China's CNC machine tools are no longer controlled by people

Recently, the news that "China already has five-axis linkage CNC machine tool technology" really excited military fans. Speaking of the previous procurement history, experts are all bitter tears: high-end CNC machine tools such as five-axis linkage have been banned from selling to Chinese military enterprises because of their key role in military equipment such as aircraft and nuclear submarines; even if they are purchased for civilian use, they also need to promise to accept the supervision and tracking of foreign manufacturers for life.

"In recent years, with the continuous improvement of CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment industry technology, my country's high-end CNC technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, not only five-axis linkage, but many other key technologies have achieved breakthroughs." National major special "high-end CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment" special expert group member Wang Yong said.

At present, it is in the stage of industrialization and market promotion and application.

CNC machine tools are the "working machine" of the equipment manufacturing industry. The technical level and product quality of a country's machine tool industry are important indicators to measure the development level of its equipment manufacturing industry. The "Made in China" 2025 issued by China has listed high-end CNC machine tools as one of the top ten strategic areas for the development of China's manufacturing industry.

Wang Yong believes that since the launch of the 04 special project in 2009, it aims at the four key areas of aerospace, power generation, automobile and shipbuilding. Now, relevant achievements have been made in several areas. In the field of automobile manufacturing, large-scale fast and efficient CNC automatic stamping production line has won batch orders for the production line of American automobile factories in the international bidding with world-class enterprises. At present, the domestic market share of automobile panel stamping line exceeds 70%, and the global market share has exceeded 30%, which has effectively promoted the autonomy of domestic automobile equipment.

Industry experts believe that in recent years, the maturity of many key technologies such as the reliability design and performance test technology of machine tool products and multi-axis linkage processing technology has been greatly improved, and domestic high-end five-axis linkage machine tools have begun to enter the market.

Guo Changcheng, deputy secretary-general of the China Machine Tool Industry Association, said that since the implementation of the 04 special project, the entire industry has achieved greater development, a number of key core technologies have made breakthroughs, independent innovation capabilities have been improved, and the overall design, manufacturing capabilities and level of CNC machine tools All have been effectively improved, and are currently in the critical stage of industrialization and market promotion and application.

Blocked, the numerical control field of the "humbled" past

For experts in the field of CNC machine tools, few things are more unforgettable than the "Toshiba Machine Tool Incident" that occurred in 1983.

This year, Japan's Toshiba Company sold several five-axis CNC milling machines to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union used them to manufacture nuclear submarine propulsion propellers, which greatly reduced the noise when the propellers rotated in the water, so that the US sonar could not detect the movement of Soviet submarines. The sales of the CNC machine tool also brought the Soviet Union's equipment manufacturing industry to a new level. Today, it is difficult for the US military's sonar to detect Russian submarines. To this end, the US Department of Defense launched an investigation and eventually sent Toshiba's senior officials to prison and banned Toshiba from exporting any goods to any socialist country for one year. That year, China could not buy Toshiba electrical appliances, or even a Toshiba battery.

At that time, what is the situation of China's machine tool manufacturing industry? China can manufacture mainly ordinary machine tools, CNC machine tool research and production has just started, CNC system basically rely on foreign technology, can not develop independently, and the international frontier gap is too large.

Wang Yong said that until today, the United States, Japan and other countries still prohibit the sale of high-tech manufacturing equipment to China, including high-end CNC equipment such as five-axis CNC machine tools.

There are still many "short board" to overcome

It is worth mentioning that, despite the remarkable achievements, but domestic CNC products still have a lot of "short board" to overcome.

On the one hand, China's CNC machine tools are mainly low-end products, high-end CNC machine tools mainly rely on imports. At present, the import volume of the entire domestic machine tool consumption still accounts for about 1/3. High-end CNC machine tools have a large gap with the international cutting-edge technology in terms of accuracy and speed, and are more dependent on imports. According to relevant industry reports, the import rate of high-end CNC products reached 80%.

On the other hand, the development of CNC systems and functional components is seriously lagging behind the entire industry. Wang Yong stressed that the implementation of major special projects in recent years has promoted the technological progress of the industry, but it must be noted that compared with the rapid development of host technology, the R & D and production of high-end CNC systems and supporting parts are still in a relatively backward situation.

Compared with developed countries, China's machine tool industry started late, the development time is short, and the technology is relatively backward. Although the industrial scale ranks first in the world, it is facing many challenges, such as unreasonable industrial structure and weak independent innovation ability. In the process of development of China's machine tool industry, it is necessary to accelerate the shortcomings of the reality, and under the guidance of clear industrial development goals and development priorities, systematically improve the level of industrial common technology, vigorously promote the development of high-end CNC machine tools, and realize The transformation from a manufacturing country to a manufacturing power.