China Eastern Airlines Flight MU9191 arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport at 12:31 am on May 28, announcing the world’s first successful commercial passenger flight of the C919, a large passenger aircraft made in China, marking the thorough completion of the C919’s “research and development, manufacturing, obtaining license and putting into operation”. Nanshan Aluminum, as the only Chinese company that supplies aviation materials to Boeing, Airbus, China Commercial Aircraft and other famous OEMs in the world, is also in the spotlight because of the C919’s first commercial passenger flight. Nanshan Aluminum participated in and assisted the research and development of some products of the C919 project and became one of its suppliers. The company’s aviation plate business will be further expanded with the expansion of the market scale of the domestic large aircraft.

The manufacture of large passenger aircraft is known as “the pearl in the industrial crown”, an interdisciplinary, cross-industrial and cross-regional complex systems engineering, because of its complex and cutting-edge technology. Since March 2017, Nanshan Aluminum has been involved in the research and development of domestic large aircraft C919. At present, it has passed the certification of plate and sheet products of multiple alloy grades of 2 series and 7 series, and has started to supply in bulk. The products are mainly used in fuselage frames, bulkheads, wing panels, wing spars, wing ribs and other parts. Among them, the 7 series aluminum alloy plate has been used in the production of C919, ARJ21 and other models. At present, Nanshan Aluminum also participates in the research and development of some products for C929.

Aviation industry is a strategic industry. Large aircraft project is known as a major strategic project to revitalize the aviation industry, before everything, it is urgent to focus on the spectrum of major key manufacturing technologies and break through the technical barriers. After seven years of independently tackling key problems, Nanshan Aluminum has successfully broken through the core and key technologies of aluminum profiles for wing girder in domestic aviation and overcome a number of technical problems in the industry. It has passed the certification programs of aluminum profiles for wing girder of Airbus and COMAC, and gradually started to supply the products since 2019. In January this year, COMAC Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Co., Ltd. sent a letter of thanks to Nanshan Aluminum for its support and cooperation in the C919 large passenger aircraft project.

In addition, in March 2019, COMAC Shanghai Aircraft Design & Research Institute and Nanshan Aluminum Co., LTD jointly established the “Joint Research Center of Aluminum Alloy Materials for Civil Aircraft”. As a new platform for scientific research and innovation, the research center is committed to establishing and improving China’s aviation material industry chain service system with complete domestic production of aluminum material for civil aircraft as construction goal. At the same time, the center makes full use of the experience accumulated by COMAC Shanghai Aircraft Design & Research Institute in aircraft manufacturing and Nanshan Aluminum’s technological advantages in aluminum alloy products for aircraft, striving to build the international first-class aluminum alloy materials research center for civil aviation.

In addition to the deep cultivation of aviation materials, Nanshan Aluminum is the first domestic passenger car four-door-two-lid aluminum sheet manufacturer, is currently the only one that can supply ABS in batch, with the top product certification progress, the most certification manufacturers, and the most complete certification alloy grades. At present, Nanshan Aluminum is steadily promoting the construction of the ABS Phase III project, taking “build a world-class high-end aluminum industrial base” as the goal, and striving to build the country’s lightweight aluminum plate & strip base with the largest capacity and the most complete functions. At the same time, Nanshan Aluminum also actively fulfill its social responsibility, practice the goal of “carbon peak” and “carbon neutrality”, and build a high-quality grade-unchanged recycled aluminum comprehensive utilization project. While realizing the economic benefits of turning waste into treasure, it also highlights the social benefits of green environmental protection, and promotes the sustainable rise and race of the complete aluminum processing industrial chain in the same shortest-distance region of the world.

According to reports, after more than 20 years of development, from high starting point, Nanshan Aluminum has built the world’s only complete aluminum processing industrial chain in the same shortest-distance region, including thermal power, alumina, electrolytic aluminum, melting & casting, aluminum profile/hot rolling - cold rolling - foil rolling/forging, waste aluminum recovery (recycling). Terminal products are widely used in aviation, automobile, rail transit, ships, energy, petrochemical, containers, industrial profiles, high-quality civil profiles, high-end system doors & windows, beverage cans, food packaging, battery foil, aluminum deep processing and other fields.

According to statistics, Nanshan Aluminum has presided over the drafting of more than a dozen national standards and won the “Technical Standards Excellence Award” of the National Technical Committee for the Standardization of Non-ferrous Metals, and owns 5 research and development platforms at national level and 7 at provincial level. The company was awarded “National High-tech Enterprise” and “National Innovative Enterprise” etc. by the Ministry of Science and Technology, and won the “Shandong Provincial Governor Quality Award”. Among them, the National Aluminum Alloy Plastic Working Engineering Technology Research Center is the only national engineering technology research center in the industry.

In the future, Nanshan Aluminum will continue to increase the investment in scientific research in key technology fields, build kernel enterprise technology capabilities, fully enable the development of the industry, devote itself to leading the national aluminum industry from “big” to “strong”, and form a high quality development path with Nanshan characteristics, adhering to the strategic development idea of “innovation-driven, high-end manufacturing, deep processing”, taking “build a world-class high-end aluminum industrial base” as the goal, and relying on the advantages of the complete industrial chain.