Domestic shield machine： a big country and a heavy weapon going to the world
[magnificent 70-year struggle new era]
On August 7, in the first industrial park of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Group Co., Ltd. in Changsha, Hunan Province, a horizontal cylindrical steel giant was parked in a tall and spacious workshop and was being assembled. According to the staff, this large-diameter shield machine with a height of five or six stories and a diameter of 11 meters is expected to be shipped to Moscow, Russia, after acceptance at the end of August. This will be the first time that our large-diameter shield machine has been exported to Europe.
"This large-diameter shield machine named Shengli has a diameter of 10.88 meters, an installed power of 6,000 kilowatts and a total weight of 1,700 tons. It is a veritable underground giant." Su Cuixia, deputy director of the Comprehensive Research Institute of Railway Construction Heavy Industry Roadheader Research and Design Institute, said that with China enterprises winning the bid for overseas tunnel projects one after another, the domestic shield machine, a big country’s heavy weapon, is becoming another "golden business card" for China’s high-end intelligent manufacturing equipment to "go global" after the "China high-speed railway".
Domestic shield machine from scratch
Shield machine is also called "the king of construction machinery", and its technical level is an important symbol to measure the manufacturing level of underground construction equipment in a country. In short, the working principle of the shield machine is to use the top cutter head to cut the stones and soil layers in the tunnel, then use the screw machine to extract the soil onto the belt and then transport it out, and finally assemble the segments made in advance to support the tunnel to prevent collapse. On this basis, track laying cables, communications and other facilities will be carried out, and finally subways and railways will be built.
"It seems very simple to say, but for a long time before, because the technical level was not enough, tunnels such as railways and subways in China could only rely on shield machines imported from abroad." Su Cuixia said that because the manufacturing technology is monopolized by foreign countries, every time these devices break down, they can only ask "foreign workers" to fly in from abroad for inspection. Not only is the maintenance price expensive, but the labor cost of inspection personnel is also amazing.
For this reason, under the guidance of relevant national policies, since 2009, with China Railway Construction and China Railway as the main leading enterprises, the localization and industrialization of shield machines have been accelerated.
"More than 100 R&D personnel of Tiejian Heavy Industry spent more than half a year making a lot of design schemes, and finally successfully rolled off the first EPB shield machine’ Pioneer 19′ in China in 2010." Mei Yongbing, deputy director of the Science and Technology Development Department of Railway Construction Heavy Industry, recalled that the localization rate of this equipment reached 87%, which immediately forced the "foreign shield" with an average price of about 150 million yuan to reduce its price by 30% in China.
Since 2009, China Railway Construction Heavy Industry and China Railway Equipment have made remarkable achievements in the localization and industrialization of shield machines. The data shows that at present, the annual output of domestic shield machines in China is about 500 sets. According to an average of 60 million yuan per set, the annual output value can be about 30 billion yuan and the net profit can be about 5 billion yuan.
China shield machine goes to the world.
When the development of shield machine technology in the West has exceeded one hundred years, China has not yet produced a shield machine of its own. However, after nearly 10 years of exploration and development, the shield machine in China has become more and more efficient and humanized, and has gradually come to the forefront of the world.
It is understood that for a long time, shield machines in the world have been divided into three schools: the United States is good at hard rock excavation, German goods are suitable, and Japanese ones are exquisite in workmanship. Today, Chinese-made shield machines account for 65% of the global market share and more than 90% of the domestic market.
"This is because the shield machine made in China not only integrates the strengths of the three major schools, but also has a much lower price." Wang Wei, deputy director of the Party Industry Department of China Railway Equipment Group Corporation, said that a good shield machine should "eat, live and spit", and our core competitiveness is to make it domestically as much as possible, so as to make the shield machine move from "Made in China" to "Created in China".
Because of its excellent quality, China shield machine can be seen in more and more international projects. In January 2013, China Railway Equipment’s China Railway No.50 shield, designed and manufactured for Malaysia, went offline and was applied to the Kuala Lumpur subway project; In 2016, China Railway Equipment provided more than 10 shield machines to Singapore for its subway project construction; In June this year, Railway Construction Heavy Industry exported the shield machine of the subway project in Izmir, Turkey, which made the domestic shield machine obtain the first safety certification mark issued by the authoritative technical inspection association of the European Union.
"In particular, the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative has greatly increased the overseas demand for shield machines, which has directly promoted the" going global "of China manufacturing. Only the products of China Railway Equipment are exported to countries along the Belt and Road such as Malaysia, Singapore and Israel. " Wang Wei said that in the future, we will continue to study hard and strive to achieve the goal of designing shield machines in China and making them in the world.(Reporter Qian Qian)