TISCO produced a steel product that has been applied by a German-invested bimetallic saw blades manufacturer, replacing the imported steels.
The steel for bimetallic saw blades, also known as hot rolled alloy tool steel X32, has alloy content of up to 8%. The total annual market demand in China for this steel grade is around 25,000 tons, all being imported for many years. By 2016, TISCO and a few other steel producers in China had started to develop the capability to produce this special material. However, microstructure and performance instability had remained great challenges for domestic steel producers due to strict requirements on composition, strength, fragility and other performance of the material.
In TISCO, the marketing center, technology center and hot strip mill chose to embrace the difficulties and challenges. They strengthened communication with the customer, optimized chemical composition, adjusted rolling and annealing processes, and finally came up with qualified products that are highly accepted by domestic end users and manufactures of the saw blades. By 2020, bimetallic saw blades steel produced by TISCO had accounted for above 50% market share, becoming the only Chinese steel producer that can ensure stable supply of this steel grade.
The innominate German company, which has 9 production bases all around Europe, Asia, South and North Americas, offers 780,000 tons diversified high quality cold rolled products to the world every year. Its Chinese base consumes 5,000 tons steels for bimetallic saw blades annually and all those material used to be imported from Germany. TISCO marketing and technical staff have kept connection with the company for many years. In late February 2022, TISCO made quick respond to the customer’s predicament caused by block of international logistics and high cost of imported material, and offer a solution covering all aspects required by the customer, including chemical composition, hot rolling process, delivery period and shipment. 395 tons of steel were delivered in April, with performance getting acknowledgement by the customer. In August, another 600 tons were ordered by the same customer, who said would add purchase from TISCO until completely replace imported material.
The success achieved by TISCO in bimetallic saw blade steel offer domestic market a stable and direct access that bypasses the bottlenecks of high cost and long delivery period of imported steels. It marks another progress achieved by the company on the path to high-end, delicacy, specialty and novelty, paves a solid foundation for replacing imported high-end precision tool steels, and opens a broad market version.