On 3 March 2002, the aircraft carrier "Varyag", accompanied by a number of escort vessels, successfully arrived at the port of Dalian, China. This marks a new starting point for China's aircraft carrier industry. From the "Varyag" to the official entry of the "Liaoning" into the Chinese Navy, it has gone through 11 years of arduous struggle.
The "Varyag" was originally an unfinished aircraft carrier built during the Soviet era, and later with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the aircraft carrier became the property of Ukraine. Due to a shortage of funds, Ukraine decided to ** this aircraft carrier. After some negotiations, China purchased the aircraft carrier and its design drawings from Ukraine for $20 million, which is of great significance for China's independent development of aircraft carriers.
However, when the "Varyag" arrived in China, it immediately faced a huge challenge: after a long period of seawater erosion and lack of maintenance, the steel of the aircraft carrier had already shown serious rust and aging. China did not have the capacity to produce this kind of special steel at that time, so how difficult was it to produce this kind of steel? Will China be able to break through the international monopoly and master the technology for the production of steel for aircraft carriers?
The "Varyag" was originally a Soviet-designed aircraft carrier, which could not be completed due to financial problems after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The aircraft carrier was immersed in highly salinized sea water for 8 years and lacked the necessary care and maintenance. Despite the rust and debris on the surface, the engineers were pleasantly surprised to find that the steel plates of the aircraft carrier were still strong and durable thanks to the high-strength nickel-chromium alloy steel.
Faced with the urgent task of transforming the Varyag, China must solve the problem of the lack of suitable steel. This process not only tests China's technological innovation capabilities, but also a major challenge and opportunity in the development of China's independent aircraft carriers.
During the renovation of the "Varyag", although the steel plates of the aircraft carrier were basically still usable, their repair and reinforcement were necessary steps, and this heavy task was finally entrusted to the Anshan Iron and Steel Group. As a leading enterprise in China's steel industry, Anshan Iron and Steel has made a particularly significant contribution to the construction of domestic aircraft carriers, providing a large number of special steel.
A special type of steel called "symmetrical flat ball steel" was used in the restoration, which differs from conventional steel in shape in that it is spherical at both ends and flat in the middle, giving it a unique structural characteristic.
Before receiving the order to manufacture symmetrical flat ball steel, no domestic steel company, including Anshan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., had no experience in producing this type of special steel, which was a new challenge for Anshan Iron and Steel Group. Angang adopted a strategy of simultaneous product development and production, and began production experiments just two months later.
However, the production process was challenging, and the engineers were faced with a very different technical challenge than conventional steel production, i.e., how to use existing rolling mill equipment to produce symmetrical flat ball steel that met specifications. This is not only a technical issue of production, but also a significant increase in production efficiency – at the beginning of the attempt, the production volume in a single day was extremely low due to technical difficulties.
The difficulty of producing symmetrical flat ball steel lies in its unique design and shape requirements, the difficulty of ordinary rolling technology to achieve precise shape and size requirements, and the lack of production lines specifically designed for this type of steel, all of which lead to the complexity and inefficiency of the production process.
In terms of exploring the key materials for aircraft carrier construction, especially the high-strength low-alloy (HSLA) series of steels, the United States made a breakthrough in the 80s of the 20th century and successfully developed this series of steels. The performance of HSLA-80 steel surpasses the previously widely used HY-80, and the yield strength of HSLA-100 reaches 690 megapascals, which is comparable to HY-100, marking the production of world-class special steels with a yield strength of at least 690 megapascals.
Based on the setting of these advanced performance indicators, China chose Anshan Iron and Steel Group (Anshan Iron and Steel Group for short) to undertake the important task of producing special steel for aircraft carriers. In 2011, Angang was officially assigned to manufacture steel plates for aircraft carrier decks, a task that posed unprecedented challenges to Angang. The specifications of the deck steel required by the state far exceed the size of the steel plates routinely produced by Anshan Iron and Steel, and almost reach the limit of Anshan Iron and Steel's production capacity. The demand for such large-scale steel plates is mainly to accommodate the wide area of the aircraft carrier deck and reduce the welding workload.
The deck of an aircraft carrier is usually more than 150,000 square meters, large-scale welding work is not only time-consuming but also technically demanding, and the welding man-hours occupy one-third of the total man-hours of aircraft carrier construction. Therefore, the use of larger steel plates can effectively reduce the amount of welding work, thereby shortening the construction period.
In order to meet this demand, Anshan Iron and Steel has taken active measures and introduced a 5-meter-5 ultra-wide rolling mill with the world's largest production capacity. With its astonishing weight of more than 760 tons and complex structure of more than 100,000 parts, this rolling mill has won the reputation of "the king of rolling mills in the world", providing strong support for Anshan Iron and Steel to produce super-large steel plates to meet the needs of aircraft carrier construction.
Although state-of-the-art rolling mill equipment has been introduced, the process of translating it into the actual production of high-quality steel is still challenging. In order to ensure the smooth progress of the project, Zhao Gang, the project leader, often needs to take the high-speed train between Anshan and the production base 100 kilometers away, personally supervising the production of deck steel.
The members of the production team also put in a lot of energy and time, and they almost made the factory their home for more than a month, putting in more than ten hours of work every day. It is precisely this continuous and unremitting effort that Angang finally succeeded in producing deck steel with a yield strength of 690MPa within the specified time, and its performance is comparable to that used in the American Ford-class aircraft carriers.
This achievement marks that China has become the third country in the world after the United States and Russia to have the ability to independently produce aircraft carrier deck steel. At present, except for some steel with special performance requirements, almost all the main steel for domestic aircraft carriers is provided by Anshan Iron and Steel. It is thanks to the localization of aircraft carrier steel that the Shandong and Fujian ships of the Chinese Navy can be launched quickly.
Whether it is the symmetrical flat ball steel required for the repair of the Liaoning, or the special steel used in the decks of the Shandong and Fujian ships, these are a major test of the strength of China's steel industry.
As the leader of China's steel industry, Anshan Iron and Steel Group's success in the R&D and production of aircraft carrier steel reflects the spirit of continuous struggle and innovation of Chinese people and enterprises. Relying on this spirit, the Chinese Navy's Liaoning and Shandong ships have been put into service, and the Fujian ship is about to complete sea trials, indicating that China is about to officially enter a new era of having three aircraft carriers, and its naval strength will be significantly enhanced.
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