On November 4th, 2017, the world's first 300mm large section steel plate roller quenching equipment designed and manufactured by Northeastern University was successfully tested in HBIS WuSteel at one time of heat load, marking that China had the capability of producing a super-thick, high-strength, high uniformity, high flatness quenching steel plate, which also filled the international gap.
300mm thick steel plate roller quenching equipment
At present, the super thick steel plates with a thickness of more than 200mm are basically quenched by immersed water tanks both at home and abroad, but with poor cooling rate and cooling uniformity, none of the plate shape can meet the demand. Through years of theoretical research and industrial experiments, Northeastern University has overcome the technical bottlenecks and made great breakthrough in terms of high-efficiency controllable heat transfer on the surface of extremely thick steel plates, cross-section temperature gradient control, high-speed rolling precision control, impact-resistant heavy-duty roller bed, rapid removal of residual water, scale removal of the surface of steel plates, and so on. They achieved the high strength and uniformity quenching on large cross-section of ultra-thick steel plate with a maximum thickness of 300mm and a weight of 40 to 50 tons, meanwhile the quenching time is nearly reduced to half compared to traditional immersion methods, and there was significant improvement in shape and surface quality after quenching.
Shape and temperature after quenching of ultra-thick steel plate
On the one hand, the relevant achievements will further enhance the technical level of heat treatment equipment and promote the upgrading of product structure in HBIS /WuSteel; on the other hand, the research findings also provide a model for the construction of high-quality heat treatment lines of ultra-thick steel plates in China, laying technical and equipment foundation for the development and application of large single weight, large cross-section and thick plate heat treatment products for special purposes .
Northeastern University’s on-site debugging team
In addition, as an important research content of the 13th Five-Year Plan National Key R&D Program “High-strength, Large-scale, Easy-to-weld Marine Engineering Steel and Application”, the implementation of this project will further promote the development and application of high-grade marine engineering steel, and make contributions to the national strategy of “building a marine power”.