Calling modern industrial equipment a heavy tool is not an exaggeration or description, but rather a true weight, not only in weight but also in importance.
These industrial giants are industrial mother machines, equipment for manufacturing extreme workpieces, including nuclear power plant parts, aircraft engine turbines, etc. They determine the maximum height that a country's industrial manufacturing capacity can reach.
Some people may argue that certain core systems in these machine tools are still subject to human control, such as numerical control systems. In this regard, China is also catching up. Shenyang Institute of Computing, Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a high-end CNC device based on domestic Godson CPU, which has been equipped with domestic machine tools, and is gradually realizing industrial batch application.
At present, China's machine tool industry can not only be self-sufficient, but also export a large number of products to the outside world, including not only mid to low end products, but also beginning to enter the high-end field.
In 2011, Jinan Second Machine Tool Group secured all 5 orders for large stamping production lines from Ford's Kansas and Detroit factories in the United States, and won the Ford Kentucky factory large stamping line project again in 2013.
The production line consists of four multi link press machines with a total weight of 6100 tons. It is equipped with dual arm feeding system, unstacking machine, cleaning machine, oiling machine and other equipment, with an efficiency three times that of a regular production line.
To manufacture such a massive object, a series of new issues need to be considered, such as material strength, structural deformation, installation adjustment, and measurement correction, which are not simply scaled up.
This giant machine tool is usually only one in a country, and some even only one in the world, making it a treasure of industry.
Without such heavy equipment, many industrial products cannot be manufactured, such as turbines in aircraft engines, heavy aircraft landing gear, and so on. Speaking of aircraft engines, it is a topic that many people feel heartbroken about and a few people talk about. China's aviation industry has been hindered by engine problems for many years. However, in the the Year of the Loong in 2012, this problem has begun to be solved.
One of the core components of aircraft engines - the turbine disk - is made of high-temperature nickel based alloy, which must withstand harsh working conditions such as high temperature, high pressure, and high-speed rotation. Therefore, the material is both tough and heat-resistant, which poses a challenge for manufacturing. Only by forging with greater pressure can qualified workpiece performance be obtained.
Now that China has a giant forging press, it means that a bottleneck problem in manufacturing aircraft engines can be solved.
In addition, there are many important load-bearing components on the aircraft that need to be made of high-strength titanium alloys, and titanium alloys themselves have extremely high strength, requiring the use of sufficient pressure forging presses to form them. Therefore, large tonnage forging presses can be said to be synonymous with high-end aviation industry.
So, China is still manufacturing larger forging presses, and all at once there are three.
This indicates that in the field of aircraft engines, China is not only making up for the missed lessons, but is also prepared to overtake, as greater pressure tonnage means higher turbine performance, larger engines, and stronger thrust.
In addition to the engine, the fuselage and landing gear of the aircraft also need to be manufactured using forging presses, especially for heavy aircraft, such as the landing gear of Airbus A380, which is made using Russia's 75000 ton forging press.
This machine is a true national treasure. At present, the five countries with the most 10000 ton forging presses in the world are the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom, which happen to be the five nuclear powers, five permanent members of the Security Council, and five countries with independent aerospace capabilities.
This is not a coincidence, but rather indicates that comprehensive national strength ultimately comes from industrial strength, and heavy processing capability is one of the highest manifestations of industrial strength.
In terms of heavy-duty machine tools, in early 2013, CITIC Heavy Industries manufactured and installed the second large gear hobbing equipment with a diameter of 16 meters, which is currently the world's largest and most advanced gear CNC machining equipment in terms of machining diameter and technical performance. The maximum machining diameter is 16 meters, the maximum machining module is 60, the maximum number of machined teeth is 2000, the maximum tooth width is 1.5 meters, and the cutting speed is 160 revolutions per minute.
In addition, Qizhong Company has successfully developed a CNC heavy-duty crankshaft milling and turning composite machining machine, making China the third country in the world after Germany and Japan to independently design and manufacture crankshaft machining equipment, paving the way for the development of large ships in China;
In terms of gas turbines, China is completing the process from introduction to digestion and absorption, and the bottleneck that restricts the large-scale production of engines for new Chinese warships has been overcome; Wuzhong Group has overcome the difficulties of CNC propeller machine tools, greatly reducing the noise of Chinese submarine propellers.
Multi axis linkage CNC machine tools are necessary industrial equipment for manufacturing propellers, especially silent propellers on submarines. In the past, only Germany and Japan were able to produce such equipment, and their production and sales were closely monitored by NATO.
In the mid-1980s, Toshiba secretly sold several sets of five axis linked milling machines to the Soviet Union, greatly reducing the noise of Soviet submarines and becoming a '...'; Ocean black hole;.
Now that China also has such artifacts in its hands, it is self-evident what changes will happen to China's warships and submarines.
The huge industrial production capacity not only requires powerful processing equipment, but also massive mineral resources as support, thus giving birth to China's heavy machinery manufacturing. In addition to heavy machine tools, there are also various heavy engineering machinery.
At present, the world's largest heavy engineering machinery occupied by China includes: the world's largest wheeled crane - XCMG Group's 1200 ton all terrain crane, the world's longest arm pump truck - Sany Heavy Industry's 72 meter cement pump truck, the world's largest floating crane for offshore operations - Zhenhua Heavy Industry's 8000 ton floating crane, the world's largest self dumping railway truck - China South Locomotive's 100 ton self dumping railway truck, etc., and the world's largest bucket wheel excavator - Taiyuan Heavy Industry's WK-75 mining excavator.
As well as the world's largest tonnage crawler crane, the world's first fully hydraulic grader, the world's deepest rotary drilling rig, the world's largest upward rotation 5200 ton tower crane, the world's largest lifting weight and highest height 6400 ton hydraulic compound crane, and so on.
The biggest advantage of this excavator lies in its high-speed production efficiency: one bucket can excavate materials weighing up to 135 tons, and can load two or more open cars weighing 60 tons; If matched with a self moving crushing station of the same specifications for coal mining, the mining capacity per hour can reach 12000 tons. There is also the world's largest 600 ton electric wheel dump truck below.
A big guy has great wisdom. These giant machines are not simply enlarged versions of similar products, nor are they simply stacks of giant parts. Instead, they require extremely advanced manufacturing, driving, and control technologies to make them work.
In terms of heavy manufacturing, other news during the year also included: China Erzhong successfully developed the largest copper containing nuclear power steel forging in China, and its mechanical properties, grain size and other indicators fully meet the technical requirements, marking the localization of the largest copper containing nuclear power steel forging in China.
The first phase of the localization project for key components of high-speed trains has been put into operation, with the manufacturing capacity of 300000 high-quality wheels per year, marking a milestone achievement in the localization of key components of high-speed railways in China.
China National Heavy Machinery Research Institute has developed the world's thickest slab continuous casting production line, which is the world's thickest 700 millimeters; The equipment for the 1500mm high-quality thick slab continuous casting production line has received significant support from the National Intelligent Manufacturing Major Special Project in 2012.
