Recently, the Beiye Functional Materials Corporation (Beiye), which has just won the title of Beijing's "Hidden Champions" in 2022, has received a joint thank-you letter from China United Gas Turbine Technology Co., Ltd. (CUGTTC) and the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS Institute of Metal Research), expressing gratitude to Beiye for its great support in the manufacturing of turbine blades for the first prototype 300 MW heavy-duty gas turbine.

The letter reads: CUGTTC entrusted the CAS Institute of Metal Research to manufacture turbine blades for the first prototype 300 MW heavy-duty gas turbine, and Beiye undertook the production and supply of high-purity master alloy. Since the project's launch, under the strong support of your leaders at all levels, your project team has fully exerted its pragmatic and rigorous work spirit, and made efforts to overcome difficulties and adverse effects. Based on its advantages and decades of technical accumulation, it has mastered a range of key technologies and solved a range of "bottleneck" problems, thereby presenting a satisfactory result in implementing major national projects.

Aero-engines and heavy-duty gas turbines are vital symbols for measuring the comprehensive strength of a country, and a pain point that China's manufacturing industry has been struggling to break through for many years. During the "13th Five-year Plan" period, the aero-engine and heavy-duty gas turbine project is listed among the first of 100 key tasks in China's development planning. Since the project's launch, Beiye has made great efforts to explore, summarize its experience and make breakthroughs in the face of the dilemma of foreign technology blockade and a lack of experience at home, and thereby making great achievements in scientific research.

In the trial and batch production of high-purity master alloy, Beiye bravely shouldered the heavy responsibility, made plans carefully and set up a project team with Dr. Gao Yang as the core, actively coordinating nine departments including scientific research, production, physics and chemistry to tackle key difficulties. The sum of O, N and S elements in the prepared ultra-pure master alloy is less than 3 ppm (11 ppm for similar international products), and that of 45 trace elements is less than 25 ppm (36 ppm for international similar products), reaching the international leading level. This not only fills in the domestic gap but also ensures the smooth progress of the first prototype turbine blade project by CUGTTC, thereby providing strong material support for basic high-pure alloy research in China, and presenting a satisfactory result in implementing major national projects.

CUGTTC and the CAS Institute of Metal Research thanked each project team member for their hard work: During the implementation of this project, a group of outstanding professionals emerged in your company. The team led by Dr. Gao Yang from the Institute of Materials Research carried forward the spirit of being unafraid of hardship and fatigue, and went all out even during holidays such as National Day, Mid-Autumn Festival and so on, working overtime day and night at the front line. With rich management experience and professional advantages, the team overcame many technical problems and project management challenges to ensure the high quality, quantity and timely delivery of the master alloy, as well as the smooth progress of the prototype turbine blade project by CUGTTC.

As a "Hidden Champions" enterprise in Beijing, Beiye has adhered to sci-tech innovation for many years, gradually explored the "big scientific research" mechanism suitable for its development, and truly practiced the concept of scientific research through engineering approaches. It has also successfully completed a series of national defense and military research projects, and key projects in major fields such as Shenzhou and Chang'e spacecraft and carrier rocket projects, national 863 projects, major instrument projects, etc. Beiye has carried out more than 500 research projects at the national, provincial and ministerial levels, and those commissioned by enterprises, constantly increasing its sci-tech innovation capabilities and providing a strong guarantee for the modernization of national defense, major equipment and key areas of the national economy.