After a period of volatility, the recent gear steel market gradually tends to be stable, and the price is basically stable. From the current market situation, the price of gear steel does not fluctuate too much, and there are also short of goods and short of goods. For example, the products of special steel enterprises such as great wall special steel, Xingcheng Special Steel, Xining Special Steel, Shougang Special Steel and Shigang are more short of goods or short of goods in the market. According to the follow-up survey of Marketing Management Department of CITIC Pacific special steel group, the gear steel market has shown a steady and rising trend in recent years.
Operators and insiders believe that the steady growth of China’s economy and the continuous development of the gear industry will inject a strong impetus and vitality into the gear steel market, with a broad market prospect in the future.
High end gear becomes the development focus of the 13th five year plan
Gear is a mechanical part with teeth that can mesh with each other. It is widely used in mechanical transmission and even in the whole mechanical field. China’s gear industry consists of three parts: train gears, industrial gears and gear equipment. Among them, the market share of train gear reaches 60%; the industrial gear is composed of general, special and special industrial gears, with market share of 18%, 12% and 8% respectively; the gear equipment accounts for 2% of the market share.
In recent years, China’s gear industry has developed rapidly. Statistics show that from 2005 to 2010, the total industrial output value of the domestic gear industry increased year by year, and the year-on-year growth rate is more than 20%. By the end of 2011, there were 2319 manufacturing enterprises of bearing, gear, transmission and driving parts in China, with total assets of 248.316 billion yuan, up 20.59% year on year. Gear industry has become the “leading” industry in the field of basic parts of general machinery in China. The 13th five year plan for the development of general parts industry released by the equipment industry department of the Ministry of industry and information technology has made a clear plan for the gear industry. It is estimated that the export growth rate of gear products will be about 10% during the 13th Five Year Plan period, and the export volume is expected to reach about 5 billion US dollars by 2015.
However, at present, there are still some problems in the development of China’s gear industry, mainly because the industry is large but not strong, and the structural contradictions are prominent. In terms of product structure, the production capacity of low-end gears in China is huge, but the production capacity of high-end gears is insufficient, and the production technology of high-end gears is still far behind that of foreign countries. For example, auto transmission and high-speed train transmission and other core technologies are imported by people.
According to the 13th five year plan for the development of General Parts Industry issued by the state, during the 13th Five Year Plan period, super large, long-life gears and transmission devices are listed as the development focus, including megawatt wind power generation gear boxes with power above 2MW, noise ≤ 95dB, mechanical efficiency ≥ 97%, and service life ≥ 20 years, warships and ships Type a gear transmission, high precision, low noise, long life large and medium spiral bevel gears, auto transmission and key parts, etc. In addition, the plan also specifies the key target of gear materials, among which high-quality materials are one of the key points, requiring to speed up the research and development of special steel; high quality and special steel are the basis for the upgrading and development of high-end parts, so the import of special steel should be gradually reduced, and the localization rate of key parts should be gradually increased. It can be seen that in the next few years, China’s gear industry will still get rapid development, and the gear industry has formed a clear industry concept and industry strategy.
Gear steel enterprises have made remarkable progress following the development
The sustained and high-speed development of China’s gear industry creates a huge market for gear steel. It is reported that the main types of gear steel in China are: low alloy steel containing Cr, Ni and Mo, boron steel, carbon nitrogen carburizing steel and free cutting steel. Due to the lack of Ni and Cr in China, 20CrMnTi carburizing steel or boron containing rare earth steel are commonly used, 18CrMnNiMo carburizing steel or medium carbon alloy steel are commonly used for heavy machinery, 40Cr and 38CrMoAl Steel are used in machine tool industry, 25Cr2MoV steel is used for nitriding high-speed gears.
With the development of China from a big country of gear manufacturing to a powerful country of gear manufacturing, the gear industry puts forward higher requirements for the variety and quality of gear steel. For example, there will be a large market for special and special gear transmission in the future, such as non-circular gear, powder smelting gear, small touch gear, etc., which have a high demand for gear steel and a large demand at the same time; some high-end car transmission gears are made of stainless steel, so some gear steel products related to this should be improved with the development of the automobile industry.
Gear steel should also meet the development needs of gear industry, and some domestic special steel enterprises have made obvious progress in this aspect. At present, the production technology and equipment of a number of domestic special steel enterprises have reached the international advanced level, with strong production, test, research and new product development capabilities. The gear steel production of some special steel enterprises adopts the technology of “high power electric furnace + LF + VD + ESR + rapid forging + annealing (or normalizing) + turning”. There are also special steel enterprises, in order to further consolidate the market leading and dominant position of gear steel, comprehensively promote the upgrading work of gear steel, focusing on “making articles” on product upgrading and market high-end; strengthening exchanges and cooperation with high-end users, promoting the development of high-end new products and rapid expansion of high-end market, many new gear steel products have entered the production of high-end users in the industry For example, 20crmntish3 is first used in car engine; low titanium, mncr series gear steel and other products are developed, and the products have entered large domestic enterprises such as FAW, Erqi, sinotruk and Tianjin Tianhai synchronizer.
It is predicted that the consumption of gear steel in China will increase from 2.07 million tons in 2010 to about 2.5 million tons in 2015. The 13th five year plan for the development of the iron and steel industry has made it clear to promote the overall upgrading of the quality of special steel, focusing on improving the quality and performance of special steel products such as bearing steel, gear steel, die steel, stainless steel and high-temperature alloy, especially extending the service life, and taking high-grade gear steel for automobile and other manufacturing industries as the key special steel varieties for the key development, such as high-quality bearing steel and gear steel Production technology has been listed as the key point of technological innovation in the 13th Five Year Plan period of iron and steel industry.