the steelmaking operation department, and in order to systematically understand the details of the process and equipment control parameters of each process, he took the initiative to go to the front line to participate in the shift, which was 268 days.
Huang Fuxiang: 4 shifts, from converter to refining to continuous casting, including to some finished products in the back, to cold rolling, etc., I have gone through every post and every link, so that we can fully understand the specific equipment details of the production line, which will help us return to the laboratory to analyze and solve problems.
Huang Fuxiang's work photo/Courtesy of the interviewee
With the rapid development of high quality in the domestic automobile industry, first-class car companies have extremely high requirements for the surface quality of automotive steel, and solving the surface defect control technology of high-grade automotive steel has always been a common problem in the steel industry.
Huang Fuxiang: Because these users have particularly strict requirements for the surface quality of automotive plates, but the quality of our molten steel is not very high at the beginning, so we will have some defects on the surface of the finished product, so the proportion of this scrap rate will be relatively high.
Inclusion defects are a limiting link to improve the surface quality and product yield of automobile exterior panels. In 2018, Shougang Co., Ltd. established a research team for tackling key problems on automotive exterior panels, and Huang Fuxiang, who had been in the company for less than a year, resolutely took over this heavy burden.
Huang Fuxiang: We have a very vivid example, we are producing dough, and then we are making bread, so if the quality of the dough is not good, and they process it into bread later, it will be exposed (problem). The total oxygen of the tundish, it is actually to characterize the content of inclusions in the molten steel, if the content of this inclusion in our molten steel is more, it will be exposed to the surface of our finished product, resulting in some surface defects, so the inclusions are very critical to the quality of steel, including our entire production process.
With his previous experience in the field, Huang Fuxiang realized that the long cycle and many processes were stumbling blocks to solving this problem.
Huang Fuxiang: The biggest problem we encountered was that every time we made an adjustment to the previous process, it had to wait for a long time before it could be fed back to us. This defect caused by our molten steel, it has to go through a long process, including hot rolling deformation, cold rolling deformation, galvanizing until the finished product, its entire production cycle takes more than half a month, and then it takes three months to feedback this defect to the user. Later, in order to solve this problem, we set up a consistent public relations team, so that we could fully collaborate and speed up the progress of our process experiments. We'll do some computational simulations, including some experiments, and we also have a proprietary pyrometallurgical laboratory over there......
Various test samples stacked in the laboratory/photographed by reporters
Entering the laboratory, there are all kinds of samples on the table, sampling, testing, analysis, and improvement, such a repetitive process, Huang Fuxiang and his team have done it thousands of times.
Huang Fuxiang: I usually work here a lot, and these are the samples of some experiments that we have to test. We need to polish and polish these samples to make a mirror-like surface, and put them in the scanning electron microscope to automatically analyze some of the components of its inclusions, including its size. It takes about two hours for each sample, which is quite a lot of detection or analysis volume.
Huang Fuxiang checks the test data/reporter shooting
Hard work pays off. After several rounds of process tests, with nearly 5 years of continuous efforts, Huang Fuxiang led the research team to completely solve this industry problem, providing valuable experience for domestic iron and steel enterprises to control inclusion defects when producing high-end automobile exterior panels, and he also truly realized the "paper" written on the production line.
Huang Fuxiang: By investigating the practices of some advanced enterprises, including retrieving some literature, we have developed some unique technologies, such as transferring to auxiliary blowing technology, as well as some new refining processes, so that the crystallinity of our molten steel has been significantly improved. In the early days, all the steel mills that produced automotive steel in China, including the most advanced enterprises such as Baosteel, basically produced automotive steel with an oxygen content of more than 20-25 ppm. Oxygen, which represents the level of cleanliness of molten steel, we have innovated through this process, and then the tundish oxygen of our current automotive plate is basically less than 15ppm, and the molten steel has become cleaner.
Clogged discarded spouts/photographed by journalists
In addition to inclusion defects, another type of surface defects of automobile plates is mainly caused by the slag of continuous casting mold coils. This defect is closely related to the plugging of the immersion nozzle.
Huang Fuxiang: You see that our early nozzle is like this, that is, it is very blocked, and our molten steel has to pass through it, and it has to flow from this tundish to the crystallizer, but because there are a lot of these white inclusions in the molten steel. If the crystallinity of the molten steel is not high, then this kind of inclusion will be deposited on the inner wall, and if it is deposited, it will gradually block the hole. We have tried many theoretically effective process methods, but none of them have achieved significant results.
How to solve the problem of clogged nozzles, Huang Fuxiang did not work behind closed doors, but chose to fully discuss and communicate.
Huang Fuxiang: We went to an international conference and exchanged discussions with the technical personnel of some of the more advanced enterprises in South Korea, and gained some understanding. In addition, we have done a lot of detailed research on the mechanism from the microscopic nature, and really understood the essential reason why the water outlet is blocked. Then we developed a new type of nozzle, which completely solved the problem of poor intercourse of this kind of automobile plate.
Huang Fuxiang consulted relevant information/reporter shooting
In addition to the production workshop and laboratory, most of Huang's research is conducted in the office. In order to solve all kinds of "incurable diseases" as soon as possible, Huang Fuxiang's desk is full of Chinese and foreign documents and materials.
Huang Fuxiang: We all put it here, and we will turn the book whenever there is any problem, basically the experience of some advanced foreign enterprises, some of the technologies they have introduced, including some research results, we will obtain it by reading literature, including reading books. Books like these are the ones we buy digitally from the Internet and print them out ourselves. Engaging in scientific research is to sit on a cold bench, and it is unrealistic to rush to achieve results, because there are no ready-made answers to many questions, and you can only try again and again, and then continue to accumulate.
Today, Huang Fuxiang and his team are still conducting in-depth exploration and research on the occasional problem of large particle inclusions on the surface of steel plates, which will provide assistance for enterprises to produce high-end products efficiently and stably.
Huang Fuxiang: We still don't know much about its causes, including some of its control methods, so we're doing this now. We hope to be able to break through in one or two years, which will definitely be very beneficial to the quality improvement of high-end automotive steel like us and help Shougang develop with high quality.
Huang Fuxiang's work photo/Courtesy of the interviewee
In 2022, Huang Fuxiang was awarded the honorary title of "Capital Labor Medal", the first prize of Beijing Science and Technology Progress Award in 2023, and the "National May Day Labor Medal" in 2024. When talking about what he understands the "spirit of model workers", Huang Fuxiang said:
Huang Fuxiang: I am a researcher engaged in steelmaking technology in the field, because our profession is relatively practical. One of the things I've always believed in is to explore in the field, and the site is where we study.
Scientific and technological innovation is a "key variable" and the "largest increment" of high-quality development. Under the conditions of digital economy, Huang Fuxiang has made unremitting efforts to form and develop new quality productivity, and strive to build a global leading edge in the new round of industrial transformation.
Reporter/Editor: Zhang Sainan
Editor-in-Chief: Zhu Laisheng