As the upgrading product of weather-resistant steel for railway wagon, Ansteel’s new-type corrosion-resistant steel S450AW relied on good quality and cost advantage and won the bid of 35,000t C80E vehicle steel of China Railway Corporation, which accounts for 70% of the whole order. On June 11, Ansteel paid a return visit to the customer and knew that this batch of steel plate has been successfully applied to more than 3500 units of C80E vehicles. And all the performance indicators are very good.
Due to the restriction of environment, weather and other factors, the railway wagon steel is easy to suffer from corrosion, which will have bad influence on the transportation safety and maintenance of the wagon. At the end of 1980s, Ansteel was the first to develop Generation I weather-resistant steel in China. However, in the process of development and production for Generation II and III weather-resistant steel, domestic steel enterprises independently developed weather-resistant steel Q450NQR1 and new-type high corrosion- and weather-resistant steel S450EW， which made Ansteel no longer take the lead of railway weather-resistant steel any more.
How to break the technical barriers and make the product take the lead again? Ansteel took the barrier of welding and cold processing formation as the breakthrough of development. The EVI development team of corrosion-resistant steel in Angang Steel Co., Ltd. relied on the technical accumulation and experience and promoted the development of new products by means of brand-new composite design system concept and successfully developed S450AW new-type corrosion-resistant steel for railway vehicle at the beginning of 2013. The steel grade has excellent corrosion-resistant performance; meanwhile it has high strength, high toughness, good cold-formability and welding performance. Since then Ansteel has had an important advantage to seize the weather-resistant steel market.
After the successful development of new product, it is extremely crucial to make market promotion. The leaders and corrosion-resistant steel EVI team of Ansteel went to China Railway Corporation and related units to make promotion many times. In March last year, China Railway Corporation agreed that S450AW could be tested on the wagon door which needs the most rigorous formability. The test result showed that the performance indicators fully met the requirements and the formability also had a great improvement space, which received the recognition from China Railway Corporation. In May last year, the new-type corrosion-resistant steel S450AW was successfully exported to Mozambique. After application, the service life of the vehicle is greatly improved. Therefore, we won the affirmation and trust from our customers. Through the strict test of the market, the leading advantages of Ansteel’s new-type corrosion-resistant steel S450AW are becoming more and more obvious, meanwhile promote the upgrading of domestic new-type corrosion-resistant steel.
In April this year, the new-type corrosion-resistant steel in Ansteel ushered in its spring. Relying on excellent performance and cost advantage, Ansteel successfully won the bid of 35,000t steel for producing C80E vehicles in China Railway Corporation. Nine out of twelve railway vehicle plants chose to use Ansteel Product. The ordering quantity for winning the bid is far more than other steel plants. In order to meet the requirements, Ansteel made full use of the integrated advantages of production, sales and research, overcame difficulties in liquid steel melting and billet rolling and successfully finished all the ordering task in May this year. Ansteel won the praise from railway vehicle plants and the brand image of Ansteel’s corrosion-resistant steel was improved.
