China's high-end CNC machine tools must break: The aviation sector dare not use domestic products

High-end CNC machine tools ready to break

In recent days, China’s first self-developed large-scale aircraft, the C919, has attracted much attention. According to Zhang Yanzhong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the National Large Aircraft Experts Committee, the C919 will make its debut at the end of 2015. It will also compete with the Boeing 737 and Airbus 320 in the future, and will lead the economy, environmental protection, safety, and comfort. .

Undoubtedly, China has made some progress in equipment manufacturing in recent years. However, compared with the world's advanced level, China's equipment manufacturing capabilities still need to be further improved. For example, the numerical control machine tool, which is known as the "matrix manufacturing machine," still faces a weak competitive position in terms of high-end products, and urgently requires a breakthrough.

Helping China's Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrade

The level, variety, and production capacity of CNC machine tools directly reflect the country's overall strength.

“The development of many key industrial products depends on the level of development of high-end CNC machine tools.” Zhang Jian, professor of Tongji University and honorary director of the Institute of Modern Manufacturing Technology, said in an interview with a reporter from the China Science Journal.

In recent years, with the significant increase in the demand for major equipment manufacturing industries such as defense, aviation, high-speed rail, automobiles, and molds, China's CNC machine tools have also achieved rapid development.

According to statistics from the Industrial Development Research Center of the Foresighted Industry Research Institute, the average annual compound growth rate of China's CNC machine tool production in the past five years was 37.39%. He Danyang, a researcher of the CNC machine tool industry at the Industry Research Institute pointed out that under the drive of related industries, the average annual growth rate of CNC machine tools in China will exceed 10% in the future, and by 2015, the demand for CNC systems in China will reach 400,000 units. Will reach 850 billion yuan.

At the same time, the current positive value of China's economic transition and industrial restructuring is an important period. Li Peijuan, an analyst of the CNC tool industry at the Industrial Research Institute, said in an interview with a reporter from the China Science Journal that during the transition from digitization to intelligence, the manufacturing industry has higher requirements on the performance of equipment components, including precision. , surface quality, etc. Especially in some high-tech industries, such as aerospace and communications.

“The change of technology demand in the downstream market poses new challenges to the development of the CNC machine tool industry. If the technological development of CNC machine tools can adapt to the needs of the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, it can play a promoting role, and vice versa will constrain its development.” Li Peijuan said.

High-end products to be breakthrough

After years of development, China's CNC machine tool technology has made significant progress and a series of breakthroughs in terms of speed, compoundness, precision, and multi-axis.

For example, at the 12th China International Machine Tool Exhibition held in Beijing in April 2011, the QMK009 CNC arc bevel gear grinding machine exhibited by Taichuan Machine Tools Group abandoned the conventional cylindrical grinding wheel to generate grinding. The method uses a finger-shaped grinding wheel or a small-diameter disk-shaped grinding wheel to grind a large-sized curved bevel gear along a tooth profile through multi-axis linkage.

"This new product subverts the principles of traditional curve bevel gear machining and the concept of machine tool design. It is a breakthrough in soft victory and breakthrough. It is an example of original innovation. It not only becomes one of the company's core competitiveness, but also makes China into a large hard. The world of tooth profile bevel gear machining is ahead of schedule."

However, judging from the overall development situation, there is still a large gap between China's high-end CNC machine tool technology and foreign countries. Li Peijuan said that due to the gap in the system structure, high-speed, high-precision control algorithms, and servo drives of the domestic CNC system, the domestic CNC system has a significant gap from the world's advanced level in terms of high-speed, high-precision, 5-axis machining and intelligent functions. .

In addition, the functional components such as electric spindles, double pendulum heads, turntables, and nano-precision gratings, as well as the core technologies for the design and manufacture of complete machines, are also key constraints to the manufacture of high-end CNC machine tools in China.

Zhang Jian told reporters that most of China's high-end CNC machine tools are purchased from foreign functional components, plus their own structural components assembled. However, after assembly, there is still a big gap between CNC machines in foreign countries in terms of accuracy and reliability. As a result, such an embarrassing situation has arisen: In many key industrial fields, domestic CNC machine tools are not dared to be used. For example, in the automotive industry, if a single machine tool fails, it will affect the entire production system. Another example is the aerospace industry, often a component will be on the million, if the processing is scrapped, but also a big loss.

"To replace imports and gain the trust of users, it is not a year or two that can be achieved, but it will take many years to accumulate." Zhang Hao said.

The competition mechanism must change

For the situation where China's high-end CNC machine tools are not competitive, Zhang Jian believes that on the one hand, basic research is not enough. "A lot of companies are only concerned with making machine tools, but they have no R&D capabilities." On the other hand, it is a question of talent. “The non-engineering of engineering education in China now leads to less talented people, less knowledge of engineering practice and weaker innovation capabilities.”

This makes China's high-end CNC machine tools heavily dependent on imports, and technically controlled by others. For example, some of the key software of high-end five-axis linkage machines in foreign countries restricts the export to China. There are even restrictions on the use of departments and installation sites.

Li Peijuan thinks that in order to achieve a breakthrough in core technology, it should increase investment in research and development funds, and promote cooperation between enterprises, schools, and research institutes.

Zhang Jian believes that new competition mechanisms should be established to encourage enterprises to change their development concepts.

“Most domestic machine tool companies are concerned about how to make it bigger. There are thousands of people and tens of thousands of people at a time. Foreign companies are more eager to lead the technology, that is, to make their products indispensable in the production of other products. "Zhang Hao said.

In his opinion, the current competition mechanism of China's machine tool companies mainly depends on price and quantity, and lacks core technologies. With the increase in labor, raw materials and other costs, corporate profits will become increasingly thin. Therefore, the competition mechanism needs to be changed.

In addition, the national policy also has an important influence on the technological development of the CNC machine tool industry. Li Peijuan told reporters that although the state has issued special plans for the development of the CNC machine tool industry in 2005 and 2011 respectively, the support is still insufficient. Therefore, the support of the national policy needs to be further strengthened.

"As long as the breakthrough in technology, with the advantages of price and localization, domestic equipment still has a greater competitive advantage." Li Peijuan said.