Under the continuous efforts of companies such as Zoomlion, China's construction machinery industry, which has ever-greater quantities of innovative technologies, is showing the world the strength of Chinese manufacturing and has become one of the most globally influential representatives of the Chinese equipment manufacturing industry. An important symbol of this strength is Zoomlion's large crawler crane, which represents the new heights being achieved in innovative technologies by the Chinese equipment manufacturing industry.
3,200 Ton Domestic Crawler Crane's Nuclear DebutAt 9:00 am on December 20, 2014, at Unit Three of the second phase of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Station, with only eight minutes until the world's heaviest nuclear containment dome was lifted into place, the audience's eyes were all firmly focused on the Zoomlion ZCC3200NP Crawler Crane.
The lifting into place of the steel-lined containment dome for Unit Three of the second phase of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Station is the first such operation since the Japanese earthquake in 2011. The structure has the largest external dimensions, the heaviest weight and the largest radius of any dome used in the construction of a nuclear power station in the world to date.
The ZCC3200NP, which is the first domestic 3,000 ton crawler crane to go into production, complete testing and be cleared for sale, took just over one hour to smoothly lift the nearly 500 ton dome off the ground and accurately place it on top of the reactor, thereby completing the first lifting operation of a domestically manufactured 3,000 ton crawler crane.
The ability to carry out independent R&D and apply it to produce a large tonnage crawler crane is an important indicator of the Chinese crane manufacturing industry's core creative skills. The head of Zoomlion's crawler crane division proudly said of the independent R&D required to manufacture a large tonnage crawler crane: "Research and development on large tonnage crawler cranes officially started in China 10 years ago. Today, we can already be compared to international giants in the field."
Innovation and Breakthrough of the ZCC3200NPCrawler cranes first appeared in the early 20th century. Compared with Terex, Liebherr and other foreign crawler crane manufacturers, crawler crane production in China has a very short history, which has been restricted by intellectual property and manufacturing technology barriers put up by foreign enterprises in the area of ultra-large tonnage crawler cranes.
However, leading companies such as Zoomlion never give up on independent innovation. And, in 2009, in order to meet the ever-higher demands of China's third generation of nuclear power facilities for lifting equipment, Zoomlion began research and development on the ZCC3200NP.
To ensure smooth development of the product, Zoomlion brought together the whole company, as well as top experts from two national research institutes, and achieved innovations and breakthroughs in areas such as the dual vehicle structure and flexible connection device, heavy-duty parallel ultra-long tapered lattice boom, slewing bearing and ring rail support coaxial double slewing mechanism, multi-source, multi-machine drive rail and independent/centralized scheduling control, double-track vehicle cooperative intelligent control and a number of other key technologies.
"The ZCC3200NP, which we developed independently, has a series of advantages, including flexible balance capabilities, a large bearing capacity and strong anti-roll capability. In particular, the dual vehicle floating connection technology completely eliminates any influence on vehicle performance due to human factors or the external operating environment while moving," the head of Zoomlion's crawler crane division stated.
Zoomlion's engineers needed to explore various designs to ensure superior crane lifting performance as well as smooth lifting. In the course of developing the ZCC3200NP, countless of these sophisticated but hidden technological breakthroughs were made.
The ZCC3200NP crawler crane has obtained over 50 proprietary intellectual property rights, including the power unit and its control method, which also received the national invention patent gold award in 2012. The core technologies of the product series has eliminated the bottleneck in domestic large crawler cranes and promoted technological development within the industry.
The ZCC3200NP Showcases its StrengthThe ZCC3200NP crawler crane is the epitome of the "new era."
In his report on the work of the government in 2014, Premier Li Keqiang stressed the need to put innovation at the heart of national development, promote closer integration of scientific and technological as well as economic and social development and urge Chinese industries to climb the global value chain. In October 2014, on Premier Li's second visit to Europe, "innovation" was frequently mentioned in his speeches.
There are indications that China is entering an "era of innovation," which is obligatory if China's equipment manufacturing industry is to achieve revitalization on a global scale.
Zoomlion is a shining example. Zoomlion, which started out as a research institute 20 years ago, spends around 5% of its annual sales revenue on technological R&D. The company has central and divisional research institutes, which systematically research the basic principles of construction machinery, source mechanisms and common and unique technical features.
"By adhering to independent innovation, we use our own science and technology and small economic cycle to gradually integrate into different levels of the larger economic cycle, in order to grow our overall strength, build our own brand and foster international competitiveness," Zoomlion chairman Zhan Chunxin explains. Currently, as part of its strategy of expanding five major business sectors and accelerating the pace of internationalization, Zoomlion is linking up its international enterprise technology, marketing, branding and capital to become a famous world-class company.
Needless to say, "independent innovation" has become the main driving force of national economic and social development. Within the environment of promoting China's equipment manufacturing industry to go global, the development and application of the ZCC3200NP and other products that use independent technology enhance the core creativity of the industry and allow it to occupy a favorable position amid international competition. It has also made Zoomlion one of the finest examples of the "era of independent innovation."
