Recently, the reporter learned from the construction site of the No. 3 blast furnace renovation project in the Shougang Beijing Park that Shougang adopted a “unique skill” for rust removal and rust protection on the surface of No. 3 blast furnace. As a new material independently developed by Shougang to fill the gap in the country, high-performance weatherproof transparent coating has been successfully applied to No. 3 blast furnace and its ancillary hot blast stove, gravity dust collector, dry dust removal equipment and other coating construction projects. At present, transparent anti-corrosion coating has been applied to a total of more than 300,000 square meters of No. 3 blast furnace and its ancillary structure.

No. 3 blast furnace is of steel-concrete structure, so the rust removal and rust protection on the surface of the furnace body is a technical difficulty in the renovation project. Technicians painstakingly tried various rust removal methods such as format preservation, artistic treatment, and refurbishment, but they couldn’t maintain the historical traces and vicissitudes of the blast furnace. There are always more methods than difficulties. Technicians have taken a different path and come up with a new idea in the process of tackling the problem: flush the rust with a high-pressure water gun, clean it, paint it with “rustproof paint”, and then seal it for protection; both the rust and the “soul” of the blast furnace are kept, forming Shougang’s “unique skill”.

This “rustproof paint” is a high-performance weatherproof transparent coating independently developed by Shougang, which consists of organic resins of different composition systems. The coating boasts excellent corrosion and weathering resistance, high transparency and low light reflectance, and can meet the appearance requirement of maintaining the original appearance of steel industrial structures to the maximum extent. It is a green long-lasting organic coating and will be promoted in the development and construction projects of the Shougang Beijing Park in the future.

No. 3 blast furnace and its ancillary facilities, the main buildings in the north district of the Shougang Beijing Park, are one of the first industrial relics to be renovated in the park. It was built in 1958, and was rebuilt after being relocated in 1993. After many years of service, the rust situation was extremely complicated. A large area of the original coating peeled due to prolonged outdoor exposure. It was planned to be transformed into the Shougang Museum. The overall design was to maintain the rust appearance full of vicissitudes and perfectly seal its industrial and historical atmosphere. This required keeping the “old” factors such as rust layer and coating under the premise of removing dust and stains. According to the person in charge of the coating project of Shougang Research Institute of Technology, the low surface treatment of the substrate and the transparent matt requirements of the coating brought great difficulties to the development of the coating. It was necessary to solve a series of technical problems, such as coating adhesion, corrosion resistance, weather resistance, gloss, and duration.

To cope with the design concept of “renovating the old as the old”, maintaining the historical flavor of No. 3 blast furnace, slow down the corrosion of the main structure of the blast furnace after cleaning and rust removal and prolong the service life, it was necessary to apply anti-corrosion coating to the surface of the steel structure. As the project owner, Shougang Construction Investment proposed general requirements. Xu Yan, Vice Minister of the Construction Engineering Department at Shougang Construction Investment said: “The coating must be corrosion resistant, ensure the stability and durability of the structure, and have beautification effects.”

Under the leadership of Shougang Construction Investment, Shougang Research Institute of Technology, Shougang Zhujing Construction Design Company, Shougang International Trade & Engineering Corporation, Shoujian Group, Credit Supervision and other entities actively collaborated to form a joint research team, which took a year and a half to complete the development of the coating from laboratory to engineering application. The team fully grasped the key concept of design, continuously optimized the adhesion, corrosion resistance, sealing, glossiness, transparency, and anti-ultraviolet aging ability of the developed coating, and conducted a series of performance evaluation experiments. After arduous efforts, it finally overcame many technical difficulties in the development and application of high-performance weatherproof transparent coating, formulated coating construction plans that met the design requirements and guaranteed the useful life, and submitted them to Shoujian for steel construction.

The “unique skill” of high-performance weatherproof transparent coating independently developed and successfully applied by Shougang solves the technical problem of anti-corrosion and maintaining the original appearance of the steel structures of industrial relics, and sets a good example in the construction of urban parks and the transformation of old industrial zones.