【Major Industrial Equipment in the Chemical Industry】From 2015 to 2022, Taiyuan Iron and Steel Stainless Steel produced 316H high-purity stainless steel continuous casting billets for the world’s largest support rings
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This post was last edited by Desert Fish on 2022-9-2 at 10:47. On August 9, the \"World’s Largest Ring,\" which holds a Guinness World Record, was successfully shipped. It is the world’s largest and heaviest seamless, fully stainless-steel forged ring, with a diameter of 15.673 meters and a weight of 150 tons. It serves as the support ring for the reactor vessel of China’s fourth-generation nuclear power plant – the 600-megawatt sodium-cooled fast neutron breeder reactor No. 2 in Xiapu, Fujian. It acts as the \"spine\" of the entire reactor and is designed to operate continuously for 40 years under a load of 7,000 tons; thus, extremely high standards are required in terms of quality and performance. This ring component is manufactured using Taigang 316H high-purity stainless steel cast billets, with Taigang being the sole supplier of this material. The introduction and use of domestically produced nuclear power support rings have not only broken the technological monopoly but also reduced the construction costs of domestic nuclear power plants; they truly represent vital assets for the country!
On March 12, 2019, the world’s largest in diameter and heaviest seamless solid stainless steel ring forging, made from 316H high-purity stainless steel, was successfully developed. This forging will be used to manufacture the support rings for the core components of China’s first fourth-generation nuclear power plant – the 600-megawatt fast neutron reactor demonstration plant in Xiapu, Fujian (hereinafter referred to as the fast reactor). As the only stainless steel manufacturer in China currently capable of meeting all the technical requirements of this process, Taiyuan Iron and Steel successfully completed all its supply assurance tasks.
This giant ring forging has a diameter of 15.6 meters and a weight of 150 tons; it is required to be able to withstand a load of 7,000 tons structurally, resist temperatures up to 650 degrees Celsius, and operate continuously for forty years. In the past, such large-scale forgings at home and abroad were manufactured by welding multiple small billets together; the material properties at the weld areas were weak, posing safety risks to the operation of nuclear power plants. The Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, pioneered a \"make-large-from-small\" process route, using 58 high-purity 316H stainless steel continuous casting slabs that were stacked and forged together to create the hundred-ton-scale raw billet required for manufacturing such ring components, thereby overcoming the metallurgical defects inherent in the ingot solidification process of the traditional \"make-large-from-large\" approach. Harsh operating conditions and entirely new processing techniques pose unprecedented challenges to the chemical composition and uniformity of the required continuous casting billets. Taigang, in collaboration with the China Institute of Atomic Energy and the Institute of Metal Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, gave top priority to the experimental and production aspects of this research, carrying out comprehensive technical efforts. Through advancements in smelting and continuous casting processes, the material’s high-temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, purity, internal structural uniformity, and dimensional accuracy were all improved to unprecedented levels. The company mastered the manufacturing techniques for series of products such as 316H stainless steel sheets, continuous casting billets, and electroslag ingots used in fast reactor key equipment, and acquired the capability for mass production, which played a vital role in the successful development of this \"world’s best\" product.
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