With the development of the modern economy, more and more metal abrasive is used around the globe. World famous companies in the lines of shipbuilding, foundry and machinery have invested and set up companies in China. The metal abrasive quantity demand is increasing day by day, many plants have been set up to meet the growing demand. At the same time, it also causes some unfavorable competition. Some plants reduce the cost to compete by lowering quality control. Facing unreasonable competition, ZIBO TAA still adheres to their principles and continuously improves the product quality and intensifies market competition with excellent product performance and reasonable price ratio.

High Carbon Cast Steel Abrasive

The high carbon steel shot and grit are high efficiency and low cost metal abrasive. It can achieve different hardness by different heat-treatment technology. It can be used in the wheel blasting or air blasting. It is most sought after metal abrasive in the world. The total demand is up to one million metric tons and composes 80 percent of the total metal abrasive. In order to expand the market share, the leading metal abrasive producers are improving the product competitive ability. In China, there are over 100 producers and the competition is heating up visibly. The quality depends on the production equipment, technology and raw material. The appearance of steel shot and grit from different producers are similar. At the same time, the clients are not professional on interior quality. ZIBO TAA thinks that there is a responsibility to tell the clients how to choose high quality and performance products. This Chinese manufacturer established an excellent quality system and a fine style of work for clients as early as the beginning of setting up company. In recent years, they have invested more funds into the equipment innovation and production research. The research department not only concentrates on the improvement of production technology, but also goes to the clients’ site to advise how to reach higher working efficiency. Their next research is how to help the clients to choose high quality and performance steel shot and grit. The Quality Control department not only inspects the chemical composition, hardness etc. but also provides metal abrasive test machines to compare the product fatigue life and efficiency. Being a supplier of metal abrasive, ZIBO TAA believes that they have the responsibility to help the clients how to judge the high quality products.
In the line of steel shot and grit quality improvement, the Chinese manufacturer likes to improve every detail in order to perfect the final quality. Since November, 2005, the exporting of custom made metal abrasive has increased by 10 percent. The RMB currency has continuously revalued .The Chinese steel shot and grit competition has become weaker due to above-mentioned two factors. They realize that quality improvement is the only way to improve market competitiveness. In fact, ZIBO TAA keeps applying and achieving this aim. The steel shot and grit export cost in 2007 has increased by 20 percent since 2006. But ZIBO TAA still keeps good cooperation with clients in over 20 countries and areas due to stable quality improvements. The stable quality improvements can make up for the disadvantage in the export cost increase.

Cast Iron Metal Abrasive

Iron shot and grit have replaced the non-metal abrasive. This media had been widely used in the 1960’s and many European producers had produced it in large batches. Due to the influence of environmental protection and the introduction of steel metal abrasive, the cast iron abrasive market and producers are decreasing. ZIBO TAA began to produce iron shot and grit in 1974. The cast steel metal abrasives were their main products in 1990’s. Cast iron abrasive is still produced, especially iron grit. The reasons are as follows:

(1) There is market demand in shot blasting processing, especially in Japan, Europe and North America. After shot or sand blasting, iron grit can not be recovered at 100 percent. Considering the production cost, many lines such as the metal parts in the lines of marine engineering, shipbuilding, steel bridges, workshop houses and steel structure etc still use iron shot and grit.

(2) Iron shot and grit have higher hardness, and while being smaller particles, it still has sharp angles so they can fast scale the oxide and etch the surface of parts. It is the biggest difference with other metal abrasives.

(3) Many producers use inferior raw material, so the old melting foundry equipments and technology, the harmful chemical composition and interior defects are very high. It will lead to the decrease of blasting effect and fatigue life. Meanwhile, it causes the creation of harmful dust in the blasting process. ZIBO TAA has improved the cast iron abrasive in the raw material and the technology, iron shot and grit quality have also been improved a lot to meet the strict environmental protection requirements from the developed countries.

Steel Cut Wire

Used steel wire had been taken as the raw material in making cut wire by many Chinese producers in the past years: The cutting equipments are simple. Due to the limitation of raw material and equipments, the steel cut wire supply and quality is not stable. It is important for ZIBO TAA to make excellent steel cut wire. They have introduced new cutting equipment and high quality raw material to ensure a stable quality and surface cleaning effect. The quality has reached the SAE-J441 standard requirement. Steel cut wire can be used in shot blasting. The rounded steel cut wire can be applied in shot peening enhancement. ZIBO TAA also can provide different materials such as the stainless steel cut wire and aluminum cut wire, zinc cut wire and copper cut wire etc.

Innovation In New Products

While improving the quality of products, ZIBO TAA is also keeping on innovating with new products. The first new product is low carbon steel shot. The low carbon steel shot possesses longer fatigue life than high carbon steel shot. The global consumption is near to 100 thousand metric tons. The main manufacturers and end-users are mainly concentrated in the European and North America market. In recent years, there have been some clients who have begun to use the low carbon steel shot. It seldom shows cracks during the heat-treatment because of the low carbon and the fatigue life is longer. Currently there are only a few manufactures because it needs the special raw material and big size low carbon steel shot cannot be broken into smaller size steel grit. Now they possess the excellent melting equipment and technology and they are starting to research this product. Research will concentrate on how to control the size percent especially for the little size.
The second new product is bainite steel shot. The microstructure of steel shot will appear different after heat-treatment. Different microstructure possesses different mechanical properties. Currently, the microstructure of steel shot is tempered martensite or troosite, both of which have good mechanical properties. The bainite microstructure is formed under high temperature quenching and the most mechanical property of bainite microstructure is the fatigue resistance. The thermal stress of bainite steel shot under high temperature quenching is lower than normal quenching and cracks do not easily appear. While melting, you need to add some alloy trace element, then adjust and control the element during the heat-treatment. Now ZIBO TAA has finished all test programs. Under meeting the using effect, the fatigue life could be increased by 30 percent. When sold in quantity the market prospect is very favourable.

Now ZIBO TAA not only researches new products and quality improvements by themselves but also cooperates with some steel and heat-treatment research institutes.

As the leader of Chinese metal abrasive, it is their responsibility to improve the quality and service and to help customers to choose the suitable products.

For Information:
ZIBO TAA METAL PRODUCTS CO.,LTD.
No.2 Industrial Development Zone
Mengshui Zhoucun District Zibo city
Shandong, China
Tel. +86.533.6880353 +86.533.6880415
Fax +86.533.6889358 +86.533.6888897
E-mail: sales@taa.net.cn
www.taa.net.cn