Whether it's transforming a steel plate into a complex gear, crafting a high-performance fiber material into a streamlined vehicle shell, or simply cutting a particular type of blank with precision, machines are indispensable. These machines, often referred to as the "mother machines" of industry, have evolved significantly over time. With the advent of industrialization, their control methods have transitioned to digital control. Digital machine tools are the foundation of industrial modernization, and their technological level reflects the comprehensive competitiveness of a nation.
To strengthen the foundation of China's industry and bridge the gap between China's CNC machine tools and the global community, in 2009, China initiated the implementation of the "Major Science and Technology Projects for High-end CNC Machine Tools and Basic Manufacturing Equipment." Over the past eight years, these special projects have yielded fruitful results, generating an additional output value of approximately 70.6 billion yuan. China's high-end CNC machine tools have seen continuous improvements in technical levels, providing strong support for domestically produced manufacturing equipment in key areas. High-end CNC machine tools have achieved breakthroughs in localization.
Significant Increase in Manufacturing Capacity
Through the development of CNC lathes with high demand and large imports, Chinese machine tool companies have created independently researched products capable of competing with imported equipment, enhancing their design and manufacturing capabilities.
"On a machine tool, X-axis motion can process lines, adding the Y-axis allows processing of surfaces, and with the Z-axis, you can process three-dimensional objects, but this is far from sufficient," explained Wang Decheng, Director of the Machinery Science Institute. "Industry often requires processing more complex surfaces, and the materials, structures, and processing techniques for many critical components in ships, aircraft, rockets, satellites, and spacecraft have unique characteristics and processing challenges that cannot be handled by traditional methods. To meet these requirements, multi-axis linkage, high-speed, and high-precision CNC machine tools are necessary."
Wang Decheng noted that multi-axis linkage is a key technology in CNC machine tools. It enables simultaneous movement across multiple coordinate axes of a machine tool. Under the control of the CNC system, the tool or workpiece can be coordinated and controlled simultaneously, thus completing complex shape processing. Despite being the world's largest manufacturer today, China lacks such high-end CNC machine tools, limiting its control over high-end manufacturing.
"In the past, China couldn't produce five-axis linkage machine tools, and the CNC systems used were also manufactured abroad. To fabricate a device on a large ship, many manufacturers scrambled to use just one imported machine tool. For aerospace companies, foreign high-end CNC machine tools not only restrict our imports but also pose national security risks due to information backdoors in their CNC systems," said Lu Bingheng, a special technical engineer and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
With the rapid development of China's aerospace, shipbuilding, energy, power, defense, automotive, and construction machinery industries, there has been a dramatic increase in demand for large-scale, heavy-duty, composite, high-precision high-end CNC machine tools. Addressing the current state of high-end CNC machine tools is urgent.
In response, the "National Major Science and Technology Projects for High-end CNC Machine Tools and Basic Manufacturing Equipment" focused on deploying large-scale imported machining centers and CNC lathes with significant market demand. Machine tool companies have developed numerous new products to meet market needs. Technologies like gantry machining centers and 5-axis machining centers have matured. The performance of heavy-duty forging equipment approaches international advanced levels, and precision horizontal machining centers possess independent intellectual property rights. Core technologies for flexible manufacturing systems have been developed. By the end of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan period, China's machine tool companies have significantly improved their product design and manufacturing capabilities, and the international competitiveness of high-end CNC machine tools has continued to grow.
In the field of high-end CNC machine tools, China has finally developed independently produced products that can rival imported equipment. The successful development of heavy-duty forging and CNC punching equipment, such as 80,000-ton large-sized die forging presses and 10,000-ton aluminum sheet tensioning stretchers, has enabled the domestic aviation industry to adopt large-scale integral forming technology. Large tank complete welding equipment was successfully applied to the development of new-generation rockets like the Long March V, and the first production demonstration line using domestic processing centers and CNC turning centers was established in the aerospace sector. More than 100 types of new-generation launch vehicles, docking mechanisms, lunar exploration projects, and over 10,000 critical complex parts have achieved notable economic and social benefits. The industrialization of CNC forging and forming equipment has shown remarkable results, with the domestic market share of auto cover press lines exceeding 70% and global market share surpassing 30%, effectively promoting domestic auto equipment autonomy and successfully exporting nine vehicle production lines to the United States.
Technical Standards Gradually Improve
China's machine tool industry has formed a large number of technical standards and specifications, some of which have been incorporated into international standards. The industry's international competitive advantage has significantly strengthened, providing strong support for product development.
Since the implementation of the National Science and Technology Major Project for "High-end CNC Machine Tools and Basic Manufacturing Equipment," the industry's technical level has significantly improved. Lu Bingheng introduced that more than 30 key products, including precision horizontal machining centers, developed by China have reached international advanced levels. Among them, the 25-meter vertical column turning vertical milling lathe is a high-end product urgently needed for China's major national engineering projects. Its technical parameters and technical grades are among the world's leading, with the largest machine specifications and bearing weight globally, representing the highest level of China's high-end CNC heavy machine tools.
Most notably, China's machine tool industry has significantly improved its independent innovation and reliability, and standards and technical specifications have gradually improved. Through special implementation, domestic machine tool backbone enterprises, universities, and users have collaborated, and efforts have been made to establish national/industry standards for the reliability evaluation of CNC machine tools. The average time between failures of the machine tool host has increased from 400 to 500 hours before the special project's implementation to approximately 1200 hours, with some products reaching internationally advanced levels of 2000 hours.
Lu Bingheng introduced that the special achievements formed a large number of technical standards and specifications. Some of the technical standards were taken seriously by international counterparts and included in international standards. The industry's international competitive advantage has been significantly enhanced, providing strong support for product R&D and contributing to the continued development of the national equipment manufacturing industry. The improvement in capabilities plays a safeguard role.
At the end of 2016, the S-shaped test piece standard for testing the accuracy of 5-axis linkage machine tools independently proposed by China passed the examination and approval by the International Standards Committee, becoming China's first standard in the field of high-end CNC machine tool design and testing, achieving a "zero" breakthrough.
In addition, over the more than eight years since its special implementation, more than 3956 invention patents have been applied for, 407 national and industry standards have been established, and 2,951 new products and technologies have been researched and developed. Among 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 Shortcomings
The CNC system has made a leap from analog, pulse, to full-digital bus, initially possessing the competitive ability to rival similar foreign products, and breaking through the bottleneck restricting the development of China's CNC machine tool industry.
The CNC system is the "brain" of machine tool equipment and is the key factor determining the functionality, performance, reliability, and cost of CNC machine tools. It is also the bottleneck restricting the development of the 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 goals 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.
To make up for theçŸæ¿, the deployment of the "National High-tech CNC Machine Tool and Basic Manufacturing Equipment" major national science and technology projects implements the entire industry chain, and the domestic CNC system achieves original surpasses in some technologies. 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 special support, China's numerical control system has achieved a leap from analog, pulse, and all-digital buses, 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 have initially realized batch support for high-end numerical control machine tools. According to Luo Junjie, Deputy Director of the Equipment Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2016, the numerical control machine tool dedicated to high-end numerical control system R&D accumulated more than 1,000 sets of sales, and the domestic market share increased from less than 1% before the special project started to about 5%.
Currently, 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 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 ranked among the top in the world. As of now, the market share of rolling functional components in high-end CNC machine tools reaches 20%, which is four times higher than that before the implementation of special projects in 2009. The variety satisfaction rate is 80%," said Luo Junjie.
Lu Bingheng stated that China's CNC machine tools will focus on two key user areas: aerospace, automotive, and common technology research and emphasis on process verification in key areas; the development of key core components and industrialization will be parallel; accelerating the development of innovation capability platforms and demonstration projects, and strengthening innovative talent training and the introduction of high-end talents, focusing on solving problems related to CNC systems and functional components, reliability and accuracy maintenance, processing efficiency, and improving the level of processing, realizing the application of special achievements in scale and complete sets of key areas, and implementing full support for "Made in China 2025."
In the next step, CNC machine tools will be closely linked with other national science and technology projects and local science and technology projects to form a concerted effort to jointly achieve the leap-forward development of the national high-end CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment technology innovation competitiveness.
In the future, CNC machine tools will continue to advance in collaboration with other national science and technology projects and local science and technology projects, forming a coordinated effort to achieve the leapfrog development of the country's high-end CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment technology innovation competitiveness.
Pcb Membrane Switch,Membrane Pcb,Dome Switch Pcb,Membrane Keyboard Pcb
CIXI MEMBRANE SWITCH FACTORY , https://www.cnjunma.com