Body mold welding fixture popular in the high-end market

With the rapid development of the automotive industry, automotive molds and welding fixtures have gradually been effectively combined and matched. The integration trend of car body mold fixtures has been strengthened, which can reduce the matching period and reduce user costs.

The continuous growth of China’s economy has accelerated the development of China’s automobile manufacturing industry. According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China’s auto production and sales both exceeded 8.8 million in 2007, a year-on-year increase of 22.02%, and China became the second largest in the United States. The second largest automobile consumer country is expected to have 15 million vehicles in 2015.

The rapid development of the automotive industry has brought opportunities for the development of China's mold industry. China's auto parts molds, instrument panel molds, bumper molds, and automotive electronics molds are used more and more widely in auto parts production. At the same time, with the rapid development of the automotive industry, automotive molds and welding fixtures have gradually been effectively combined and matched, and the integration trend of car body mold clamps has been enhanced, which can reduce the matching period and reduce user costs.

China's mold industry entered the international market 10 years ago China's auto molds are mainly marked by the mold teams of FAW, Second Automobile, Tianqi, Nanqi, Chengfei and Taiwan in China. Today, auto mold enterprises have developed Dozens of companies and a number of rapidly growing private enterprises have already reached a considerable scale. Both in terms of technology and productivity, these companies have greatly exceeded the iconic companies of the year.

From the distribution of automobile stamping dies throughout the country, it can be seen that China's automobile mold has evolved from the spark of the past to today's all over the country. In the past three years, more than half of the molds and fixtures needed for dozens of self-owned brands and joint-venture brands listed on the Chinese market have been developed and manufactured by Chinese die-casting companies, many of which are already OEM manufacturers (original equipment manufacturers). The most complex vehicle molds for the Class B cars were handed over to China's mold enterprises for production.

At present, there are more than 100 domestic auto body mold manufacturers with a certain scale, of which 20 are output value of more than 100 million yuan. The number of large CNC machine tools exceeds 800 units, which are close to or surpassing Germany, the United States, and Japan.

Before 2002, the domestic mold enterprises mainly produced truck and van molds, and the car molds were only at the level of molds for production structural parts; the production capacity of welders was also limited to the production of sub-assembly jigs and part assembly jigs for internal parts. From 2003 to 2007, the domestic mold enterprises gradually began to produce white car body molds, and the welding equipment companies also had the production capacity from the chassis assembly four doors and side panels to the main body wire of the white body. Close to the international advanced level.

Many domestic enterprises have realized the three-dimensional solid processing of die casting foam model. The main task of the model worker is to compile processing programs in the computer room. This greatly improves the quality of the model, increases the efficiency, and shortens the manufacturing cycle. In recent years, with the continuous introduction of high-speed multi-function CNC machine tools, high-strength cutting tools and other advanced processing methods, rapid development has been achieved in the areas of unmanned high-speed machining, fine processing of mold surfaces, 5-axis simultaneous machining, and computer virtual machining. . Advanced technologies such as analog simulation and virtual reality have begun to be applied in the early stages of mold clamp development.

Due to the rapid development of the industry, the promotion of the technology and management of the Chinese mold industry has also entered the fast lane, and has the ability to challenge the mold manufacturing industry in developed countries. The value of import and export molds in China was 5.8:1 five years ago, while the import/export ratio in 2007 was 1.45:1, and the export volume of molds exceeded US$1.4 billion. It marks the era that China's mold industry has entered the international market with scale. arrival.

The level of integration of domestic mold fixtures is not high. Japan's Toyota, Germany Volkswagen and other leading international automotive manufacturers have specialized stamping, welding, assembly, painting process personnel. Together with the body designers of the R&D center, they conducted a process analysis of the products.

From the car body design to the tooling manufacturing, all follow the principle of unity. The degree of integration is very high, which is very beneficial to the overall control of the body quality, cost, and cycle. Most of China's mold and welding folder industries are fighting each other. It is difficult to communicate between mold manufacturers and welding folder manufacturers. Many problems are stuck in the production preparation stage of auto manufacturers, which seriously restricts the product quality and output of white bodies. cycle.

Due to the limitation of the special structure of mold materials and molds, the current level of stamping technology for auto body molds in China is still at a certain distance from the foreign counterparts. This is mainly reflected in the experience and experience of process designers. There are too many differences between the types of models that domestic process designers are exposed to and those of foreign process designers, which leads to some constraints on process design ideas.

The foreign stamping process design is a highly specialized job with a clear division of labor. This complex design process needs to be completed through teamwork. It generally includes the preliminary product process analysis, process plan prediction, model construction, process feasibility analysis, and model design. Repeated optimization and other design processes.

Taking the overall side of the car as an example, the ordinary side molding die is generally 5 to 6 processes. Four years ago, Toyota changed its sidewalk from five processes to four processes, and intensified efforts in mold development and product development to achieve a major leap in the industry. The current research direction is to complete the overall side wall stamping process through three processes. This not only requires the improvement of the stamping process, but also requires the collaborative research and development of the synchronous project. When designing the product, the entire side of the car should fully consider the stamping process. The feasibility of the process.

Some advanced companies in the world have a high level of ability to develop welding equipment, and have formed a small number of small and medium-sized enterprises with a high degree of professionalism as the core of the company. pattern. Foreign countries such as Japan's Toyota, Volkswagen, France Peugeot, and U.S. General Motors have applied three-dimensional digital process planning and simulation software for nearly a decade. In China, there is a lack of unified digital information management methods for large-scale, high-automation welding line process planning, and no planning capability for such high-level automated welding lines has yet been formed.

The equipment of China's white-car body manufacturing industry is now close to the world's leading level both in terms of quantity and advancement. According to incomplete statistics, just taking the automotive mold industry as an example, the number of domestic large-scale CNC machine tools has exceeded 800 units, but due to our late start-up and insufficient accumulation, there is still a large gap between the manufacturing technology level and the international advanced level. To make our country a big mold country and a powerful mold country, the industry needs to make gritty efforts.

China's auto mold industry is lagging behind, with unstable material types and material properties. These problems include: the variety and quality of standard parts are not high; the gap in the manufacturing process level leads to higher processing costs than foreign manufacturers; edge hardening techniques such as induction hardening/laser quenching/nitridation/titanium are to be developed; data feedback and stamping processes after commissioning Insufficient accumulation of experience, lack of effective measures to integrate the fitter's debugging and dressing process into the early stage of design; lack of systematic management procedures and ability to gradually upgrade.

The two oil crises have promoted the first lightening of automobiles; the protection of the global environment has promoted the second lightening of automobiles. The requirement to achieve lighter weight and meet automotive safety regulations promotes the application of high-strength steels. Japan and European automotive manufacturers use high-strength steel plates for a long time and have a wide range of applications. According to the material, a Japanese automobile company used 15% of high-strength steel in 1980, exceeded 30% in 1990, and reached 50% in 2000. The application of high-strength steel plates for domestic auto parts is limited to structural parts and beam parts. The tensile strength of materials is usually less than 500 MPa. The newly developed model stamping parts have a maximum of 980 MPa. How to rapidly accumulate and manufacture high-strength steel plate stamping parts is a problem that we need to solve urgently. problem.

Domestic enterprises must enter the middle and high-end market to strengthen the mold clamping industry to support the development of self-owned brand cars. It has always been the goal of the mold clamping industry. Therefore, we must continue to challenge the mid-to-high end products with high technical content. At present, the domestic high-end mold clip products have less than 60% satisfaction rate, and a considerable part of them are dependent on imports. With the rapid development of China's self-owned brand cars, the demand for medium-to-high-end mold clamp market in China will become more urgent in the future. In the past few years, many domestic automotive mold factories mainly took on the development of molds for Class A vehicles and the development of molds for a small number of Class B vehicles, along with more B-Class and C-Class models, and stamping dies for mid- to high-end markets. The demand will increase substantially.

In addition, with the increasing purchases of Chinese molds by multinational corporations, the purchase volume of Chinese molds in the European and American auto markets will increase significantly in the next five to ten years, and will gradually develop from the low-to-middle to the mid-to-high end. This objectively stimulates China's high-end mold market development. China's mold clamping industry must shoulder the heavy responsibility of the molds and welding fixtures needed for the autonomous development of Chinese automobiles. The beneficiaries of the progress of the Chinese mold industry are actually not just the industry itself, but more importantly they have contributed to the independent car brands. Due to the advancement of China's mold industry, the price of imported molds from the international market has dropped by 30% or even more than in 2000. This is the benefit China's molds have brought to the people.

When China moves from "Made in China" to "Created in China," more Chinese auto brands will be recognized by the world. Mold clamping industry as a strong force to support the development of the automobile, full of vitality, with this national industry spirit of the industry will surely go to the world, toward glory!