Industrial mother machine - CNC machine tools

Machine tools, known as the "industrial mother machine" and "modern industrial heart", are the foundation of manufacturing and a key area for high-end breakthroughs in the manufacturing industry, especially providing important support for high-end equipment manufacturing fields such as automotive industry, rail transit, electronic information equipment, shipbuilding, and aerospace. The technical level of high-end CNC machine tools is also one of the standards for measuring a country's core manufacturing capabilities.
History of Machine Tool Development
Machine tools refer to the machines that manufacture machines. Machine tools play an irreplaceable and important role in the modernization of the national economy.
Machine tools began to take shape in the early 15th century, initially for the manufacture of clocks and weapons, with the emergence of threaded lathes and gear processing machines, as well as hydraulic driven barrel boring machines. The structure of a grinding machine is also recorded in the book "Tiangong Kaiwu" published during the Ming Dynasty in China, which uses a foot pedal to rotate the iron plate and adds sand and water to cut jade.
The Industrial Revolution triggered the emergence and improvement of various types of machine tools, including gantry planers, horizontal milling machines, cylindrical grinders, coordinate boring machines, and thread grinders.
From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, single lathes gradually evolved into milling machines, planers, grinders, drilling machines, and so on. These main machine tools had already been basically standardized, which created conditions for the mechanization and semi automation of production in the early 20th century.
In the 30 years after 1920, mechanical manufacturing technology entered a period of semi automation, with hydraulic and electrical components gradually being applied in machine tools and other machinery.
In 1950, the development of machine tools began to enter the era of automation, and in 1951, the first CNC machine tool appeared.
numerical control machine
CNC machine tool is the abbreviation for Computer numerical control machine tools, which is an automated machine tool equipped with a program control system. This control system is capable of logically processing programs with control codes or other symbolic instructions, decoding them, representing them in coded numbers, and inputting them into the CNC device through an information carrier. After calculation and processing, various control signals are sent out by the CNC device to control the action of the machine tool. The parts are automatically processed according to the shape and size requirements of the drawing.
CNC machine tools mainly include the following parts:
Machine Tool Body: The machine tool body is the main component and important mechanical accessory of the machine tool, which is the most easily visible part through the naked eye. As the hardware of the machine tool, it also includes parts such as the bed and base castings, spindle and gearbox, guide rails and sliding tables, lubrication, chip removal, and cooling.
Transmission system: The transmission system is an important "backbone" of CNC machine tools, leading the orderly operation of various parts of the machine tool and completing the work mission of the machine tool, including cutting tools, transmission machinery, and auxiliary power systems.
Tool section: including protection device, tool magazine, and tool changing device;
Transmission machinery: including two parts: ball screw, linear guide rail, and worm gear;
Auxiliary power system: includes two parts: hydraulic system and starting system, which are also the power of CNC machine tools.
CNC system: CNC system can be said to be the soul of CNC machine tools, and it is also the most intuitive part of the entire machine tool, which is the essence of completing various functions and operations of the machine tool. CNC systems are basically divided into two categories:
Drive device: it includes a high-speed spindle, torque motor, linear motor, ordinary motor, and stepper motor;
Control and detection device: including CNC system, programmable controller, feed servo control module, position detection module, etc.
CNC machine tools have effectively solved complex, precise, small batch, and multi variety part processing problems. They are a flexible and efficient automated machine tool, representing the development direction of modern machine tool control technology and a typical mechatronics integrated product.
CNC machine tools are one of the 16 major national science and technology projects in China.
High end CNC machine tools
High end CNC machine tools have functions such as high speed, precision, intelligence, composite, multi axis linkage, and network communication. Their development symbolizes the advanced stage of the country's current machine tool manufacturing industry in the world's machine tool industry development. Multi axis linkage technology is one of the core technologies of high-end CNC machine tools. Multi axis linkage refers to the simultaneous movement of each feed axis (including linear coordinate feed axis and rotary coordinate feed axis) of a CNC machine tool under the control of a CNC device according to program instructions. High end CNC machine tools generally have 3-axis or more linkage control functions, mostly 4-axis linkage or 5-axis linkage.
Internationally, high-end machine tool technologies such as five axis linkage CNC machines are regarded as an important symbol of a country's industrialization. Five axis linkage CNC machine tool refers to a machine tool specifically designed for processing complex surfaces, which has advantages such as wide application range, high work efficiency, improved machining accuracy, and increased tool life. With the rapid development of advanced manufacturing, the five axis linkage CNC machine tool, as an important indicator of the country's industrialization level, has gained broad development prospects.
There are many types of five axis linkage CNC machine tools. According to different styles, five axis linkage CNC machine tools can be divided into two types: vertical spindle double swing head and horizontal spindle double swing head; According to different structures, five axis linkage CNC machine tools can be divided into double turntable form, one swing and one rotation form, droop type pendulum head type, droop type worktable type, etc. At present, vertical spindle dual pendulum five axis linkage CNC machine tools are the mainstream product in the market. In 2021, the global revenue of vertical spindle dual pendulum five axis linkage CNC machine tools reached 4.41 billion US dollars, accounting for nearly 60% of the global CNC machine tool market share.
Five axis linkage CNC machine tools are widely used in various fields, including military industry, precision instruments, aerospace, urban rail transit, new energy vehicles, medical and health care, etc. The aerospace industry is the largest demand end for five axis linkage CNC machine tools, accounting for 40.0% of the demand. Five axis linkage CNC machine tools can perform cutting and machining on aircraft engine blades, blades, impellers, and structural components of large, medium, and small aircraft, and have an irreplaceable role in the aerospace field.
The Development of CNC Machine Tools in China
Since the implementation of China's CNC machine tool project in 2009, significant innovative achievements have been made. Specifically, in the industrial system, the entire industry chain from the host, functional components to the CNC system has been able to produce products with a complete range of categories and diverse specifications. However, China's foundation in the field of high-end CNC machine tools is weak, and there are still some core technologies that have not been mastered, which has become a serious bottleneck problem that hinders China's progress towards becoming a "manufacturing powerhouse".
Currently, overseas brands dominate the market for high-end CNC machine tools in China. Yamazaki Mazak Corporation from Japan, DMG Mori from Germany, GROB-WERKE from Germany, and Hermle from Germany are globally renowned suppliers of five axis linkage CNC machine tools, accounting for nearly 60.0% of the global market share. The above enterprises have established five axis linkage CNC machine tool production bases in China, occupying a monopolistic position in the industry.
In the fierce market competition, domestic five axis linkage CNC machine tool enterprises in China are also continuously increasing their investment in technological research and development. Leading domestic CNC machine tool enterprises such as Shenyang Machine Tool, Dalian Kede CNC, Shanghai Rijin Machine Tool, and Huazhong CNC have gradually mastered high-end universal five axis linkage CNC machine tool technology, promoting further localization of high-end CNC machine tools in China's CNC machine tool market.