China's high-end CNC machine tools to achieve domestic breakthrough

With the rapid development of China's aerospace, shipbuilding, energy, power, defense, automotive and construction machinery industries, the demand for large-scale, heavy-duty, composite, high-precision high-end CNC machine tools has increased dramatically. Changing the status quo of high-end CNC machine tools is imminent.

Whether it is to transform a steel plate into a complex-shaped gear, or to make a high-performance fiber material into a streamlined vehicle shell, or just to finely cut a certain kind of blank, it is impossible to leave the machine. This type of machine used to make machines is called the “parent machine” of the industry. With the development of industrialization, its control method has achieved digital control. It can be said that digital machine tools are the cornerstone of industrial modernization and their technical level represents the comprehensive competitiveness of a country.

In order to consolidate China's industrial base and narrow the gap between China's CNC machine tools and the international community, in 2009, China officially launched the implementation of "high-end CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment," major science and technology projects, 8 years, special projects have achieved fruitful results. With an output value of approximately 70.6 billion yuan, China's high-end digital machine tool technology has been continuously improved, and manufacturing support for domestically-manufactured manufacturing equipment in key areas has been strong and powerful. High-end CNC machine tools have achieved localization breakthrough.

High-end CNC machine tool breaks foreign monopoly

"On a machine tool, X-axis motion can process lines, plus the Y-axis can process the surface, and with the Z-axis, it can process a three-dimensional thing, but this is still far from enough." Wang Decheng, Director of the Machinery Research Institute The reporter told China Economic Net that “Industry often processes more complex surfaces, and the materials, structures, and processing technologies of many key parts in ships, aircraft, rockets, satellites, and spacecraft have certain specialities and processing difficulties. The processing methods cannot meet the requirements, and multi-axis linkage, high-speed and high-precision CNC machine tools must be adopted to meet the processing requirements.”

Wang Decheng said that multi-axis linkage is a key technology in CNC machine tools. It can realize simultaneous movement on multiple coordinate axes of a machine tool. The tool or workpiece can be coordinated and controlled at the same time under the control of the CNC system, thus completing complex shapes. Processing. Although China is the world’s largest manufacturing country in the world today, the extreme lack of such high-end CNC machine tools has led to China’s high-end manufacturing has been subject to control.

“In the past, China could not make five-axis linkage machine tools, and the CNC system used was also manufactured abroad. In order to manufacture a device on a large ship, many manufacturers scrambled to rush to use only one imported machine tool. For aerospace companies, In other words, foreign high-end CNC machine tools not only restrict us from importing, but even if they are imported, their CNC systems also have information backdoors that can monitor us and are a big hidden danger for national defense security.” Specialized Technical Engineer, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering Lu Bingheng said.

With the rapid development of China's aerospace, shipbuilding, energy, power, defense, automotive and construction machinery industries, the demand for large-scale, heavy-duty, composite, high-precision high-end CNC machine tools has increased dramatically. Changing the status quo of high-end CNC machine tools is imminent.

In this regard, the "Science and Technology of High-end CNC Machine Tools and Basic Manufacturing Equipment" major science and technology project focuses on the research and development of large-scale imported machining centers and CNC lathes. Machine tool companies have developed a large number of new products that meet market demands. Manufacturing technologies such as gantry machining centers and 5-axis machining centers have matured. The performance of heavy-duty forging equipment is close to the international advanced level. Precision horizontal machining centers have independent intellectual property rights. The core technology of flexible manufacturing systems. By the end of the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, the product design and manufacturing capabilities of China's machine tool companies have been significantly improved, and the international competitiveness of high-end CNC machine tools and equipment has continued to increase.

In the field of high-end numerically-controlled machine tools, China finally has independently developed products that can compete with imported equipment. The successful development of heavy-duty forging and CNC punching equipment such as 80,000-ton large-size die forging presses and 10,000-ton aluminum sheet tension-stretching machines has been completed. The gap in the overall forming technology of large-scale heavy-duty parts in the domestic aviation field; the large-scale tank complete welding equipment was successfully applied to the development of a new generation of rockets such as the Changzheng No. 5, and the first production demonstration line using domestic processing centers and CNC turning centers was established in the aerospace field. , Has been applied to the processing of more than 100 types of new generation carrier rockets, docking institutions, and lunar exploration engineering differential mechanisms, and more than 10,000 critical complex parts, and has achieved remarkable economic and social benefits; industrialization of CNC forging and forming equipment The results are remarkable. Among them, the auto cover press line has a domestic market share of more than 70%, and the global market share has exceeded 30%, which has effectively promoted the autonomy of domestic auto equipment and successfully exported 9 production lines from Ford Motors USA.

At the same time, China’s equipment support capabilities in key areas continue to increase. “The high-end numerical control machine tools represented by five-axis machining centers are used for batch demonstration applications in aircraft typical structural parts, aerospace complex and precision structural parts, and components of flying missile engines, and are used for large aircrafts, new types of warplanes, lunar exploration projects, etc. Major national special projects and key projects provide key manufacturing equipment."

Independent innovation and reliability have improved significantly

Since the implementation of CNC machine tools in 2009, the technical level of the industry has significantly improved, narrowing the gap with the international advanced level. Lu Bingheng introduced that more than 30 key products such as precision horizontal machining centers developed by China have reached the international advanced level. Among them, the 25-meter vertical column turning vertical milling lathe is a high-end product urgently needed by China for the construction of major national engineering projects. Its technical parameters and technical grades are among the world's leading, with the largest machine specifications and bearing weight in the world, representing the country’s high-end The highest level of CNC heavy machine tools.

What is worth mentioning is that the independent innovation and reliability of the machine tool industry in China have been significantly improved, and standards and technical specifications have been gradually improved. Through special implementation, the joint development of domestic machine tool backbone enterprises and universities and users is promoted, and the establishment of national/industry standards for reliability evaluation of CNC machine tools is actively organized and promoted in the machine tool industry. The average time for failure of the machine tool has generally increased from 400 to 500 hours before the implementation of the special project to approximately 1200 hours. Some products have reached more than 2,000 hours and are close to the international leading level.

Lu Bingheng introduced that the special achievements formed a large number of technical standards and specifications. The machine tool industry standards and technical specifications were gradually improved. Some of the technical standards were valued by international counterparts and were included in international standards. The industry’s international competitive advantage has been significantly enhanced, and it has formed strong support for product research and development. It also plays a role in ensuring the continued development of the national equipment manufacturing industry.

At the end of 2016, the standard of S-shaped test pieces for testing the accuracy of 5-axis linkage machine tools independently proposed by China has passed the examination and approval of the International Standards Committee, becoming the first standard in the field of high-end CNC machine tool design and testing, and achieving a “zero” Breakthrough.

In addition, the special implementation of more than eight years, the cumulative application for 3956 patents for inventions, project national and industry standards 407, research and development of new products, new technologies 2951, new production value of about 70.6 billion. In the industry research institutes and key enterprises, 18 innovation capability platforms have been built, 70 demonstration projects have been deployed, and more than 5,500 innovative talents have been trained.

Domestic "brain" complements Chinese made short board

CNC system is the "brain" of machine tool equipment, and it is the key factor that determines the function, performance, reliability, and cost price of CNC machine tools. It is also the bottleneck restricting the development of CNC machine tool industry in China. The weak foundation and “mindlessness of the brain” have always been the shortcomings of “Made in China”.

According to experts, CNC systems, servo motors, servo drives, etc. are the most important and critical basic components of manufacturing equipment. To achieve the goal of "Made in China 2025" and form the core competitiveness of "China's wisdom", it is inseparable from the innovation of key technologies such as servo drives and servo motors in CNC systems.

In order to complete the "short board", the special deployment of CNC machine tools to implement the entire industry chain layout, domestic CNC system to achieve some of the original technology beyond. The company has mastered the hardware and software platform design and mass production technology of the CNC system, and has reached the international mainstream product technology level in key technical indicators such as multi-channel, multi-axis linkage and high-speed interpolation.

Through the support of special CNC machine tools, China's CNC system has achieved a leap from analog, pulse to all-digital bus, and has initially had the ability to compete with similar foreign products. The high-end numerical control system, functional components and host product supporting R & D, initially realized with the high-end numerical control machine tools batch support. According to Luo Junjie, deputy director of the Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2016, the numerical control machine tool dedicated to research and development of high-end numerical control system has accumulated more than 1,000 sets of sales, the domestic market share increased from less than 1% before the special start to 5 %about.

At present, the domestic high-end numerical control system has been matched with more than 10 types of more than 600 high-grade CNC machine tools, and it has begun to be applied in key aerospace enterprises. “The quality of functional parts and enterprise products has steadily improved, the series of products has been continuously improved, the testing equipment for rolling functional components has been built from scratch, and the key technical indicators such as static stiffness and the level of test equipment have reached the international advanced rank. As of now, the rolling functional components are in the high end. The market share of CNC machine tools is 20%, which is 4 times higher than that before the implementation of special projects in 2009. The satisfaction of varieties is 80%, said Luo Junjie.

The mid-range CNC system also achieved mass production. The domestic market share increased from 10% to 25%. Three industrialized production bases have been formed, and a total of nearly 4 billion yuan worth of sales have been achieved with the specially supported CNC systems. The key functional components such as ball screws, guide rails and power tool holders are close to the international advanced level in terms of accuracy, reliability and other key indicators.

"The road is long and long-term." "In the future, China's CNC machine tools will focus on two key user areas: aerospace, automotive, and common technology research and key areas of technological verification, the development of key core components and industrialization in parallel, and accelerate the innovation capability platform. And demonstration project construction, strengthen the cultivation of innovative talents and the introduction of high-end talents, and strive to solve the three issues of CNC system and functional components, reliability and accuracy maintenance, processing efficiency and process improvement, and achieve special results in the scale of key areas, complete sets The demonstration application will provide support for the full implementation of 'Made in China 2025'.” Lu Bingheng said, “On the other hand, the CNC machine tool project will be closely linked with other national science and technology projects and local science and technology projects to form a joint force and jointly commit to the national high-end CNC. The leap-forward development of the technological innovation capability of machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment."

The "aircraft carrier" of China's machine tool and equipment industry has already gone through the test. In time, the "macrowarship" of China's machine tool and equipment industry will face the tide in the global economic globalization.