The truth behind the massive import of China valves from abroad

The truth behind the massive import of China valves from abroad

China Valve's "Counter-attack" Road

The development of China's valve industry is like a magnificent counterattack.

Looking back before the founding of New China, the old China was in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society for a long time, with extremely weak industrial base and backward valve industry. At that time, Britain, the United States and other imperialist countries dumped all kinds of valves to China through comprador, and the commercial common name "Val" flooded the market. China relied entirely on imported valves and had no independent production power. It was not until the founding of New China that this dilemma turned for the better.

In the early days of the founding of New China, everything needed to be done, and the valve industry got off to a difficult start. Under the background of the country's vigorous promotion of industrial construction, a number of state-owned valve enterprises came into being, shouldering the heavy responsibility of providing basic valve products for key fields such as petroleum, chemical industry and electric power. However, at that time, the technical level was limited, the product variety was single, the production efficiency was not high, and there was a big gap with the advanced foreign level.

The spring breeze of reform and opening up has brought great vitality to the valve industry in China. Domestic valve enterprises actively carry out exchanges and cooperation with foreign countries, vigorously introduce advanced technology and equipment, and open the road to technological innovation. Enterprises continue to increase investment in R&D, overcome technical difficulties, steadily improve product quality, and increasingly enrich the types. From traditional gate valves and globe valves to high-performance valves such as ball valves and butterfly valves, they can gradually meet the diversified needs of various industries in China.

In the 21st century, especially in recent years, China valve industry has stepped into the fast lane of development. In frontier fields such as intelligence, environmental protection and energy saving, domestic enterprises have made remarkable achievements. Intelligent valves can be remotely controlled and accurately adjusted, and are widely used in industrial automation production lines; Environmental protection valves help environmental protection projects such as sewage treatment and waste gas purification; Energy-saving valves can effectively reduce energy consumption and conform to the concept of sustainable development. Today, China valves not only play a major role in major domestic projects, such as the West-East Gas Transmission Project and the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, but also stride into the international market, and are exported to Europe, America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other regions, winning the recognition and trust of international customers.


The truth behind the massive import of China valves from abroad


First, the past advantages of foreign valves

(1) Advanced craftsmanship

For a long time in the past, foreign valve enterprises have shown remarkable advantages in technology by virtue of their profound industrial heritage and advanced technology accumulation. Taking the welding process as an example, in order to meet the anti-radiation requirements of the sealing material of nuclear-grade valves, KSB Company of Germany widely uses special welding powder for cobalt-free welding and post-welding heat treatment, which greatly improves the reliability and stability of valve sealing and ensures safe operation under extreme working conditions. French Willand Valve Company skillfully integrates preheating before welding, automatic welding and post-welding treatment on the same equipment or the same processing production line to realize automatic temperature control, which not only ensures the welding quality, but also simplifies the process and improves the efficiency. For complex welds, such as straight line and curve connection, it can also accurately and automatically weld, making the overall structure of the valve stronger and better sealed.

In terms of material processing technology, ASCO Company of America has developed a variety of advanced technologies to improve the erosion resistance of ultra-high pressure valves. Like vacuum heat treatment, the workpiece is heated in vacuum to avoid oxidation and decarburization, and the harmful gas in the material is removed, thus improving the quality and performance. The impact toughness, mechanical properties and service life of the ultra-high pressure needle valve treated by this method are greatly increased. There are also surface strengthening treatments, such as physical vapor deposition (PVD), in which metal ions are deposited on the valve surface in vacuum to form a coating to enhance corrosion resistance. After PVD treatment, the needle valve manufactured by W18Cr4V is resistant to corrosion by dilute hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid and nitric acid, with high surface hardness, strong wear resistance and good coating accuracy, and can be ground and polished to extremely high accuracy. These exquisite techniques make foreign valves dominate the high-end field for a long time, and the product quality is outstanding.

(B) Strict quality control

Foreign valve enterprises are almost strict in quality control, ensuring high quality products in all directions. From the point of standard compliance, products generally strictly comply with international authoritative standards such as API, JIS, BS, etc. These standards cover all aspects of valve design, manufacturing and testing, and there are fine quantitative requirements from material composition to finished product performance to ensure the stability and reliability of valves under different working conditions. For example, API standards strictly limit the performance indexes such as pressure resistance, temperature resistance and sealing of valves in oil and gas industry, which urges enterprises to produce products that meet high requirements.

The quality inspection process is equally rigorous. The casting blank has high internal quality and sufficient precision, and can be machined on the machine without renovation, thus reducing the risk caused by machining errors. There are all kinds of hot and cold experimental equipment, which can simulate the extreme environment such as high temperature, high pressure and low temperature where the valve actually works, and expose potential problems in advance. France Bernard Electric Device Company, the parts processing record sheet flows with the parts, the whole process is traced back, the assembly line is neat and orderly, the screw rod rolling processing is efficient and the finish is high, the parts are protected and painted finely, and the quality hidden dangers are eliminated from the details, so that the products have exquisite appearance and excellent performance, and the service life of general valves far exceeds that of peers, winning the favor of high-end fields such as nuclear power, metallurgy, oil and gas pipelines, and leading the global market share.

Second, the rise of China valve password.

(A) outstanding cost performance

The high cost performance is the key factor for China valves to emerge in the international market. In terms of cost control, China has the most complete industrial system in the world, and all kinds of raw materials and parts needed for valve production are adequately supplied and the prices are stable, which can effectively reduce the procurement cost. At the same time, the mature manufacturing technology accumulated over the years has highly optimized the production process, greatly improved the production efficiency and reasonably controlled the labor cost.

Taking Anhui Fengchi Pump and Valve Manufacturing Co., Ltd. as an example, the pneumatic pinch valve produced by it adopts the design without actuator, the rubber valve sleeve is the only over-current part, and the valve switch is directly driven by compressed air without external transmission mechanism, which not only simplifies the production process, but also reduces the procurement cost of parts. This innovative design makes the product price about 30%-40% lower than that of similar foreign high-performance automatic control valves, which is highly competitive in the market. From DN10-DN1500, it has many types, such as mini-type, universal-type, split-type, large-caliber type, etc., to meet the on-site needs of different customers, and it is widely used in mining metallurgy, food and pharmaceutical, animal husbandry, municipal drainage and other industries, providing high-quality choices for many customers seeking cost-effective self-control valves.

(2) The product range is complete.

The richness of valve products in China is the highest in the world. From the material point of view, it covers all kinds of special alloy valves such as cast iron, stainless steel, copper, plastic, titanium alloy and nickel-based alloy, and can adapt to extreme working conditions such as high temperature, high pressure and strong corrosion. For example, in the field of marine engineering, in the face of seawater corrosion and high-pressure deep-sea environment, domestic titanium alloy valves show excellent corrosion resistance and pressure resistance, ensuring the normal operation of submarine oil and gas production equipment.

In the driving mode, the manual valve is easy to operate and low in cost, which is suitable for small and simple systems; Electric valves can be controlled remotely and accurately, and are widely used in large industrial automation production lines and water supply and drainage systems of intelligent buildings. Pneumatic valves respond quickly and are often used in chemical and food packaging production lines that require high reaction speed. There are tens of thousands of different models and specifications of all kinds of valves, which can accurately match the needs of various industries such as petroleum, chemical industry, electric power, construction, water supply and drainage, HVAC, etc. Customers can always find valve products suitable for their own projects in the China market.

(C) technological innovation to catch up

In recent years, China valve enterprises have made great progress in the field of technological innovation. Investment in R&D continues to rise, and many enterprises work closely with universities and scientific research institutions to build a joint innovation platform in Industry-University-Research. Breakthroughs have been made in the key technologies of high-end valves, and the sealing technology has developed from traditional soft and hard seals to multi-component composite seals, greatly improving the reliability and service life of valve seals; Wear-resistant technology adopts new coating and special alloy material, which makes the valve keep good performance under the scouring condition of granular media.

Intelligent valves have sprung up all over the world. Nantong Guodian Valve Technology Co., Ltd. developed a "valve production measurement and control system based on artificial intelligence", which uses machine learning and deep learning algorithms to realize real-time monitoring and precise control of the valve production process. Not only can the production defects be forewarned in advance, but also the production process can be optimized according to historical data, so that the qualified rate of products can be increased by about 15%-20%, which opens a new chapter in the intelligent manufacturing of nuclear power valves, and also marks that the gap between China valves and foreign advanced levels is gradually narrowed in the high-end and intelligent fields, and the competitiveness of the international market is promoted by technological innovation.

Third, win-win international valve trade

It is a win-win situation to import a large number of China valves from abroad. For importing countries, on the one hand, they can optimize their own industrial structure. Take the developed countries in Europe and America as an example, outsourcing the production of low-end valves to China, so as to focus on the core business of high-end valve research and development, key system integration and enhance the added value and competitiveness of the industry. For example, some established valve enterprises in the United States reduce the production line of ordinary valves, specialize in special valves in deep-sea oil and gas exploration, aerospace and other fields, and use conventional valves supplied by China to meet the basic needs of other local industries, so the industrial division of labor becomes more reasonable.

On the other hand, realize the rational allocation of resources. Imported valves with high performance-to-price ratio from China can reduce the procurement cost, local energy consumption and manpower input. For example, a chemical enterprise in Europe purchased a large number of general industrial valves from China, which reduced the cost by about 30% compared with local production. It also avoided the complicated processes such as building new factories and recruiting and training workers, and concentrated capital and manpower on key links such as chemical process innovation and environmental protection treatment and upgrading, thus improving the overall efficiency of the enterprise.

From the perspective of China valve export, opportunities and challenges coexist. In recent years, the "Belt and Road Initiative" has opened up new channels for valve exports, and infrastructure construction in countries along the route has flourished, and the demand for valves has soared. With product diversity and quick delivery ability, China enterprises have won a large number of orders, helping energy pipelines, water conservancy projects and other projects land. However, challenges such as trade protectionism and technical barriers are severe, and some developed countries frequently set up barriers on the grounds of quality standards and environmental protection regulations. For example, the European Union raises the environmental protection index of valves and the United States imposes tariffs, which makes China's valve exports face the dilemma of rising costs and increasing the difficulty of market access. However, this also forces China enterprises to strengthen quality control, increase R&D investment, move towards high-end, intelligent and green, accelerate industrial upgrading and transformation, and gallop the international valve market with a better attitude.

4. Looking to the future: Co-casting a new chapter of valves

Looking forward to the future, the cooperation between Chinese and foreign valve industry has broad prospects. In the field of technological innovation, the two sides are expected to work together to overcome more difficulties, such as developing special valves adapted to extreme environments such as ultra-high temperature and strong radiation, which are used in frontier projects such as nuclear fusion energy development and deep space exploration. By sharing R&D resources and jointly cultivating talents, we will accelerate the transformation of innovation achievements and promote the continuous expansion of valve technology boundaries.

In terms of market expansion, with the continuous upgrading of global infrastructure, such as energy and water conservancy projects in Africa, Latin China and other places, Chinese and foreign enterprises can complement each other's advantages. enterprises can seize the opportunity with efficient production and rapid delivery, and foreign enterprises provide after-sales protection with brands and technologies, so as to jointly deepen emerging markets and enhance global market coverage.

Under the wave of green development, it is the general trend to jointly develop environmental protection and energy-saving valves. Adopting new degradable materials, optimizing valve fluid dynamics design, reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions, contributing to climate change, opening a new chapter in the sustainable development of valve industry, and making valves shine more brightly on the global industrial stage.