Recently, the Section Steel Plant of Shandong Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. announced that the trial rolling of H175 gantry channel sections had been a complete success. This marks a significant breakthrough for Shandong Steel in its efforts to localise the production of high-end, precision special-shaped sections, successfully ending the long-standing reliance on imports for this product. Following on-site sampling and testing, the trial-rolled products were found to have good surface finish and precise dimensions, with all technical specifications meeting the required standards.

The H175 gantry channel section presents extreme challenges in rolling technology due to its complex forming process and stringent dimensional accuracy requirements. Constrained by technical barriers, mass production of this section in China is highly difficult; as a result, the country has long relied on imports, leading to issues such as high procurement costs and unstable supply lead times. This has become a key technical bottleneck hindering product supply chain integration and efforts to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

To overcome the challenges of domestic production, Shandong Steel drew upon its section steel business unit, with the Section Steel Plant bringing together various stakeholders from production, sales and research to form a dedicated technical R&D task force. Aligning with high-end product quality standards, the team systematically optimised die design, rolling rhythm, temperature control and equipment-process matching, refined operational standards for each process stage, and meticulously implemented all trial rolling support measures to ensure the new product met quality standards during trial rolling.

The successful trial rolling of the H175 gantry channel not only fills a gap in Shandong Steel' s portfolio of high-end special-section steel products in this specification, but also lays a solid foundation for further expanding the high-end section steel market and enhancing domestic production capabilities.