I never expected that there is such a steel that is only one-quarter of the thickness of an ordinary A4 paper, but the price is comparable to gold. Once upon a time, this kind of steel was monopolized by Japan and Germany for a long time. The goods were in the hands of others. No

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I never expected that there is such a steel that is only one-quarter of the thickness of an ordinary A4 paper, but the price is comparable to gold.

Once upon a time hours . This kind of steel has been monopolized by Japan and Germany for a long time. The goods are in the hands of others. Not only are they asking for a huge price, but high-end people are also unwilling to sell them. What can be given to us are low-end. Is

very similar to lithography machine in chip manufacturing?

But now, this has changed dramatically. Shanxi Taigang has not only been made, but is also more advanced than abroad.

So how powerful is this steel? How did China break foreign monopoly?

Hand-teared Steel

The paper-thin steel mentioned above is scientifically called stainless steel foil. Because it is very thin, it can be torn off with a light hand, so it is also called hand-teared steel.

But it is not easy to make such thin steel from thick steel plates.

First from the perspective of dimensional accuracy, the standard thickness of hand-teared steel must be controlled below 0.025 mm, and the error must be controlled at a level of one thousandth of a millimeter.

Secondly, from the perspective of mechanical properties, its grain size must be controlled between levels 7-9. To reach level 9, it indicates that it already belongs to the ultrafine fine particle size. The smaller the fine particle, it means the higher the strength and hardness, and the stronger the ductility and toughness. The key to the production of

hand-teared steel lies in rolling.

needs to be carried out using a special 20-roll reversible cold rolling mill, diluting the thicker steel plate bit by bit, and finally rolling to the required thickness.

When the thickness of the steel plate is rolled to about 0.05 mm, higher requirements are put forward for the machine. For every time

is rolled, the 20 rollers on the machine must be re-equipped. In the entire process, all rollers have more than 20,000 different changes.

At the same time, semi-finished steel coil also needs to be continuously annealed and heated, stretched and straightened, and can only be turned into a finished product after three alternate cold and heat rolling processes. Once there is a problem with

, steel strip is easily broken or crushed, which means a waste of tens of thousands of yuan.

Therefore, the requirements for steel production process control and product quality are very high, and it requires special production processes to be manufactured.

Looking around the world, in the past, in the field of hand-tearing steel, only two countries could build it because they mastered core technologies.

In order to limit China's technological development, they require that hand-teared steel exported to China must be greater than 0.03mm in thickness, because they keep the 0.02mm in thickness for themselves. As for the price of

, it is more than twice as high as the domestic market.

Let me tell you about the data. They once fryed a piece of A4 paper-sized hand-teared steel for 400 yuan. The total amount of this piece of hand-teared steel is less than one gram, and the price is definitely higher than that of gold.

But there is no way. On the one hand, we have a very large demand for this kind of steel, such as aerospace, medical devices, precision instruments, computers and other high-precision and cutting-edge equipment manufacturing industries, and the domestic market demand directly accounts for 80% of the world.

On the other hand, although we are known as a manufacturing power, we could not produce this kind of steel at that time, which caused us to have to rely entirely on imports for a long time.

Since this kind of steel is very important, if it is controlled by people being stucked by foreign countries in this regard, it will inevitably affect China's development in the high-end field.

China broke the monopoly

So in order to break this embarrassing situation, China's Shanxi Taigang took the lead in challenging foreign countries! After three years, after experiencing more than 700 failures and solving hundreds of process problems, the researchers finally made a major breakthrough in 2016 and successfully developed hand-teared steel with a thickness of only 0.02mm, tying the thinnest record set by Japanese and German companies.

is less than one-third of the diameter of hair, and is one-quarter of ordinary A4 paper. You can easily tear it open with your hands.

Do you think this is over?

In 2020, Shanxi Taigang set a new record, shifting the thickness of hand-teared steel from 0.02mm to 0.015mm, breaking the world's thinnest record.

left the former Japan and Germany far away, and we couldn't even see the taillights of our cars.

Moreover, the hand-teared steel made in my country is the widest of the same grade, and can reach 600mm.

can make a steel thin and wide, which not only means higher technical difficulty, but also represents a wider range of application occasions.

For example, applying hand-teared steel on large aircraft can make the fuselage stronger, harder and higher resistance value.

fighter is also possible. Because the hand-teared steel has good shielding, it can make its stealth performance stronger and effectively reduce the accuracy of enemy radar reconnaissance.

In the aerospace field, hand-teared steel has high heat resistance and can withstand higher temperatures than ordinary steel materials, which can make it a constituent material for the combustion chamber blades, effectively reducing the damage to the engine by the high-heat environment.

In the electronics field, hand-teared steel has unparalleled toughness and strength, and can also make foldable displays and be used on mobile phones, computers, and tablets.

For example, the raw materials for the Apple's iPhone and iPad on Apple's iPhone are made of domestic hand-teared steel. You should know that the selection and evaluation of Apple's is very strict, and being able to be selected by it is enough to prove our strength.

In the field of new energy, hand-teared steel has strong corrosion resistance and oxidation resistance, and can be used as an important material for manufacturing flexible photovoltaic power generation substrates, lithium battery wrapping layers and other important materials.

In the nuclear industry, hand-teared steel can be used to make protective clothing to effectively shield high temperature and high radiation.

Generally speaking, hand-teared steel can be used in aerospace, nuclear industry, electronic manufacturing, medical devices and other fields, and is an indispensable new material for high-tech equipment.

In a word, on the road of high-tech, whoever can master the hand-knitting technology will undoubtedly catch the fast train , and China is definitely at the forefront in this regard.

According to relevant data statistics, China's total production of hand-killed steel has reached 600,000 tons, successfully surpassing Japan and Germany and becoming the world's largest hand-killed steel producer.

Before, we were a major importer of steel by hand, but now we have become a major exporter.

One ton of conventional thin plate steel is 20,000 yuan/ton, but the price of 0.015mm hand-teared steel produced by Taigang reaches 2 million yuan/ton. Even though the price is so expensive, there is still a shortage of supply in the market. The most important factor behind

is the confidence and strength brought by our continuous improvement of steel research and development technology.

From now on, we no longer have to worry about being choked by foreigners in terms of hand-killing steel. Only we can get choked by foreigners!

ending

Over the decades of reform and opening up, China has indeed made remarkable achievements in manufacturing, and has achieved major breakthroughs in many fields such as manned space flight and high-speed railways.

But to be honest, the material field is still one of the most backward areas in China, which is irrefutable.

Before, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had a data that surveyed more than 130 key basic materials in more than 30 large enterprises across the country showed that 32% of key materials were still blank in China, and 52% relied on imports.

In the field of equipment manufacturing, more than 95% of the manufacturing and testing equipment on the finishing production line of key parts such as high-end CNC machine tools, high-end equipment instruments, launch vehicles, , large aircraft, aviation engines, automobiles, etc. rely on imports.

, especially high-end chips used on computers and mobile phones, all rely on imports.

But we don’t have to feel inferior. This breakthrough in domestic hand-killing steel has given us a possibility, that is, China is fully capable of breaking foreign blockades in high-end technology.

Although hand-tearing steel is just a small step in breakthrough, this is enough to allow other fields to take small steps and keep up with the pace of catching up.