Hunan**Quan**Reporter Liu Yunxia.
On March 1, at the release ceremony of the 2023 "Great Country Craftsman of the Year" jointly recorded by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and ** Radio and Television Station, Zhang Shuaikun from China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Railway Construction Heavy Industry") walked on the podium.
For more than ten years, Zhang Shuaikun has presided over the development of more than 100 sets of shield machines, breaking through many technical blockades. The high-speed railway was repaired to the bottom of the 100-meter seabed, and the submarine tunnel shield machine "Shenjiang No. 1" successfully crossed a number of fractured geological zones; The 16-meter-class super-large diameter shield machine "Jinghua" was dug deep more than 30 meters underground in Tongzhou District, Beijing, and the surface settlement was accurately controlled at the millimeter-level ......
From a shield driver to a large-diameter shield machine project leader, and then on the podium of the 2023 "Great Country Craftsman of the Year", Zhang Shuaikun's "road to tunneling" relies on ingenuity.
Zhang Shuaikun. Photo courtesy of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry).
Engineers who came "underground".
A black suitcase and a few sets of spare clothes are the "standard" of Zhang Shuaikun's office. In 2023, Zhang Shuaikun will spend more than 200 days on construction sites across the country, drilling into dark and damp construction tunnels, tracking and analyzing construction difficulties.
The development of a shield machine needs to be tailored to the project site. Zhang Shuaikun told reporters that his design "nutrients" are "underground".
In 2008, after graduating from Zhengzhou University with a major in mechanical engineering, Zhang Shuaikun entered the shield construction industry and engaged in the management of shield machines. In order to understand the structure and operation of the shield machine, Zhang Shuaikun took the initiative to ask Ying to go "underground" and become a shield driver.
I came from a rural family in the north, and I thought I could endure hardship, but the underground working environment was even worse than I imagined. Zhang Shuaikun recalled that the air in the underground tunnel is not circulated, and the temperature at the construction site can reach up to more than 40 degrees, so the shield driver needs to keep an eye on the instrument parameters at all times, and work for up to 12 hours a day ......
Zhang Shuaikun operates the equipment. Photo courtesy of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry).
The days passed in a flash, and the two-year "underground" experience allowed him to almost understand the tens of thousands of parts of the shield machine, and also allowed him to get the "admission ticket" for the R&D and design of the shield machine.
Problems such as easy bonding and undischarged muck of the shield machine need to be improved urgently, and the operating table should be designed more intuitively. In 2010, Zhang Shuaikun came to China Railway Construction Heavy Industry to apply for the shield machine engineering designer, and in the hour-long interview, he told about the problems he encountered when operating the shield machine, and put forward preliminary improvement ideas.
With rich practical experience, Zhang Shuaikun successfully joined the Research and Design Institute of Railway Construction Heavy Industry Roadheader and began to develop a domestic shield machine with completely independent intellectual property rights.
Break the ice of technological monopoly.
Zhang Shuaikun's original intention of developing a domestic shield machine is related to an experience of being "nested". When he was still a shield driver, almost all the shield machines in China's engineering construction were imported from abroad, and a piece of equipment cost more than 200 million yuan, and it was not suitable for China's geological conditions, and the failure rate was high.
Once, the assembly system of the foreign shield machine was shaken, and it was not repaired for more than a month, and the loss was more than 200,000 yuan per day. "When we offered to repair it ourselves, the foreign personnel refused to provide information and even threatened not to provide the warranty anymore. Zhang Shuaikun made up his mind: to turn the foreigners' "money printing machine" into a "competition machine" for the Chinese.
On October 8, 2010, the first self-developed shield machine "Pioneer 19" successfully rolled off the assembly line, with lower ** and high-quality service to beat foreign brands, "foreign shield" in the Chinese market forced to reduce the price by 30%.
Zhang Shuaikun in the production workshop. Photo courtesy of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry).
Despite the gradual popularization of domestic shield machines, there are still many technologies monopolized by foreign brands in the field of large-diameter shield machines.
The working conditions of large-diameter shield machines are often harsh, the water is deep and the stone is hard, the cutter wears out quickly, and the operator needs to risk his life to change the tool. Zhang Shuaikun said. He still remembers that in 2017, the team was entrusted with the development of the shield machine for the Changde Yuanjiang River Tunnel, and in the face of the geological environment dominated by pebbles and gravel layers, the cutter was changed frequently; Each tool replacement takes 1 day, which is extremely risky.
How to ensure the safety of workers to the greatest extent? From the construction site to the laboratory, from day to night, Zhang Shuaikun led the team to race against time to find a way. After more than 300 high water pressure tests, the "atmospheric pressure tool change" technology and the atmospheric pressure cutter head made a stunning appearance - it only takes two hours to replace one tool, breaking the foreign technology monopoly in the field of atmospheric pressure tool change.
At present, Zhang Shuaikun and his team have developed nearly 200 large-diameter shield machines, accounting for about 40% of the domestic market, and the developed shield machines are also exported to more than 30 countries and regions such as Italy, India, and South Korea.
In the future, we will combine digital twin technology to simulate the design of each component on the computer to reduce errors in the development process of new products. Zhang Shuaikun's journey never stopped, and after the interview, he walked out of the production workshop quickly and went to the next project site ......