The backward heat treatment technology has become a bottleneck in the development of my country’s manufacturing industry

In developed countries, all manufacturers of mechanical products with well-known brands attach great importance to the research and development of heat treatment technology. Through a large amount of investment, continuous improvement and long-term accumulation, they have formed their own unique technologies, which are strictly regarded as factors of market competitiveness. Plus confidentiality. People can buy brand-name products, and imitate products with exactly the same appearance and composition through surveying, mapping and anatomical analysis, but the service life and reliability are often very different. It is at this critical link that there is a big gap between my country and developed countries.

For a long time, my country’s manufacturing industry has been focusing on products and light on blanks, while in blank manufacturing, there has been a tendency to emphasize shape and light control, and to emphasize production and light quality. Development planning and technological transformation funds are too inclined to purchase precision processing equipment and seldom pay attention to material manufacturing, especially the research and development of controllability and modification technologies. The consequences are often at a disadvantage in market competition due to low product life and poor reliability , Can only fall into the dilemma of struggling in the tragic price war.

The role of heat treatment in the manufacturing industry has not been paid attention to. The output value of heat treatment is priced by catty, and the value of the knowledge content is seriously distorted. It is regarded as an “industry with small output value” and is marginalized. As a result, my country’s heat treatment seriously lags behind the international advanced level, which is mainly manifested in:

2.1 The product has a low service life and poor reliability

Due to the backward heat treatment technology, the service life, reliability and quality reproducibility of many mechanical products in our country are far below the advanced level of foreign countries. Some key parts in the defense industry and key parts in major process equipment have to rely on imports. Or they can only import foreign forming and heat treatment equipment to manufacture Chinese airplanes, tanks, and automobiles, and they are everywhere restricted. For example: Shanghai introduced German technology to produce a gear of a car gearbox. Germany stipulates that European equipment must be used for nitriding treatment. The equipment is quoted at more than 10 million yuan, which is equivalent to more than 20 times the annual output value of the gear heat treatment and consumes Sexual auxiliary materials must also be imported at high prices. This situation makes most of the profits created by “Made in China” fall into the pockets of foreigners.

As for the large-volume and wide-ranging civilian industrial products, although they can be manufactured in China, they lack competitiveness due to their short life and high failure rate. In recent years, the demand for injection molding machinery has grown rapidly. The life of domestic injection molding machines is only a few of that of similar foreign products One part, the price is only about 1/8 of the imported injection molding machine. The standard part cold heading machine die produced by domestic enterprises was eliminated by the market because the use mission was only a fraction of that of Taiwan or Japanese products. The honeycomb plate powder molding die for automobile exhaust gas purifier can press 2000m honeycomb plate abroad, but the domestic imitation die can only press 150m, which is difficult to gain a foothold in the market. Even though the domestic heavy-duty gearbox is relatively conservative in design and has a large dead weight, it is still heard that major mechanical operation accidents caused by broken teeth and broken shafts are still heard. A certain type of domestic screw pump is an imitation of imported products. Due to improper heat treatment process, early failure of the mandrel often occurs. It is difficult to compare with the one percent failure rate of similar foreign products.

2.2 Low level of heat treatment distortion control

The low level of heat treatment distortion control in my country is also a prominent problem: for example, the amount of wear left by carburizing heat treatment for heavy-duty gearbox gears in my country is three times that of the world’s advanced level, which not only greatly increases the manufacturing cost, but also increases the depth of the carburized layer after grinding. Increased deviation has an adverse effect on reliability. my country’s blank manufacturing has low shape control accuracy and large cutting margins. A large amount of high-quality steel turns into iron filings, causing a serious waste of resources.

2.3 The design and manufacture of material manufacturing equipment is seriously behind

The gap between China’s material manufacturing and the international advanced level is also prominently manifested in the serious backwardness of material manufacturing equipment design and manufacturing, high-end heat treatment and surface modification process equipment relying on imports, repeated introductions, backward-introduction-further backward-introduction The phenomenon is quite serious. The vacuum carburizing and high-pressure gas quenching equipment required for aviation, military industry, and high-end automobile production cannot be manufactured in China and all rely on imports. The selling price of such equipment is more than a dozen of the traditional “manufacturing cost”. Times or even dozens of times, modern advanced material manufacturing process equipment is the carrier of advanced material manufacturing technology, and its price depends on factors such as the content of knowledge, the integration of high-tech, and the exclusiveness of technology and intellectual property rights. However, China’s heat treatment equipment Although there are as many as thousands of manufacturing plants, they can only manufacture products equivalent to the level of foreign products decades ago. They are struggling in the fierce price war. Not long ago, some domestic aviation and military units publicly tendered the purchase of nitriding equipment. Manufacturers’ quotations are only a few tenths of those abroad, but none of them can win the bid. This case shows that China’s material manufacturing process equipment manufacturing industry lacks innovation capabilities, is unable to meet the needs of users, and cannot sustainably develop itself. The prospects are very worrying. .

The backwardness of my country’s material manufacturing control technology not only cannot meet the needs of current production and market competition, but also restricts the improvement of the overall innovation capability of my country’s manufacturing industry. The lightweight of airplanes, automobiles, various vehicles and all kinds of mechanical equipment, the lifespan of molds and parts, the firing frequency of high-speed artillery, the limit diving depth of submarines, the allowable gas temperature of gas turbines, etc. are all related to the material potential It is impossible to design and manufacture advanced products without mastering advanced material manufacturing technology with independent intellectual property rights. For example, most parts of automobile engines and gearboxes need to undergo heat treatment or surface modification. At present, most of the engines and gearboxes of various brands produced in my country are foreign brands, and there is no independent core technology. It can be produced in accordance with foreign technology and standards. In recent years, China has independently developed several auto gearboxes of independent brands, which is a welcome improvement. However, it is basically imitation, especially the performance indicators and controllable technical requirements of key parts and materials. It can only simply imitate foreign products. There is a lot of blindness, which affects product quality. More importantly, if there is no The support of material control core technology with independent intellectual property rights will inevitably restrict the innovation ability of China’s independent brand product design and fall into a vicious circle of path dependence of “backward-imitation-further backward-re-imitation”, which cannot make China’s manufacturing Industry gets rid of the predicament of being placed at the low end of the global manufacturing chain.