<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the first excavator in China</h1>
Do you know how efficient The First Excavator in China is?
It only takes 8 hours to dig 30,000 tons of coal, and if it works according to the 996 model, it can dig up a hill weighing more than 200,000 tons in a week.
This excavator is the hydraulic excavator developed by XCMG, model XE7000, it is a proper Giant, weighing 700 tons, and the bucket alone can accommodate 100 adults.
Do you know that a big country like this has a heavy weapon for China's infrastructure and economic development?
Since China's reform and opening up, due to rapid urbanization and the development of many super projects, China has also been called "infrastructure demon" by netizens. From high-rise buildings to water conservancy facilities, from railway bridges to man-made islands, China has set a new record in the history of world architecture at an astonishing speed, creating one miracle after another.
In addition to the wisdom of engineers and the hard work of construction personnel, these world-renowned project construction are inseparable from the support of large-scale construction machinery and equipment such as excavators.
In the middle of the Junggar Coalfield in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, there is an open-pit coal mine called Heidaigou, which is the third largest coal mine in the world and the largest open-pit coal mine in Asia.
Since 1999, the production of low-sulfur and low-phosphorus coal has reached an annual output of about 30 million tons, which has greatly promoted China's industrial development and GDP.
Mining coal requires blasting, which produces 1.7 million cubic meters of gravel, which needs to be removed from the mining area as quickly as possible. Working here is the XE7000 hydraulic excavator, which can shovel 60 tons of earth and stone at a time, close to the capacity of a train, and the maximum excavation height is 18.7 meters, equivalent to 6 floors high.
XE7000 excavator is independently developed by XCMG Group, 700 tons of hydraulic excavator, only four countries in the world can produce, namely China, the United States, Japan and Germany.
However, more than a decade ago, the domestic super large excavator of more than 200 tons still needs to be purchased from abroad, and now from 200 tons to 700 tons of excavators, China can manufacture, while spending 7 years to complete the development of hydraulic excavators, this process took more than 20 years abroad.
China's excavator production started late, from the first mechanical single bucket excavator with a bucket capacity of 1 cubic meter produced in 1954 to the present, it has generally gone through three stages of surveying and mapping imitation, independent research and development and development and improvement.
In 1954, the first electric motor-driven excavator in the United States had been around for 44 years.
France also developed the world's first excavator with a hydraulic system three years ago.
The role of the hydraulic system is to increase the force by changing the pressure, mainly refers to the hydraulic transmission system, and the main function is to transmit power and movement. A complete hydraulic system consists of five parts, namely the power element, the actuator, the control element, the auxiliary element and the hydraulic oil.
The power element first converts the mechanical energy generated by the engine into the pressure energy of the liquid, which provides power to the entire hydraulic system. The actuator then converts the pressure energy of the liquid into mechanical energy and drives the bucket excavation of the excavator. The control element can be understood as the power center in the hydraulic system, which controls and adjusts the size and direction of the hydraulic kinetic energy.
Depending on the function, there are three main hydraulic valves, namely pressure control valves, flow control valves and directional control valves.
China did not develop the first crawler hydraulic excavator until 1963, but at that time, China's hydraulic excavator technology was very immature. Due to the harsh working conditions of the excavator, the design of the hydraulic system is put forward high requirements, and the hydraulic system of the excavator is also the most complex in all the hydraulic systems of construction machinery, so the design of the hydraulic system has become an important factor in promoting the development of excavator technology.
At that time, china could be said to have no funds, no technology, no talents, and the gap in excavator technology could be imagined. However, at that time, the national door was not opened, and the domestic excavators were all localized, and they did not feel the gap.
Until the 1990s, the domestic excavator market ushered in great changes, for China's excavator market, it is both a hopeless situation and a rebirth.
At that time, China's reform and opening up was unprecedentedly high, and Europe, the United States and Japan occupied most of the excavator market.
China's first excavator manufacturers have collapsed and closed down, or seek cooperation with foreign capital to introduce technology.
Taking the Hefei Mining Machinery Factory as an example, the excavators produced are based on imitation or the assistance technology of socialist countries, whether it is from the bucket capacity of the excavator, or from the core key components, the excavators of hekuang have no competition to speak of.
The model it produced at that time was the WY80 excavator, with a bucket capacity of only 0.8 cubic meters, and the engine and hydraulic parts were the shortest of the short boards.
In order to seek a breakthrough, Hekuang co-production with Hitachi Construction Machinery in Japan in 1995.
Coincidentally, Guiyang Mining Machinery Factory established a joint venture with a Canadian company in 1996, and Hangzhou Heavy Machinery Factory was reorganized into Hangzhou Heavy Machinery Co., Ltd. in 1999.
And so on, there were many such things in those days.
The addition of foreign capital, although the domestic excavator collapsed, but brought advanced technology and management mode, China's excavator industry at this time began to launch a catch-up to the world.
Also thanks to the development of the domestic infrastructure industry, the market demand for excavators has increased year by year, and China's excavator manufacturing enterprises have begun to come back to life. Since the reform and opening up more than 30 years ago, there are 252 excavator manufacturing enterprises in China, and a large number of excavator brands have risen rapidly, gradually becoming the leader of the excavator industry in China and even in the world.
XCMG Group and Sany Heavy Industry are the leaders in the excavator industry.
XCMG has newly developed and manufactured the world's top hydraulic excavators, and Sany Heavy Industry has sold excavators to the world.
According to the survey data of The Global Authoritative Off-Highway Research, Sany Heavy Industry sold more than 98,000 excavators in 2020, beating the American giant Caterpillar and becoming the global sales champion for the first time, accounting for 15% of the global market share, which is also the peak moment of China's excavator industry.
However, since The reform and opening up in China, the excavator enterprises that can grow up have experienced many difficulties and fierce competition to develop to today's point.
From the introduction of foreign excavator technology, domestic excavators began to decline, until around 2000, the domestic excavator market is either a joint venture brand, or a pure import of foreign brands.
In 2000, the sales volume of domestic brands was only 502 units, accounting for 5% of the total market.
And foreign countries have been monopolizing the core technology, more than 200 tons of excavators, the domestic simply can not be built, imported then you have to spend high prices, then China engaged in super infrastructure projects, in order to promote social and economic development, had to need super large excavators, a time excavators became the key to restrict China's development.
At the beginning of the 21st century, sany heavy industry in the field of concrete machinery development is like a bamboo, in the face of the current situation of China's excavator market, Sany Group chairman Liang Wengen said that Sany must produce the world's best excavators, enhance the world image of Chinese manufacturing.
However, Sany Heavy Industry is a blank space for the excavator field, and it also faces countless powerful foreign-funded enterprises, which are strong people who have been deeply involved in the global market for decades. In the eyes of outsiders, Liang Wengen is talking big and somewhat self-sufficient.
In a state of ridicule, Sany's R&D department began the first batch of test assembly, but the results were not satisfactory, and the test machines all failed. The large technology gap and unstable supply chain have become the main problems, in order to solve these two problems, Sany's R & D department has spent a lot of manpower and material resources.
The project team only wrote an electronic control system program to take a month, in order to solve the problem of basic support, Sany Heavy Industry's first experience generation of Yihua ran through the domestic and foreign parts suppliers.
After arduous efforts, Sany Heavy Industry finally developed the first crawler hydraulic excavator, which caused a sensation in the entire industry when it first appeared. This batch of new products has been tested in Sanya, Hainan, and has gone to the opportunity of actual combat.
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games attracted the world's attention, and China's excavator industry also ushered in the highlight moment of the world's attention. Sany Heavy Industry independently developed China's first 200-ton crawler hydraulic excavator, which directly filled the gap in the domestic market, and China's infrastructure development no longer had to be subject to foreign countries.
At the same time, Sany Heavy Industry is also known as the largest construction machinery manufacturer in China, and the results after that are known to everyone. The localization of excavators has broken the monopoly of foreign countries, so that the price of excavators has plummeted, not only domestic, but also the global market pattern has undergone great changes, and China's excavators have begun to go to the world.
Today, XCMG's 700-ton hydraulic excavator is already the world's top engineering equipment, but it is only a microcosm of China's heavy equipment.
Kunlun is the world's first 1,000-ton transport-frame integrated bridge machine, which is under construction on the Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed railway.
China's self-developed three-armed rock drilling trolley, which is the pioneer of tunnel construction, was selected by the Sichuan-Tibet Railway to undertake the task of drilling and opening the mountain. China's self-designed manned submersible Exploration II, loaded with China's self-developed all-deep-sea manipulator, is about to start its trip to the Mariana Trench.
Shenzhou XII manned spacecraft was successfully launched, successfully docked with the core module of Tianhe, and three astronauts were stationed in Chinese their own space station, and after 2025, it will be the only space station for mankind.
China's heavy equipment has been fully developed in polar, deep-sea, air and space, transportation, infrastructure and other aspects.
To borrow a few poems from Chairman Mao:
You can go up to the moon for nine days, and you can catch turtles in the five oceans. There is nothing difficult in the world, as long as you can climb it.
Some people may also question that our technology is not sophisticated enough, for example, the core technology of some excavators is still monopolized by Western countries. But Chinese has never stopped making progress, please give the researchers some time.