Steel Research Institutions in China

Abstract

China's steel industry has experienced rapid growth in recent years in order to meet the needs of the rapid development of the national economy. The crude steel output reached 100 million tons in 1996 and 567 million tons in 2009. In addition, great progress and improvement have also been made in steel variety, quality and process technology. A series of new and improved technologies for steel manufacturing have been adopted and developed, such as blast furnace coal powder injection, long-campaign-life technology for large blast furnaces, reduction of energy consumption, sintering desulfurization, dry quenching technology in coking; hot metal pretreatment, slag splashing techniques for combined-blowing converters, end blowing point control in BOF steelmaking, secondary refining of liquid steel and clean steel production; thin slab casting and rolling, profile and shape control of strip rolling, online heat treatment of rails of 100 m length, TMCP technology, etc. Many new products have been successfully developed to meet the demand of the national economic development in all sectors; some examples include: high-strength auto steel sheets, pipeline steel specially used for natural gas transportation such as X80, X100 etc., high-strength ship building plate, structural steels for marine engineering, high performance oriented silicon steels, and special steels or alloy steels. Research work for the Chinese steel industry is primarily carried out by three different types of institutions. The first type comprises independent, professional research institutes, such as the China Iron and Steel Research Institute Group, the former Central Iron & Steel Research Institute. It focuses on research and development of ferrous metallurgy and metallic materials. The second type of institutions are universities, which do not only provide lecturing and education for students and engineers but are also the basis for research and technological development in metallurgical and materials engineering serving the steel industry. The universities do fundamental and applied research as well as technology development. The two types of research institutions mentioned above work in close collaboration with steel companies; their research subjects are raised from the steel industry, and their research achievements will be implemented in steel enterprises. The third type of institutions encompasses technical research institutes or technical centers belonging to steel companies, especially in big corporate enterprises. They have high-level scientific and technical staff as well as advanced equipment. They are mainly involved in R&D activities in process and product development concerning their own enterprise (see Figure 1). R & D institutions in the Chinese Steel Industry. One method of funding for independent professional research institutes and universities owned by central or local governments are the various governmental R&D funds. For example, the “New Generation of Recycling Steel Production Process” is supported by the “11th Five-Year National Key Technology R&D Program”, or the “Fundamental Research on New Generation Steel Materials Project and Research on Ultra-Fine Grained Steel Materials Project” is sponsored by the National Basic Research Program and National High-tech. R&D Program. Some of these key research projects are supported by the Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, respectively. Fundamental research projects can usually be financed by the National Natural Science Foundation Committee. Steel companies spend about 1.2% of their sales revenues on R&D, a part of which goes to research studies in professional institutes and universities, but most of it is used for their own projects. To encourage important research achievements, various awards are conferred by the central government, such as the National Invention Prize, National Technology Progress Prize and National Science Prize. Moreover, local governments provide various commendations on a lower level. Awards are also presented by the Chinese metallurgical industry. Independent Steel Research Institutions The Central Iron and Steel Research Institute is one of the most important independent steel research institutes in China, renamed as China Iron and Steel Research Institute Group (CISRI) in 2006. It is involved comprehensively in process and products R&D, mainly concerning ferrous metallurgy, advanced metallic materials, process automation and information technology for metallurgical enterprises and testing technologies etc. and also in the manufacture of respective products. Its staff adds up to a total of 7150 employees. Among them 800 hold the rank of senior engineer and 202 are professors (or with equivalent title). The Graduate School of CISRI is authorized to grant masters and doctoral degrees in 14 and 10 disciplines, respectively. The major research fields are alloyed steels, high temperature alloys, functional materials, refractory metals, powder metallurgy; ferrous metallurgical process technology including iron making, steel making, steel rolling, surface protection, welding; information and automation technique for the steel industry including computer application, electric drive engineering, instruments for materials testing or chemical analysis. Remarkable achievements have been made in key technologies such as blast furnace PCI technology, iron ore sintering and pelletizing, BOF slag splashing, clean steel production, high efficiency continuous casting, coating, and a new generation of by-products recycling. Considering materials properties, the strength of carbon steel, micro-alloying steel and alloy structural steel have been doubled through super-fine-graining, purifying and homogenization. A series of high-performance alloy steels, high-temperature alloys, metal functional materials, amorphous & nanocrystalline materials have been studied and developed to meet the military and civil requirements. CISRI possesses not only all the necessary research facilities and instruments but also own production lines. Furthermore, there are other institutes in the Chinese metallurgy industry, such as Changsha Mining and Metallurgy Research Institute dealing with mining and mineral processing, Anshan Thermal Energy Research Institute working on thermal engineering and coal transformation, Xi'an Research institute for Heavy Machinery focussing on metallurgical equipment R&D, and Luoyang Institute of Refractory Materials studying and developing refractory materials. The Chinese Academy of Science has two institutes doing some basic research on steel technology; one is the Process Engineering Research Institute working on heterogeneous reactions, resources and environmental material chemicals, the other is the Institute of Metal Research, which is engaged in the development of new steel materials and their effectiveness as well as metal corrosion. Universities involved in Ferrous Metallurgy There are more than ten Chinese universities involved in ferrous metallurgy. Among them, the University of Science and Technology Beijing and North East University are the two national key universities and the others are ordinary universities. In addition, some key national comprehensive universities, such as Shanghai University, Chongqing University and Tsinghua University, have also established some disciplines concerning ferrous metallurgy and ferrous materials. All the universities mentioned above not only provide education to students and technical personnel but also own important institutions for R&D work in the fields of ferrous metallurgy and materials. Research subjects in these universities mainly include fundamental and applied research and some of them are concerned with the problems and key technical issues arising from the steel industry. University of Science and Technology Beijing. This university was founded in 1952. Its former name was the Beijing University of Iron & Steel Technology until 1988. It used to be a technical university with its main specialties including ferrous metallurgy, steel materials, metallurgical machinery and mining. After 1988, it became a comprehensive university with an increased number of disciplines including economics, humanities, management and law. Nevertheless, it is still renowned in the steel world as its technical specialties of ferrous metallurgy, materials science and engineering, machinery, mining and minerals have remained key disciplines. The university has 10 schools at present. Five of them are concerned with ferrous metallurgy, these are the School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, the School of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering (including metallurgical and mining machinery and thermal power engineering), School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (Mineral Resources Engineering) and School of Information Engineering (including automation and control in metallurgy processes). Their R&D scope includes more than one hundred projects, such as BF operating expert systems, temperature field studies of BF staves, modeling of slag skin thickness on BF shafts, clean steel production technology, continuous strip rolling control and automation at Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corp. (WISCO) and Anshan Iron and Steel Group Corp. (ANSTEEL), 3-roll star decline rolling, screw blade rolling equipment and technology, curving control technique during plate hot rolling etc. Among the university's teaching staff of 1,650, there are 405 professors and 555 associate professors. 14000 undergraduate students are currently enrolled at the university. Moreover, 6236 masters students and 2336 Ph.D students are studying at the moment. North East University (NEU). NEU was founded in 1923 and was renamed as North East Technical Institute in 1949. It resumed its present name in 1993. It used to be only involved in ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy before 1993 but now it has become a multi-disciplinary university including sciences, engineering, management, economics and law. At present, the technical disciplines, comprising metallurgy, materials, mining, metallurgical machinery, computer technology and automation, are still the key disciplines at this university. The current students add up to 23,080 undergraduates and 5,118 graduates including 2,528 Ph. D students. The present scientific and technical staff is 2,322 employees including 361 professors. Among the 14 schools of the university, 4 schools are involved in steel: the School of Material and Metallurgical Engineering (including pressure processing), School of Resources and Civil Engineering (including mining and minerals), School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation and School of Information Science and Engineering. The School of Material and Metallurgy Engineering is the teaching and research center for metallurgy and materials. There are 262 employees including 49 professors and 70 associate professors. The current number of students is 1892 undergraduates, 682 Ph.D, and 949 master students. Several institutes are affiliated to the school, such as the Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy, Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Engineering Thermo-Physics, Institute of Metallurgical Resources & Environmental Engineering, Institute of Materials Forming Control Engineering, Institute of Physical Chemistry of Metallurgy, and the Institute of Thermal Energy and Environmental Engineering. The major fileds of study are involved in the comprehensive utilization of composite ore and symbiosis ore, direct reduction, modeling and simulation of metallurgical processes, metallurgical technology of special steels, electromagnetic processing, metallurgical thermodynamics and kinetics, high performance metal structural materials, advanced functional materials, high technical ceramics, powder metallurgy materials, intelligent and mathematical model optimization in the process of rolling, TMCP technology in the rolling. Anhui Technical University. Until 2000 the Anhui Technical University was the Huadong Metallurgical Institute, whose previous name was the Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Institute. Today, the Anhui Technical University is multi-disciplinary with departments in engineering, economics, management, literature, sciences and law. The university consists of 12 schools, of which 4 are active in the steel sector, including the School of Metallurgy and Resources, School of Material Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, and School of Electrical Engineering and Information. Typical research projects and achievements are: iron making technology with coal and oxygen, coke properties and their quality control, optimization of hot metal de-phosphorization, behaviour of nitrogen in metallurgical processes, structure and property control of metallic materials and laser surface engineering. The School of Metallurgy and Resources and the School of Material Engineering have 63 professors and associate professors. There are about 3,000 undergraduates and 200 graduates studying in the school. Wuhan Science and Technology University used to be the Wuhan & Steel Institute until 1999. Today, it is a multi-disciplinary university with faculties of sciences, engineering, medical science, economics and management. Among its 16 schools, the School of Materials and Metallurgy, School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation and School of Information Science and Engineering work on steel production and processing. The School of Materials and Metallurgy is the education and research centre in the field of ferrous metallurgy and materials at the university. It consists of departments in Metallurgy Engineering, Metallic Materials Engineering, Inorganic Non-metallic Materials Engineering, Material Formation and Control Engineering and Thermal Power Engineering. This school has 31 professors and 31 associate professors. The total number of full-time students is 2462, including 2168 undergraduates, 235 graduates of which 59 are Ph.D students. At present research is focussed on 4 directions: mathematical modelling and computer control of metallurgical processes; new technologies and new theories of ferrous metallurgy, steel microstructure control, strength and toughness improvement of ferrous materials as well as metal forming equipment and process control. University of Science and Technology Liaoning and other Universities. Until 2002 known as Anshan & Steel Technology Institute, the University of Science and Technology Liaoning has become a comprehensive university extending to sciences and engineering, literature and law, economics and management. 4 of the total 15 schools are involved in steel manufacturing and application: School of Materials and Metallurgy, School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, School of Civil and Traffic Engineering. The School of Materials and Metallurgy encompasses departments of Metallic Material Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Inorganic Non-metallic Materials and Thermal Energy Engineering. 46 professors and associate professors and 1698 undergraduate students currently work at the school. In addition, the Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology is also engaged in education and research in the field of ferrous metallurgy and materials. Similarly, the Yanshan University and Taiyuan Science & Technology University are two comprehensive universities renamed from the original Heavy Machinery Institutes. Their main areas are metallurgical machinery, metal materials processing and ferrous metallurgy. Shanghai University, Chongqing University and Tsinghua University, the well-known comprehensive universities in China, also offer degree programs in metallurgy and related fields. At Shanghai University, the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Modern Metallurgy & Materials Processing was established in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. The main task of the school is to conduct basic research of metallurgy and develop new processes in steel manufacturing. The research fields of the Department of Material Engineering in this school are advanced metallic materials, high performance special metal materials, new processes of steel production and new metallurgical technologies. At Chongqing University, the Department of Metallurgy Engineering was established in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. The department's research is focused on the comprehensive utilization of composite ore and symbiosis ore, new processes of ferrous metallurgy, new technologies for energy conservation and environmental protection in the steel industry, while the school's department of Material Processing Engineering is engaged in steel forming. At Tsinghua University, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering also conducts research on high performance steel materials. Research Institutes or Technical Centers in Steel Enterprises All Chinese large and medium-sized steel enterprises have established their own research institutes or technical centers. These institutes or technical centers are the backbone of the research network on steel technology. According to the statistics, 213 research institutions existed in the Chinese steel industry with 44,000 employees in 2008, which is a large amount of R&D power. The main tasks of these institutes or technical centers are to promote the steel companies' scientific and technological progress and innovations, develop new processes, new products, new technologies and equipments, continually improve product quality and production technology, reduce consumptions and production cost to meet customer requirements and provide various technical services for the application of new products. In recent years, these enterprises have spent about 1.2% of their sales revenue for research and development. In the following chapter some representative steel institutes and technical centers of large-scale enterprises in China are presented. The Baosteel Research Institute of Technology has 654 employees of which 60.6% are researchers. Among them, 149 researchers hold a doctoral degree and 232 a masters degree. The research institute has 16 units including the Institute of Steel for Automobiles, Institute of Structural Steel, Institute of Electrical Steel, Institute of Metallurgical Technology, Institute of Metallurgical Equipment and Metallurgical Automation. The centre has obtained a lot of high-level achievements in the development of automobile steel sheets, pipeline steels, high strength steels for engineering machinery, deep-working of steel, development of process control and optimization modelling in management and energy saving and also environmental protection technology. Ansteel (Anshan Iron and Steel Group Corporation) Technical Center has 362 employees, the scientific researchers account for 72.3% of the employees, among them, 24 employees with doctoral degree and 120 with master degree. The center has 8 institutes including the Institute of Steel Products, Institute of Metallurgy Process, Institute of Home Appliances and Automobile Steels, Institute of Environment and Natural Resources. The center has made many remarkable achievements in the development of automobile steel sheets, pipeline products, ship steels, railway steels, anti-corrosion steels as well as the optimization of blast furnace burden and clean steels. The Shougang Research Institute of Technology has 539 employees, of which 80 hold a doctoral degree and 170 a master degree. The institute has 8 departments extending on the steel-making process, sheets, heavy plates, special steel and application technology for automobile sheet users. The institute has achieved outstanding progress in the technology of high quality special steel production with BOF, development of hot rolled steel strip for pipeline, energy savings in BF, high quality continuously cast products, sintering and palletizing technologies etc. The Research Institute of Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corp. (WISCO) has 680 employees in total, among them 90 with doctoral degree and 62 with a title of senior engineer. The research institute has 8 units including the Institute of Silicon Steel, Institute of Steel Products, Institute of Automobile Steel, Institute of Environment and natural resources etc. as well as two branches in the steelworks of Echeng and Kunming. The institute has made important achievements in the development of silicon steel products, development of automobile steel sheet, high performance steel for engineering structures, such as bridge steels, pressure vessel steels, auto tire cord steels, spring steels as well as long campaign technology of large BF, intensified melting technology for large-scale BF and slag splashing technology at top and bottom blowing converters. These four research institutes and technical centers are the most representative ones of the research institutes established in Chinese steel enterprises. They play a key role in the companies' technical development, technological progress, development of new products and improvement in product quality. The other steel enterprises also established similar research institutes or technical centers, but their scale and scope are different according to the different enterprises' requirements. It can be said that the steel companies' technical achievements are the fundament for the scientific-technological development of the Chinese steel industry. They will play an even more important role in the development of steel technology in China in the future. The research institutions of the Chinese steel industry are basically comparable to their international counterparts, but have different characteristics because of the particular conditions in China. The integration of perspectives from industrial production, universities and industry-related research institutes is one of the special features of the steel research in China. Research projects arise from the production and development of the enterprises as well as the evolution of the national steel industry as a whole. Financial support is provided both from the government and the industry. Research studies are jointly carried out by universities, enterprises and research institutes. The achievements can be applied in the industrial production. Research and development in the Chinese steel industry has attracted great attention from all authorities in China. It has remarkably promoted innovation and technical progress, and has become the base and driving force for the further development of the Chinese steel industry.