An innovation forging technology for the world's largest austenitic stainless steel ring

One world record breaking- -the world's largest austenitic stainless steel forging ring with a diameter of 15m was successfully forged in China. It have be used as a part of critical support devices for a new generation power plants of China. In order to meet the strict requirements of raw materials and specifications for new energy power equipment, ultra large rings were forged by an innovation process, which combined the metal construction forming technology with the forging & rolling technology. In this paper, based on describing the technical scheme and forging process in details, we analyzed the difficulties and advantages of forging technology of the ultra large austenitic stainless steel ring. Finally, the testing results of the ring indicated that, comparing to traditional ingot forging process, the combination of metal construction forming technology and forging & rolling technology has satisfactory advantages in terms of external dimension control and material performance. This study has created a new forging technology for high-quality and ultra large rings, which is of great significance for the high-quality development of large- scale mechanical equipment in future.