At the edge of the city, tall "white giants" stand on the vast horizon, and they are swept in the long wind between the green mountains and green waters, dancing their "wings" to the melody of the wind. Today, China's wind turbine blades rotate not only in the vast land of China, but also in the grasslands and seas of foreign countries. In order to realize such a dream, generations of wind power people in China have struggled for it. Zhou Shaojun, head of product research and development and mechanical engineer of Shanghai Zhiyuan Green Energy Co., Ltd., is one of them.
Since joining the wind power industry in 2010, Zhou Shaojun has led the company's team to participate in the R&D and mass production of a number of new wind power products, mainly responsible for the design of mechanical structures and blades. More than 30 technologies developed by him have obtained domestic and foreign patents, solving the problem of "stuck neck" of key core technologies.
Technological innovation to break the long-term monopoly of foreign countries
In 2021, the first set of domestic NPU-WA airfoil family R21 distributed wind turbine blades jointly developed by the team led by Zhou Shaojun and Northwestern Polytechnical University rolled off the assembly line, marking the birth of wind turbine blades with completely independent intellectual property rights in Songjiang. The reporter saw this set of wind turbine blades in the workshop of Shanghai Zhiyuan, which was huge in size and resembled a whale. "This set of wind turbine blades is 20 meters long and weighs 1.3 tons, and has been verified by full wind tunnel tests, and a number of key performance indicators are better than similar foreign airfoils, especially the efficiency of the wind system can theoretically be increased by 1%-2%, so the improvement of efficiency is still very good in the wind power industry. Zhou Shaojun introduced.
In recent years, the wind power generation industry in mainland China has developed rapidly, especially in the research and development of core technology of wind power generation, but the special airfoil for wind turbines has been monopolized by foreign giants for a long time. "The airfoil is the core unit of aerodynamic aerodynamic design, and the cross-sectional shape of the aircraft and wind turbine blades is the aerodynamic airfoil, which plays a key role in the final performance of the whole aircraft. Zhou Shaojun told reporters that this project will have complete intellectual property rights of domestic airfoil applied to actual products, industrial application and verification, and promote the entire wind power industry airfoil localization process.
Zhou Shaojun's pace of exploration has never stopped, through continuous research, he led the research and development of the new technology of single-drive synchronous pitch has also been applied and mass-produced in a number of the company's product lines, the technology is leading in the industry and obtained the international PCT patent in 2011. "This technology solves the technical problems of insufficient installation space of the pitch mechanism of small and medium-sized wind turbines and low accuracy of multi-blade synchronous control. At the same time, it can improve the reliability and safety of the pitch of the unit, and reduce the manufacturing and maintenance costs. Zhou Shaojun said.
Rise to the challenge and focus on every detail
In view of the difficulty of cement pouring and the freezing of the blades in the severe cold areas such as the Russian Arctic, the roads are covered with snow all the year round, and large construction machinery cannot enter the site, the prefabricated on-site assembled foundation and black anti-icing coating blades are designed, and the self-hoisting tower is designed for the island hoisting equipment that cannot enter the site...... In order to gnaw down the "hard bones", no matter how bad the environment is, Zhou Shaojun will rise to the challenge. Relying on this ruthlessness, he led the team to form a set of customized solutions to mature islands, severe cold, icing, high salt spray and other environments, and overcame one technical problem after another.
"For all the products involved in the development, I personally went to the front line to experience the assembly process of each part, collect requirements, and then improve them, so as to reduce the difficulty of operation for workers and reduce the operation requirements. Zhou Shaojun said so and did so. When the pitch system failed during the trial operation of the company's first 100kw prototype, Zhou Shaojun, as the designer who knows the equipment best, in order to find the cause of the failure as soon as possible and resume the test, he temporarily designed the tooling gondola, fastened the safety belt, climbed to the front end of the hub, and successfully completed the inspection and repair of the equipment at a height of 37 meters above the ground. "There must be fear, but I also want to use this kind of leading role to help all technicians and operators overcome their fears and adapt to this working environment. Zhou Shaojun said.
As a witness, participant, and devotee of wind power technology research and development, in the face of the next challenges, Zhou Shaojun also bluntly said that he will continue to strive for excellence and lead the team to tackle key problems, he said: "The new era has given us a new mission, but also brought new opportunities and challenges, I am very honored to be a part of the green energy practitioners, I will continue to work hard to dedicate clear water and blue sky to mankind, and leave more resources for the future." ”
Text: Li Mengqi
Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee
Editor: Shen Lina