On July 26th at 10:18, the AG600 Kunlong conducted its first salt water landing in Qingdao, in eastern China. The flight lasted just over a half-hour. Manufactured by the Chinese state-owned company Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the AG600 is described as a large, amphibious, four-propeller aircraft.
As the exclusive titanium alloy forging research and development unit of the "Kunlong AG600" aircraft landing gear, HNJT Titanium Alloy Technology Group has undergone nearly ten years of scientific research.
In the face of oceans with high salinity and high humidity, aircraft need higher corrosion protection and the ability to withstand the impact of waves.
From the ground to high altitude, the temperature, strength and structure of aircraft materials will undergo major changes. The faster the flight speed, the higher the temperature coefficient of the aircraft materials.
Aviation accidents, many of the breakthroughs, are actually material segregation problems. A defect the size of a grain of rice may cause an aviation accident in the sky.
As a strategic new material that countries are competing for layout, titanium has high strength, high toughness, high reliability, can reduce weight, improve corrosion resistance, and extend the life of aircraft. It is known as "space metal, marine metal, all-round metal ". High-strength titanium alloy is the core structural material of the key bearing parts of large aircraft, and it is also the "stuck neck" technology that has always restricted the development of large aircraft in China.
Hay Think learned that, from receiving the task of participating in the development in 2010, to the delivery in 2018, and the water test flight, in the eight years, the Xiangtou Jintian team only tested 56 times and developed a high-strength and high-toughness TC18 titanium alloy to ensure "Kunlong" The AG600" aircraft has high stability, high performance and high reliability in sea, land and air environments.
The uniformity and stability of the forging structure are directly linked to safety. Uneven and unstable, it is a catastrophic problem for aviation. These two technologies are also a major challenge for HNJT to undertake this project.
In Zhou Hui’s view, the uniformity of the composition of the ingot is firstly the uniformity of the composition and structure of the material. Melting and forging are the two core processes of aerospace materials. Firstly, smelting is carried out in the melt, and then the forging is made by die forging. .
HNJT led the completion of the "Key Technologies and Applications of Microstructure and Performance Uniformity Control of High-Strength and Toughness Aerospace Titanium Alloys", which broke through the major bottlenecks restricting the development of China's high-strength and toughness titanium alloy industry, and solved the high uniformity melting and forging structure phase transformation Key technical issues such as crystallization control and organization-performance process control have formed the basic theory of high-strength and toughness titanium alloy-core technology-product application full chain innovation, so that related products have gradually realized import substitution, and they have been used in large-scale aircraft and UAVs in China And other advanced models. This project won the first prize of the 2019 Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award.
HNJT's innovatively developed high-end titanium products such as titanium welded pipes and titanium strips have transformed China from an importing country to an exporting country and changed the world's import and export pattern. The formulated complete set of technical standards for the airworthiness of high-strength and tough titanium alloys for aircraft landing gears has also passed the country's first new-type titanium alloy airworthiness certification. Provided core components for the "13th Five-Year" national key R&D plan "Development of deep-sea crawling and swimming hybrid unmanned submersibles", and began to deliver them at the end of 2019, focusing on solving the "core materials of China's deep-sea robots' key materials and core components. "problem.
At present, HNJT Group and its subsidiaries have formed a complete titanium industry chain layout, becoming the core supplier of China's Massive aircraft, nuclear power, naval and other strategic markets. In the international market, it has become a high-level supplier in the fields of energy, desalination, and marine engineering. The only Chinese supplier of performance titanium strips and tubes.
In addition, with the high-titanium development of high-end electronic consumer products, HNJT has already started to deploy and jointly develop titanium consumer products with leading companies in the industry.
"The processing of titanium is very difficult, and the trend is more and more alloying and ultra-thinning." Talking about the next step, Zhou Hui said that the first is the upgrading of materials, as the application scene changes and upgrades towards pure titanium. , Semi-alloying, alloying direction development.