By Guo Jiatai

General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine,Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, National Development and Reform Commission and other six central departments jointly distributed “New Material Standard Pilot Action Plan(2018-2020)” (hereinafter referred to as “the Action Plan”), kicking off the new material standard pilot action. An expert said ships are developing towards larger tonnage, higher loading rate, longer service life, eco-friendly and intelligent directions, and this provides broad market space for the new material industry and raises even higher requirements for new material quality performance and support capacity. Chinese ship enterprises and relevant marine equipment suppliers shall actively respond to the new material standard pilot action, further improve the new material standard system, focus on improving quality of marine material products, increase effective supply of new material standards, boost the conversion of old and new energy, support the shipbuilding industry growth from big to strong, and better serve the shipbuilding power and quality power construction.

New Materials for High-Tech Ships to be More Targeted

In 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, National Development and Reform Commission,Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Finance prepared“Guidelines to the Development of New Materials Industry”, explicitly stipulating to incorporate standardization into the assessment acceptance indexes for key projects and major projects of the new material industry and convert research innovation results into standards in a timely way; build a fairly complete new material standard system and form the new material industry development pattern of multisector joint promotion and national and local coordinated development.

The new material industry standard system is composed of three standard sub-systems -- advanced basic materials, key strategic materials and new frontier materials. An expert urged to identify development directions of advanced basic materials, key strategic materials and new frontier materials and speed up building the three standard sub-systems, which contributes to boost development of the new material industry standard system. On the other hand,China should constantly perfect the new material standard system and strengthen new material innovation capacity construction, which ensures rapid and healthy development of the new material industry. Centering on requirements for new generation information technology,high-end equipment manufacturing,energy conservation and environmental protection, smart manufacture, etc., the expert suggested Chinese ship enterprises and relevant marine equipment suppliers should accelerate trimming of the highperformance steel product mix for offshore engineering equipment and high-tech ships, strive to break new material application badly needed by offshore engineering equipment and high-tech ships, step up R&D of frontier variety. In the meantime, they should actively participate in development of the new material standard system, drive R&D with demand, so that developed hightech ship new materials are more targeted and more applicable

Speed up High-Tech Ship New Material Achievement Transformation

“The Action Plan” calls on completing revision of 600 new material standards and building a complete new material industry standard system;optimizing the new material standard supply structure and substantially increasing group standards and corporate standards based on independent innovation technology; building a number of new material industry standardization pilot demonstration enterprises and parks and boosting effective implementation and extensive applications of new material standards. An expert suggested that centering on the action goal, in the light of development requirements of offshore engineering equipment and high-tech ships, Chinese ship enterprises and relevant marine equipment suppliers should assist in strengthening connection and matching of self design specifications and material standards and relevant material application manuals, promote tracing and conversion of new material industry international standards and speed up the internationalization of new materials standards.

For that purpose, “the Action Plan” suggests new material standards should “walk out”, carry out study of standardization developments of the US, Japan, Europe, Russia and other countries and regions with leading new material technologies, strengthen communication with key countries including the UK, the US, Germany and France,prepare a standardization cooperation road map, conduct standard comparison and applicability analysis, jointly develop international standard proposals and boost mutual compatibility of standard systems;explore the establishment of new material industry standardization demonstration parks in countries along “Belt and Road”, assist in the establishment of new material industry standard system, provide standardization information service and drive international new material capacity cooperation.

An expert noted standardization is a necessary condition for modern large production and also an important platform for conversion of science and technology into productivity. By practicing the new material standard pilot action and carrying out pilot demonstration,we can explore a working mechanism of standardization running through the whole process of industrial R&D,experiment, inspection, production,spreading and application, improve new material application level, thus promoting scale and brand development of the new material industry, and driving new material integration into the global high-end supply chain. This will to some extent help the new material industry gradually form international market competitiveness.

Speeding up new material application achievement conversion of high-tech ships cannot do without the establishment and improvement of the new material standard system. An expert suggests Chinese ship enterprises and relevant marine equipment suppliers should perform careful comparative analysis, hammer out basic variety“upgrade”, break through key variety core technology, practically propel frontier variety R&D, actively develop high added value varieties, strive to realize the goals of advanced basic materials stepping towards higher-end,key strategic materials aiming at complete self supply and frontier new material preemption of market opportunities. At the same time, strengthen communication and cooperation, use group power to encourage upstream and downstream enterprises to jointly take part in key project research, and by means of industry-university-research-user synergistic promotion, expedite highperformance ship new material innovation achievement conversion, guide China high-performance marine new material to realize independent development, key parts to realize complete self-sufficiency,improve China’s high-tech ship new material R&D system, assist in Chinese shipbuilding industry transformation and upgrading and realize the leapfrog development from big to strong.