In the workshop of China First Heavy Industries' hydraulic press forging plant, a 20-meter-high behemoth is seen steadily applying pressure, precisely controlling every deformation of the solid steel billet. This 15,000-ton behemoth, the free forging hydraulic press, which has amazed the world, is known as the mother machine of "a great country's heavy equipment". Liu Boming, a great country craftsman and a national model worker, is its operator. As the deputy director of the hydraulic press forging plant of the cast and forged steel division of China First Heavy Industries Group, the forgings manufactured by his team will be used in the fields of nuclear power, petroleum, and chemical industry.
Two years ago, the Party General Branch of China First Heavy Industries Hydraulic Press Forging Plant, where Liu Boming worked, set up several Party member commandos, including "oversized replacement forging production research", "large forging production speed-up", and "nuclear power product quenching and tempering". Liu Boming gave full play to his skills and led the Party members to charge ahead and completed a number of research tasks, including the world's largest special-shaped hydrogenation cylinder forgings and the manufacture of super-large steel ingots above 400 tons.
Unlike mass production, Liu Boming processes forgings in single pieces. In order to meet different usage requirements, there are more and more special-shaped forgings with characteristics, and the difficulty of forging increases accordingly. "Every project will encounter different difficulties, but only with challenges can there be innovation, which is also the value of the Party member commando team." Liu Boming said.
Liu Boming pointed to a red-hot steel ingot and said , "The temperature of this 680-ton steel ingot is as high as 1200 degrees Celsius. The heated workpiece is very easy to bend when flipped, which brings great challenges to subsequent operations." In order to solve this problem, the party member assault team tried multiple methods and continuously optimized the process, namely, using local cooling at the jaws to increase the hardness and strength of the jaws to avoid bending in the second fire, and applied this process to the entire project operation process.
The hydraulic press in the forging workshop is always running. Whether it is day or night, there are always party members at the production site. Liu Boming said: "When encountering difficulties in the production process, the party member assault team can immediately solve the problems, improve production efficiency and ensure product quality."
Not long ago, the Party member commando team also successfully forged the world's largest 500-megawatt-grade low-carbon martensitic stainless steel runner hub, which is the largest in terms of size and technical difficulty in the industry at home and abroad. It will be used in the construction of the Zhala Hydropower Station, the first hydropower station project in Tibet with an installed capacity of over one million kilowatts.
How to coordinate and match the limit load and deformation parameters of the hydraulic press? How to solve the problems of narrow forging temperature range, poor forgeability, and easy crack initiation and expansion? After receiving the task, the party member commando team repeatedly discussed the problems such as "the forging range is extremely narrow, and the wheel hub forging cannot be stopped once it is put on the hydraulic press." To this end, Liu Boming personally operated each forging and checked each link item by item.
In the end, this super-large forging achieved a major breakthrough, solving the "bottleneck" technical problem in the manufacturing of super-large impact runners in my country, and also marking a new step in the hydropower station products independently developed by China First Heavy Industries Group.
Through the leadership of party building work, the Party General Branch of China First Heavy Industries Hydraulic Press Forging Plant has improved production capacity, efficiency, quality and other aspects, achieved the goal of "zero waste" for nuclear power products, and the equipment availability rate is over 97.5%.