Metallurgical Science and Technology Awards set by China Iron and Steel Industry Association (CISA) and The Chinese Society for Metals (CSM) announced 84 laureates for the year of 2019. TISCO’s program of “wide ultra-thin precision strip process technology and product development” was honored as the only outstanding winner of this most authoritative award in metallurgical industry in China.
The wide ultra-thin precision strip, vividly called as “hand tearable steel” by public, used to be a secret product which can only be produced by handful of countries all around the world, due to extreme specification in terms of thickness, profile, surface and performance, great complexity in process technology, as well as insurmountable difficulty in production control. In 2016, TISCO set up a dedicated R&D team targeting at the wide ultra-thin precision strip. The team, sticking to its original aspiration of independent innovation and its passion to serve the country, keeping in mind the mission of building "the pillars of a Great Power", carrying forward the spirit of craftsmanship and the spirit of collaboration and dedication, had never stopped in exploring and testing and trials since then. After more than 700 test failures, after overcoming more than 170 equipment problems and 450 process problems, after a series of major breakthroughs in key technologies, the team finally achieved success in producing stainless steel precision strips with a thickness of 0.02mm and a width of 600mm. The strip produced by TISCO is of internationally advanced quality, which makes the company the only producer that can realize batch production of wide ultra-thin stainless steel precision strip in the world.
The wide ultra-thin stainless steel precision strip is widely used in pillar industries and key fields such as aerospace, petrochemical industry, military nuclear power, new energy, high-end electronics, automobiles, textiles, computers, precision machining, and has started to show up in high-end electronic industries like folding display screens, flexible solar module, sensors, energy storage batteries and etc. The special steel has greatly promoted the upgrade and sustainable development of high-end manufacturing industry, driven the progress on super-conduction, microspore processing and other surface deep processing technologies, and led the global trend of stainless steel ultra-thin strip. By present, this program has been granted 44 national patents, among which 13 are invention patents.
The Metallurgical Science and Technology Award is the highest awards in Chinese metallurgical industry. It sets four grades, i.e. the Outstanding Winner, First Prize, Second Prize and Third Prize. It is awarded yearly to Chinese citizens and organizations with legal personality who research, develop, promote and apply advanced scientific and technological achievements in the field of China’s metallurgical industry.