After Zhou Ren 19 15 returned to China, the iron and steel industry in China developed slowly because of the weak national strength and the government's contempt for science and technology. During the period of 1928, when Zhou Ren was the dean of the School of Engineering of Central University, he proposed that the Institute of Engineering should focus on iron and steel smelting. Later, he felt that iron and steel smelting was similar to the firing of ceramics and glass in principle, so he founded three test sites of steel, ceramics and glass at the same time in the college.
1June 9, 928, academia sinica was established, and Zhou Ren was responsible for establishing the engineering research institute. He personally surveyed the terrain and guided the construction, and built a steel test workshop in Shanghai Baili South Road (now Changning Road). At the same time, Zhou Ren ordered hundreds of scientific research reference books from abroad, and imported Mowu electric arc furnace, electromechanical accessories, analytical instruments, lathes, forging hammers and other equipment from the United States. Among them, the three-phase electric arc furnace imported from the United States is one of the earliest electric arc furnaces in China. With the joint efforts of Yan Enyu and Zhou Xingjian, all kinds of carbon steel, manganese steel, nickel-chromium steel, chromium steel, stainless steel, carbon tool steel, high-speed steel, acid-resistant ferrosilicon and alloy cast iron have been successfully trial-produced. Products include train crankshafts, large roulette wheels, train hooks, etc. Many products meet the needs of some domestic factories.
At that time, the domestic cast iron technology followed the old British method. There are no operating rules for the selection of deposits used in molds, observation of furnace temperature, modeling and casting process. As for furnace inspection, composition analysis and strength determination, there is no rule to follow. As for the smelting of special cast iron, cast steel and all high-quality steel, almost no one dares to try. The engineering research institute successfully carried out scientific experiments and summarized them, which opened the way for the experiments of domestic steel mills.
War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out and Shanghai fell. In order to preserve the scientific research strength of the Institute, Zhou Ren took great pains to reorganize the scattered technicians and transported books, instruments, electric furnaces and material testing machines from Shanghai to Kunming via Hongkong and other places.
1939 a factory building was built in Qiaotou village, a suburb of Kunming, and an electric furnace was installed to start the test. There were many difficulties at that time. For example, the determination of carbon in steel analysis requires pure oxygen, which is not available in Kunming. They had to use a small fire oil tank instead of a steel cylinder, use the most primitive method of heating and decomposing potassium chlorate to make oxygen, use hydraulic pressure to deflate it, and then use it after purification. With strong perseverance, they made the first heat of steel. Zhou Ren happily said to everyone: "This is the first meaningful electric furnace steelmaking in Kunming, which is worth remembering." In this way, they continued to test various alloy steels, tool steels, acid-resistant stainless steels and ferrotungsten alloys, and equipped rolling equipment. Engineering Research Institute has trial-produced steel wire rope for bittern extraction in Zigong Salt Well, Sichuan, hard magnetic steel for electric appliance factory, low manganese spring steel for automobile maintenance in the United States, and various alloy steels for internal combustion engines. Under the guidance of Zhou Ren, they made use of local resources to carry out research on extracting cobalt chloride from cobalt ore and using charcoal instead of gasoline as fuel for internal combustion engines of automobiles, so as to solve the energy problem in wartime. Zhou Ren and his colleagues successfully developed some urgently needed special steels under extremely difficult conditions, and made contributions to War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.
1949, People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded. In order to quickly restore and develop steel production in China, the government appointed Zhou Ren and Zhou Xingjian to inspect Angang and other places. At that time, most factories could only produce ordinary pig iron, which could not be used to manufacture automobile bearings and steam engine boilers with certain mechanical strength, thus inspiring Zhou Ren's determination to study ductile iron.
Zhou people put forward the idea of replacing steel with iron and forging with casting. He organized a test team. After more than one hundred experiments, he finally found a suitable graphitization additive and mastered many factors that affect the metallographic structure and mechanical properties of ductile iron by elements and heat treatment. It took the lead in developing ductile iron in China, and its performance reached the international level at that time. 195 1 year, ductile iron was popularized all over the country, which made an important contribution to the cause of iron and steel smelting in China. 1956, the state awarded them the third prize of natural science.
From 65438 to 0953, Zhou Ren was the leader of the "Two Mines Leading Group" of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and was responsible for the research on smelting and comprehensive utilization of Baotou and Daye iron mines. Baotou area not only has a large number of iron ore resources, but also important rare earth metals and niobium resources. Among them, the reserves of rare earth oxides reached 654.38 billion tons (including 36 million tons of iron ore). Because the ore contains a lot of calcium fluoride (fluorite), and there is no precedent for smelting this kind of ore in the world, Soviet experts who were going to help Baotou Steel design and build a 1500 cubic meter large blast furnace at that time dared not act rashly because they did not have basic smelting data. Zhou Ren improvises and quickly organizes a battle group. The Metallurgical Research Institute mobilized urgently and completed the research task of Baotou Iron Mine. With Zou Yuanxi as the technical director, a 1 m3 experimental furnace was quickly built for smelting test. Zhou Ren personally did the viscosity test of fluorine-containing slag, and systematically studied the behavior of fluorine in blast furnace with Zou Yuanxi, Xu Yuansen and others, including the influence of fluorine on the physical and chemical properties of blast furnace slag and the change and distribution of fluorine in blast furnace smelting process. He expounded the mechanism of fluorine volatilization in ore and slag, solved the problem of corrosion of steel structure by fluorine-containing blast furnace gas and refractory by fluorine-containing slag, and completed the task well. He has to make careful arrangements for every exam link, and he has to personally direct every important exam and make great efforts.
Soon, he sent a report with accurate and reliable data and incisive analysis to Soviet experts. The experts were very surprised. They didn't expect China's experiment to be so quick and correct. According to the important conclusion put forward in the report that only carbon bricks can resist the erosion of fluorine-containing blast furnace slag, the original design scheme of using only carbon bricks in the hearth of blast furnace was modified, and carbon bricks were used from the hearth to the lower part of the furnace body (except tuyere zone), which created conditions for the large-scale blast furnace with 15 13 cubic meters to stand safely in Baotou Steel. Zhou Ren and others published five papers on the above achievements in Journal of Metals, which were well received by academic circles at home and abroad. This achievement won the third prize of National Natural Science (1982). Through this campaign, it created a precedent for the Metallurgical Research Institute to strike hard and cultivated a team with excellent style. Under the leadership and influence of Zhou Ren and other old scientists, the team has made creative contributions in scientific research projects such as rare earth extraction and utilization, blast furnace smelting of Panzhihua Iron Mine, etc. Founder of scientific research on ancient ceramics
Porcelain is one of the important inventions in ancient China. However, in the ancient documents of China, there are few complete records about the development and scientific and technological achievements of these historic kilns.
Zhou Ren loved ceramics since he was a child, and later he sprouted the belief of uncovering the mystery of ancient ceramics in China. Zhou Ren didn't get married until he was 32 years old under the guidance of the thought that "getting married is not the top priority, but determination is the goal", when he was the dean of Jiaotong University. In his humble new house, he carefully arranged several pieces of porcelain, which shows his keen interest in ceramics.
1927 is a period of sharp decline in the output and quality of ceramics. Imperialist aggression and the destruction of reactionary rulers have caused many old workers to lose their jobs, many valuable experiences have been lost and production has been shoddy. 1928 when the engineering research institute was established, he decided to set up a ceramic testing workshop in the engineering research institute and decided to cooperate with the Engineering College of Central University to build a workshop in Nanjing. He invited eight technicians from Hunan, Jiangsu and other places to build a kiln to burn porcelain, and began to study the traditional ceramic technology in China. That summer, Dr. Sun Yat-sen's body was buried, and he was ordered to refine 80 pieces of antique porcelain for display as a souvenir. Under the careful guidance of Zhou Ren, its quality has been well received by many parties.
With the success of the first battle, Zhou Ren's confidence in restoring the essence of China porcelain doubled. In order to obtain the scientific data of firing ceramics in different periods, starting from 1929, Zhou Ren personally made many excavations at the site of Nanjing Imperial Kiln and the site of Song Imperial Kiln in the south of Phoenix Mountain in Hangzhou, and twice visited Jingdezhen, the capital of porcelain. He and Jingdezhen famous old artist * * * conducted scientific experiments and summed up the production technology of traditional blue and white porcelain.
These investigations enabled him to master three keys:
1. Porcelain is not white enough because of poor selection of raw materials.
2. Glaze, because the temperature is not high enough, it is not smooth and bright enough.
3. In terms of painting and color, it is not bright enough because of poor color preparation.
In order to revitalize China's ceramic industry, Zhou Ren wrote the first paper on China's ceramic technology, Work Report of the Central Ceramic Experimental Site. Later, many new opinions were put forward on how to choose the formula of ceramic blank soil, how to make general ceramics, how to make colored glasses, how to build reasonable porcelain kilns, and how to fire ancient porcelain.
The ceramic experimental workshop led by Zhou Ren has made great achievements in imitating ancient porcelain and artistic porcelain, developing industrial porcelain and machine-made daily-use porcelain, and made valuable contributions to revitalizing the national ceramic industry. However, at that time, the government did not pay attention to it, the funds were insufficient, and the research on ancient ceramics was in trouble, so the workshop had to study and produce at the same time and talk about self-sufficiency. 1938 ceramic workshop moved to Kunming, and the conditions were even more difficult. Since 194 1, they have also carried out research on various special chemical and optical glasses such as microscopes, telescopes, rangefinders and periscopes.
1953, Premier Zhou Enlai instructed the Ministry of Light Industry to do a good job in the research and production of ancient porcelain, and invited Guo Moruo to come out of the mountain. Lao Guo said that there is a Zhou native in Shanghai who has made great achievements in this respect. Zhou Ren readily accepted the task. When he heard that some diplomatic envoys in China wanted to buy some porcelain in China out of longing for ancient ceramics, they were disappointed: Chinese porcelain was too rough and heavy. His heart vibrated and he couldn't sleep at night. The duty of scientists is to win glory for the country. So Zhou Ren immediately took office, and with the strong support of the leaders, he set up the China Ancient Ceramics Research Group. However, the journey is not smooth, and it is difficult to restore the ceramic technology level of modern people. The famous kilns built in Jingdezhen in past dynasties are in ruins. Zhou Ren revisited Jingdezhen, looking for treasures among piles of rubble. He was so careful that he had to pick up a piece of porcelain as big as a finger to study it. He tracked every kiln site until its establishment date. After that, he went to the remote mountain plain in Longquan, Zhejiang Province to learn about the former site of Song Kiln, and also visited the Yellow River Basin and other places with the China Ancient Ceramics Research Group. The research group of "National Porcelain" carried out research work in three aspects:
1. Make chemical analysis and identification on the fine works of past dynasties, so as to obtain the necessary scientific data of China traditional fine porcelain.
2. According to some literature records and interviews with old artists in Jingdezhen, several high-quality raw materials were selected for experiments.
3. The firing method used to be a wood kiln, but it was difficult to burn a lot of wood, so it was changed to a coal kiln, which was also beneficial to control and observe the temperature.
After repeated experiments, they found that it was very good to use kaolin from Jingdezhen 120 km away and porcelain stone from Taihe Pit in Qimen as clay tires. Glaze is glazed fruit in the kiln about 55 kilometers away from Jingdezhen and glazed ash in front of the temple about 15 kilometers away from the southeast of Jingdezhen. In addition, they also mastered the heating curve and the final ignition temperature. Finally, a batch of advanced ceramics with traditional characteristics have come out of the kiln. These porcelains are light and delicate, crystal clear and elegant in shape, reaching the level of ancient Chinese ceramics, and some even exceed the ancient level.
Although the ceramic industry has a long history in China, before liberation, it mainly produced daily-use ceramics and art ceramics; The production of industrial ceramics has been in a backward state. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), during the period of economic recovery, acid-resistant ceramics and other ceramic materials for chemical industry and ceramic utensils for chemical experiments were researched and manufactured in several porcelain-producing areas according to the needs of national economic recovery. Since 1954, the Institute of Metallurgical Ceramics of China Academy of Sciences, under the auspices of Zhou Ren, and in close cooperation with the Institute of Electrical Porcelain of the First Ministry of Machinery Industry, has systematically studied the formula of domestic high-voltage electrical porcelain. Nanjing Electric Porcelain Factory successfully trial-produced various types of 1 10KV rod insulators and cable sleeves using the blanks studied. 1958 A high alumina high strength and high voltage electric porcelain was successfully manufactured by ordinary feldspar porcelain process with different clay materials, and the breakdown voltage was as high as 40.1kv/mm. The porcelain sleeve for 330 kV air compression circuit breaker was successfully trial-produced by using the developed blank, and it did not break under 180 atmospheric pressure.
Corundum products occupy a very important position in special ceramics and have a wide range of applications. After 1955, the Institute of Metallurgical Ceramics of Chinese Academy of Sciences systematically studied sintered corundum as tool material. 1958 began to produce ceramic tiles in small batches. Domestic porcelain knives are more suitable for high-speed cutting than cemented carbide, with high finish and deep tool consumption.
In addition, in order to improve the quality of artificial porcelain teeth, the Institute of Metallurgical Ceramics of China Academy of Sciences cooperated with the 65438-0959 oral material production unit to complete the research and trial production of artificial porcelain teeth. Physical and mechanical properties of porcelain teeth (such as strength, thermal stability, hardness, wear resistance, etc. ) are all high-end goods close to imports.
Ceramic technology, like many excellent technologies in China, has only experience but no theory. Zhou people are interested in filling this gap. Together with Zhang Fukang, his assistant, he wrote papers such as Scientific Summary of Ceramic-making Technology in Neolithic Age and Yin and Zhou Dynasties in China, and co-authored 14 ceramic research papers. His outstanding achievements in the study of ancient ceramics in China have been valued and praised by the departments of cultural relics, archaeology, culture and education at home and abroad, and he enjoys a high reputation in international academic circles. At the 1978 National Science Conference, China's ceramic research projects won major scientific and technological achievement awards. 1982 won the National Natural Science Award.