Editor's note
On June 3 this year, the company ushered in the 159th anniversary of the factory, and on the same day, the 2023-2024 moving Jiangnan Award Ceremony was held at the Jiangnan Research Institute. At the ceremony, some of the representatives of the top ten individuals and teams released special stories, and they told the story of Jiangnan people's firm action consciousness of doing it, being strong, breaking through, and winning together. Let's listen to their touching stories and walk into their struggles together.
The 2024 Shanghai Forum on Intelligent Digital Shipbuilding and Advanced Technology Technology will be held on July 25-26
The American Bureau of Shipping estimates that there are currently 1,250 active shipyards. A list of more than 400 shipyards in China was released
Overcome difficulties and serve Jiangnan
Hello everyone! I am Qiang Weidong from the LNG pump tower construction team of Jiangnan Pipe Industry.
In April this year, we delivered the first batch of pump towers, and our own pump towers were used for the first large LNG ship built in Jiangnan. Today, I'm going to share a story about the pump tower.
You may have a question, isn't Jiangnan Pipe Industry making pipes? Why do you want to do a pump tower?
The pipe industry has been developing with the company over the years. During the development process, we kept thinking, what else can we do besides the tube? How do we break through? How to better serve the Jiangnan strategy?
The news that Jiangnan undertook an order for 175,000 LNG carriers provided us with an opportunity. The LNG carrier market is becoming more and more popular, so we thought, what can we do around LNG?
We found the pump tower. The pump tower is a very important component of the LNG tank, which is relatively expensive and difficult to build. Further in-depth research, the main body of the pump tower is a large structural part made of stainless steel pipes, and it happens that Jiangnan Pipe Industry has more mature experience in the production of low-temperature stainless steel pipes.
Theoretically feasible, but as a new product field, it will inevitably face great difficulties and challenges to break through.
One of the challenges is the questioning of shipowners and all parties: is Jiangnan Pipe Industry feasible? Is the quality of the pump tower reliable? What if the construction fails? This series of questions will never be satisfactorily answered until the pump tower is built.
So the real difficulty is, how do you build it!
The pump tower looks big, but the construction is a very delicate job. Let me give you a few examples:
I clearly remember that the day of construction was July 13th, it was a high temperature of 39 degrees, our welders shook the arc gun in their hands, sweating profusely, in order to ensure the quality of welding, the welding area can not have a large airflow, only after welding a weld waiting for the cooling time to blow cold air in the distance; Moreover, the wall of the pump tower is much thicker than that of conventional pipes, and each weld needs to be depicted by the welder layer by layer like embroidery.
The pump tower floor is a stainless steel structure, and we have no previous experience in this field, so it can be said that it is a blank. The bottom plate of the 175K pump tower has a lot more full-penetration fillet welds than the 80K, all of which require UT flaw detection, and it is quite difficult to clean the reverse side of the fist-sized area, and the conventional grinding disc cannot be used at all, what should I do?
One of our welders pointed out that he had used a small burr in his previous industry, and after we tried it, we solved the space problem, but the root cleaning efficiency was low.
Our team leader Zhang Xiaobin lay on it and tried it for a while, saying that the old waist couldn't stand it, and our welders needed to carve every weld day after day.
The flatness of the bottom plate is required to ensure that it is ±3mm, if it is built according to the conventional lap scheme, it is likely to deform greatly, although the pyrotechnic plan has been made, and there is also the pyrotechnic process approved by GTT, but we are not ready to use pyrotechnics for shaping, and the pyrotechnics at high temperature are likely to cause changes in the metallographic structure. After communicating with the manufacturing department, we boldly adopted a modular construction plan, which greatly dispersed the deformation caused by heat conduction. You may not think that one of our employees actually brushed the method of copper heat conduction when brushing Douyin, and we applied it to actual production, and the effect is really good.
In the end, without the use of pyrotechnics, the flatness of the floor was controlled to ±1.5mm, and the shipowner from the initial distrust to the current evaluation of us is good.
With the problems overcome one by one, the acceptance of the key projects of the first tower was completed in October last year, and the four sets of pump towers of the first ship were successfully delivered and successfully hoisted into the liquid tank for installation this year. In this process, we continue to optimize the construction process, the first pump tower is a 3-month construction cycle, and now it can be built in 45 days, and I believe that the 30-day construction period will not be too far away.
What do we get by entering the pump tower market?
First of all, of course, there are economic gains. The first year of the pump tower will bring about 40 million revenue to Jiangnan Pipe Industry; On the other hand, it also contributed to Jiangnan's cost control.
Secondly, the increase in core competitiveness. The technical research and construction and production of the pump tower have enhanced the core competitiveness of Jiangnan Pipe Industry and will bring more market opportunities. It will also provide a boost for Jiangnan to continue to develop the large-scale LNG carrier market.
Third, the growth of the team. Managers, technicians, and workers have gained valuable experience. It's not just about skill growth, it's about how to face difficulties, solve problems, and work together.
In closing, I would like to say: there are only unexpected things, and there is no road that cannot be taken. Once the direction is clear, it's done! Thank you!