The Standardization Administration of China released a notice recently on its website, announcing that the program of "precision stainless steel foil" led by TISCO is officially filed and schemed. It means the company will, together with other participants, kick off the edition, advice soliciting, and review of the standard for "hand tearable steel", which will fill the void in Chinese steel industry, and more importantly, impose profound effect on regulating stainless steel foil specification and improving product quality, as well as facilitating the optimization and update of the steel industry of the whole state.
Stainless steel foil is a high end precision strip variety with the thickness of less than 0.05mm. It is widely known as “hand tearable steel” because it is so thin that it can be easily tore up just like a piece of paper. The foil is excellent in strength, dimension accuracy and surface brightness. As a high end material, “hand tearable steel” plays a very important role in pillar industries like aerospace, electronics, communication, computer, precise machining, and so on. However, due to stringent product specification and process control, the technology used to be monopolized only by a handful of enterprises in Japan and Europe.
To solve the stainless steel foil supplying problem for Chinese manufacturing industry, TISCO launched related research in 2016, aiming to seek a breakthrough in the technology. After two-year all around optimization in aspects of equipment, process and operation, and after solving over 400 technical problems, the hand tearable steel with thickness of 0.02mm and width of 600mm were successfully developed, making TISCO the only producer worldwide that can mass produce wide soft stainless steel foil.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Finance jointly published a "Guideline for Consolidation of Industrial Foundation (2016-2020)", which requires Chinese industrial players to well establish standard system in fundamental fields, speed up the establishment of standards, coordinate the standard consistency between up and down streams, and promote the global acceptance of Chinese key standards. Responding to the above requirements, in the year of 2019, TISCO proactively submitted a request to the state authority for the mission of drafting a standard for stainless steel foil. Based on abundant experience in both tests and actual production, TISCO plans to work out a standard that stipulates product classifications and grades, mechanical properties, surface quality, and etc. for stainless steel foils. And the standard is expected to further improve product performance, increase the competitiveness of Chinese steel products with high added-value, and guide the development of global stainless steel foil technology.
To draft and formulate a national industrial standard is an honor as well as a demonstration of comprehensive strength of a company in terms of technology, equipment, process and product. In China, above 70% standards for stainless steel plates and strips are dominantly or partially drafted by TISCO. The formulating of national standard for “hand tearable steel” is just another prove to the company’s power and capability. It is a big achievement made by TISCO in its standardization strategy and its pursuit for quality improvement. It is of great significance for elevating the company’s influence and consolidating its leading position in stainless steel industry.