■ China Template Scaffolding Association
In more than 40 years of domestic large-scale applications, my country's combined steel template and all-steel large-scale templates have reached more than 75% in the field of the civil construction industry, and the stock has reached more than 140 million square meters, with a very glorious history. Steel formwork has high strength, good toughness, and significant economic value advantages. Wall formwork such as all-steel large formwork, steel frame plywood, and wall formwork in prefabricated building are all widely used in engineering construction.
In recent years, the market size of traditional steel template has shown a shrinking trend. However, with the continuous absorption of advanced technologies for internationalization of steel templates, the continuous introduction of a large number of advanced manufacturing processes, the continuous breakthrough of new materials, and the rapid upgrading of new technologies, my country's steel template industry is recovering.
intelligent steel mold pipe sheet smoothing robot China Formwork Scaffolding Association/Photo provided
Steel formwork products still have a large room for development in the public construction field
Steel formwork technology and products' main application areas include railways and highways, water conservancy and hydropower, rail transit, municipal bridges and other public construction fields, such as high-speed rail whole hole box girder formwork, bridge segment box girder formwork, hanging basket , bridge component , pier body and cover beam formwork, cast-in-place, beam slab cover tool formwork, etc. In addition, steel formwork is also the preferred formwork for complex structures, such as large spans, special-shaped structures, complex curves, etc.
In 2022, the national railway fixed asset investment showed a rebound and rebound trend, and will continue to increase investment. In the 1st to 3rd quarters, 2381 kilometers of new railway lines were put into production in the country, including 1,198 kilometers of high-speed rail, and fixed asset investment reached 475 billion yuan, an increase of 1.8 percentage points from the same period last year. In terms of highways, national highway fixed asset investment will be further accelerated in 2022, and the transportation department said it will increase investment and stabilize growth. From January to September, the country completed 2.17 trillion yuan in fixed assets investment in highways, waterways and transportation, and increased by 9.8% year-on-year. Rail transit is the sector with the most investment potential for municipal public facilities construction in the future, and its share may increase from about 20% to 40% or even 50%.
Under the influence of the epidemic, the national economy has huge pressure to stabilize and recover. Therefore, expanding infrastructure demand and increasing investment in major projects will speed up the construction of . The annual capacity of the domestic steel formwork market is more than 80 billion yuan. Therefore, the steel formwork industry still has a lot of room for development in the future, and steel formwork companies should accurately judge the situation and seize growth opportunities.
steel formwork construction technology has achieved remarkable results
my country's steel formwork construction technology has made a series of progress in design concepts, construction technology, construction organization , management model, etc., and has made pioneering achievements in many major projects, mainly reflected in six aspects: prefabricated box beam construction technology, largest bearing diamond hanging basket, high-speed rail "first bridge", UHPC cantilever prefabricated beam, Beibu Gulf Port largest caisson , and multiple complex applications of prefabricated building steel molds.
In October 2022, the construction of Zhejiang Transportation Group led by Zhejiang Province and manufactured and processed by China Formwork Scaffolding Member Enterprises. The construction technology of left- and horizontal separation whole hole prefabricated box beams in the Hangzhou-Ningbo Expressway Multi-line Ningbo Section has made breakthrough progress. The single-size box girder is about 50 meters long, about 16.5 meters wide and weighs 1,800 tons. It is a domestic single-piece super-large tonnage whole-hole prefabricated box girder. China Railway Technology and Industry has overcome difficulties and independently developed and delivered a "big power tool" with a self-weight of 1,705 tons and the ability to erect super-large box girders - "Yuehai" as a super-large whole-hole prefabricated box girder bridge studs independently developed and manufactured by my country, it can also adapt to various special working conditions such as different spans, small curve radius, and left and right high and low piers.
In April 2022, the largest carrying diamond hanging basket in the country was installed at the Hengtai River Bridge in Wanzhou District, Chongqing. The hanging basket for suspended and poured sections of multi-box overweight main beams independently developed and designed by China Communications Communications Fourth Navigation Administration is a five-stick main diamond structure with a self-weight of 360 tons and a load capacity of 900 tons. It is the most resuspended poured beam section in the country among similar bridges.
In July 2022, the main pier of Wangjiahe Super Bridge, the entire line of the West Extension High-speed Railway, was successfully topped off, providing valuable experience for the construction of similar bridges of high piers and large spans and continuous steel structures in China. The main bridge is a "124+248+124" meter continuous steel structure arch combination system, which is currently the bridge with the largest span and the highest bridge height among the domestic high-speed railway ballless track bridges.
On October 31, 2022, the first beam of the UHPC cantilever prefabricated beam in the core area of Shanghai Grand Opera House was poured. Since its outdoor spiral staircase is designed as a light and unsupported structural form, the overall cantilever length is 30 meters and contains a 15-meter ultra-long cantilever beam slab structure. Shanghai Construction Engineering is built with UHPC ultra-high performance concrete , totaling about 300 cubic meters. In the past, UHPC has been used as decorative panels or as node reinforcement in the industry such as wet joints of bridges. It is the first time in China to be a large-scale individual stress-bearing component in building structures.
Currently, the newly started prefabricated building area across the country has reached more than 740 million square meters, accounting for more than 24.5% of the newly built building area . Most PC molds, etc. are made of steel templates. The control requirements for the size, accuracy and appearance quality of prefabricated inner and outer walls, laminated plates, prefabricated stairs, beams, columns, balcony, air-conditioning plates, etc. of prefabricated building steel molds have high requirements, and the design and production of mold bottom molds, side molds, end molds, etc. are gradually upgraded. The design, molding and disassembly systems of complex prefabricated components, material storage and transportation systems, and information management systems are constantly being optimized.
Steel template companies have taken the express train of modern manufacturing, with huge upgrade potential
According to statistics from the China Template Scaffolding Association, currently, there are more than 2,000 enterprises in my country that produce and leasing steel templates. From the perspective of enterprise scale, about 23.4% of enterprises with revenue of less than 20 million yuan account for about 37.3% of enterprises with revenue of 20 million to 50 million yuan account for about 37.2% of enterprises with revenue of 50 million to 100 million yuan account for about 37.2%, and 2.1% of enterprises with revenue of more than 100 million yuan account for about 2. There are still fewer companies with revenue of over 100 million yuan, and there are no more than 6 companies with revenue of over 300 million yuan. There are 6 steel formwork companies with industry-class qualifications.
With the rapid technological progress of my country's construction technology, the steel formwork product technology has experienced manual dismantling and assembly technology to the integrated mechanical equipment technology of "mechanical and electro-hydraulic" and the attributes of upgrading traditional steel formwork products to concrete molding special equipment are becoming increasingly prominent.
In terms of manufacturing capacity and manufacturing accuracy, my country's steel formwork enterprises have made great progress. 80% of enterprises have purchased a new generation of mechanical processing equipment, and the performance of new shearing machines, , bending machines, , edge milling machines, and other equipment has been significantly upgraded; the CNC rate of machine tools has been significantly increased to about 40%, CNC drilling machine, , NC punching machines and CNC composite punching machines, steel plate finishing equipment, CNC flame cutting machine, and other equipment, automatic welding robots, laser cutting machine and other equipment has been widely used, and the production process and process are rapidly optimized; driven by the revolutionary trend of Industry 4.0, intelligent upgrades have gradually accelerated, the data acquisition rate of industrial equipment is getting higher and higher, and the remote monitoring and intelligent control of leading enterprises have begun to be adopted.
With the popularization of the information technology industry and the rise of construction industrialization, digitalization has begun to drive the entire business processes of production, logistics and construction. The rapid development of engineering construction and technical demands have further promoted the development trend of deep combination of standardization and customization, industrialization and informatization. Intelligence, greening, and prefabricating some components have become important development directions for high-quality engineering construction. At the same time, personalized product solutions will replace a single product structure, homogeneous competition among enterprises will be effectively curbed, product technology added value will be improved, and steel formwork products have huge potential for technological upgrading.
The main problems and challenges in the industry
First, the industry entry threshold is low, and the industry concentration is low. The "small, scattered and chaotic" phenomenon in the steel formwork industry runs through the development history of the entire industry for more than 40 years. Although the overall manufacturing level of the industry has been greatly improved, many small and medium-sized enterprises still lag behind in production equipment and manufacturing processes, the industry is serious, and low-price competition hinders the healthy development of the industry.The average standardization rate of steel formwork products is low, the scale expansion is difficult, the industry concentration is relatively low, and there are few large-scale leading companies.
Second, the overall manufacturing level is not high, deepens the design of , and lacks innovation capabilities. The CNC rate of Japanese machine tools remained above 80%, while the CNC rate of German and American machine tools exceeded 70%. Although my country's steel formwork manufacturing capacity has been greatly improved, there is still a big gap with developed countries abroad. Most products have conservative designs, insufficient computing power, lack of professional software, excessive safety factor, mainly improved innovation, and insufficient underlying innovation and original innovation.
Third, the industry is under great pressure to survive, and comprehensive management system lags behind. The housing construction market is sluggish, and market demand has been severely affected, and enterprise production and operation have been greatly affected. In the past two years, the price of raw material has fluctuated greatly, and is at a high level most of the time. Due to this direct impact, the financial pressure, inventory pressure, sales pressure, manufacturing cost, operating cost, labor cost, etc. of steel formwork enterprises have all risen sharply. Affected by excessive product demand models and excessive non-standard rates, template manufacturing is relatively complex, production processes are different, control focus is different, and management savings are very difficult. At present, the industry is at the nodes of digital transformation , environmental protection upgrades, professional talent acceptance, and other nodes, and there is a lack of composite management talents and high-quality management systems.
Technical progress and prospects
21st century, a group of model stand talents with overseas engineering background have introduced a number of advanced foreign form stand systems to the country. Among them, the good application of the steel frame wood formwork system with WISA wood plywood as the panel has been fully recognized by many key engineering projects in Beijing. At the same time, the world model giants represented by DOKA and PERI also optimized the docking and integration of the company's advanced steel formwork system with the domestic market. Overall, the generation difference between the steel frame composite template system and foreign technology application has rapidly decreased, and the industry experience has been accumulated rapidly upgraded.
As for stainless steel building formwork , the strength and stiffness of the new stainless steel building formwork groove plate, inner reinforcement rib and end rib structure are significantly improved compared with the previous generation. With the help of the BIM system design of aluminum formwork, it is lightweight and high-strength, has a complete system, high versatility, can be used independently, or can be matched with aluminum formwork , it has strong corrosion resistance, does not react with concrete, has a smooth surface, and has good mold release effect. The sales price of stainless steel construction formwork is around 400 yuan per square meter. Compared with aluminum alloy formwork, it has certain economic advantages and better market prospects.
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to accelerate the construction of a strong transportation country in . In the 14th Five-Year Plan, the country has increased infrastructure construction and given the modeling industry huge market space. At the same time, the market risks are also very high. Infrastructure investment is dominated by government finance. The epidemic has increased local debts and tightened supervision. Coupled with the impact of land supply, environmental protection policies, etc., the planned start of construction does not mean the actual start of construction. Funds that have already started are often difficult to implement in the future. High-quality projects are scarce, and the funds of construction units have been cut off from flowing. The risk of payment on time performance has increased. Industry investment should be cautious and cautious.
With the improvement of modern and intelligent manufacturing capabilities, the deepening of market competition, and the intervention of new social capital, the gap in technology and operation between domestic steel template enterprises will further widen. Enterprise competition will be upgraded to competition with comprehensive comprehensive strength, gradually transitioning from low-level price competition to comprehensive competition in all aspects such as technology, management and cost. Industry concentration is inevitable. A group of template companies with low technical level, poor product quality and backward production processes will lose their living space. Template companies with distinctive advantages, management advantages and comparative advantages will gain a better market space, and the industry's development resilience will be further strengthened.
This article was originally published in China Building Materials News on December 12, 7th edition
Editor: Ding Tao
Proofreading: Hexinlong
Supervision and Review: He Dan
