company news

On July 21,a shield TBM machine was in production at the Southwest Assembly Base of China Railway Equipment Siyuan Heavy Industry Shield Machine.Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Chen Jian

Xinhua News Agency,Chengdu,August 1(Reporter Chen Jian)A"cylinder"the size of a train carriage was placed horizontally in the workshop,and one end of it was equipped with various"blades"in blue,black and white.This is the"hole-drilling artifact"used to build subways and tunnels-the shield machine.

In the Southwest Assembly Base of China Railway Equipment Siyuan Heavy Industry Shield Machine in Deyang City,Sichuan Province,two such shield machines are in production.

"The blue one is the cutterhead,which is equivalent to the teeth of the shield machine and is used to drill holes.The black one is the hob,which is specially used to deal with rocks.The white one is the scraper,which scrapes away the slag and then transports it to the back through the spiral blades."Zhuo Xingjian,deputy general manager of China Railway Equipment Group,said.

Slightly inside the end of the"cylinder",that is,the rear of the various"blades",is the assembly machine that plays a reinforcement role.During the excavation process,the assembler assembles the reinforced concrete segments into rings.One ring is excavated in front,and one ring is assembled and reinforced in the back.

This"hole-drilling artifact"relies on excavation and reinforcement at the same time to complete many difficult tunnel projects.At present,many subway projects and railway tunnels around the world are completed by shield machines.

"At the same time,the tunnel has a certain degree of curvature,and the shield machine,like a train or subway,must have a certain turning ability.Drilling,reinforcing,and turning at the same time require very high technical content."Zhuo Xingjian said.

The shield machine is called the"king of construction machinery"in the manufacturing industry,and its technical level is an important indicator of a country's underground construction equipment manufacturing level.The shield machine will face various complex strata during the excavation process.The main bearing of the shield machine must withstand high-speed rotation,huge loads and strong temperature rise,which requires very high design level,manufacturing process,and raw material performance.

In May 2017,the state-owned enterprise China Railway Equipment and the private enterprise Siyuan Heavy Industry cooperated to establish a shield machine assembly base in Deyang.So far,the base has produced more than 30 shield machines,which have been used in projects such as Chengdu Metro,Xi'an Metro,Guangzhou Metro,Chongqing Metro,and Sichuan-Tibet Railway.

"In the past,shield machines were mainly monopolized by countries such as Germany and Japan,and domestic companies had to buy them at high prices."Zhuo Xingjian said that in the past,core components such as cutter heads could only be imported,with high prices and long delivery cycles,and they had to"look at people's faces"when purchasing;in recent years,Chinese companies have broken through a series of world-class technical difficulties through independent research and successfully achieved the localization of shield machines.The market share of domestic shield machines has reached more than 90%.

"Heavy Equipment Capital"Deyang is a major technical equipment manufacturing base in western China.A report from the Deyang Municipal Government shows that Deyang aims at the world's technological frontiers and major national strategic needs,and guides leading equipment manufacturing companies to enhance their independent innovation capabilities.In the past three years,Deyang has accumulated 424 key core technologies,of which 68 have reached the world's first-class level.Since the beginning of this year,facing the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic,Deyang's industrial economy has bottomed out and rebounded at the end of March.

The"state-owned enterprise+private enterprise"cooperation model between China Railway Equipment and Siyuan Heavy Industry has attracted many private enterprises to participate in the upstream and downstream supporting of the industrial chain.Yang Ming,chairman of Siyuan Heavy Industry,said that in just a few years,Deyang has developed more than 100 local enterprises to participate in supporting,and the local supporting rate has increased from 30%in 2017 to more than 70%at present.

China's complete manufacturing system makes this high local supporting rate possible."In other words,70%of the raw materials and spare parts we need to produce shield machines can be purchased locally,which greatly saves costs."Yang Ming said.

"The shield machines we develop and produce are not only popular in China,but also very popular internationally.The large-diameter shield machines we manufacture have been exported to Dubai."Yang Ming said.

Xu Wenqiang,director of the Comprehensive Department of the Sichuan Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology,said that in the past three years,the annual average growth rate of technology research and development investment of Sichuan industrial enterprises has exceeded 10%,and a number of"stuck neck"technologies have been overcome.Sichuan will continue to improve the level of"government,industry,academia,research and application"coordination,solve the"stuck neck"problem,and promote the manufacturing industry to move towards high-end.

"China has developed tunnel boring machines from scratch and has now firmly taken the forefront in the world.Now,our tunnel boring machines are used to build the Sichuan-Tibet Railway,which has the highest altitude and most complex geological environment in the world,and provide strong support for the construction of large-scale national projects,"said Zhuo Xingjian.