What requirements does the new energy automobile industry have for CNC systems and machine tools?

What is the global automotive industry market like?

Today, green sustainability has become an important issue for the development of the earth. The energy revolution and the digital revolution are overlapping to push the global automobile industry into the new energy era. The development of new energy vehicles will inevitably bring great challenges to the local market shrinkage of machine tools for traditional fuel vehicles, but the new configuration of new energy vehicles – batteries and drive motors, also puts forward new requirements for manufacturing processes and equipment. Create new market demands. In the field of new energy vehicles, in the domestic auto parts manufacturing industry, there is a huge market for the manufacture of key parts such as engines, all-electric gearboxes, high-pressure oil pump drive units, hub units, steering knuckles, axles, bearings, and automobile chassis.

 

 

What new energy vehicles mainly include significant structural parts?

 

1. Sub-frame

The more commonly used materials for the front sub-frame include SAPH370/SAPH440, QSTE340/QSTE 340420 and other steel materials. With the popularization of lightweight technology, materials such as aluminum alloy, steel-aluminum mixture, and carbon fiber have gradually begun to be used in the front sub-frame.

The processing technology of the front sub-frame usually has the following types: stamping welding, hydro-forming, aluminum alloy casting, etc., the stamping welding of steel plate has higher requirements on the design and production process; and the products of hydro-forming process are integrally formed, which has the advantages of light weight, strong rigidity, Strong plasticity and other advantages.

2. Shock absorbing tower

The one-piece cast aluminum shock tower is a relatively complex aluminum alloy die-casting part in the body structure. It has thin walls and multiple ribs, requires multi-angle processing, is easy to clamp and deform, and requires multi-axis and multi-angle CNC processing.

How is new energy battery system?

 

“Battery” is the “heart” of a new energy vehicle and plays a vital role in a new energy vehicle. Compared with motors and electronic controls, “battery modules” are often larger and more complex in system. At present, new energy vehicles on the market mainly use two kinds of batteries: one is lithium iron phosphate battery, and the other is ternary lithium battery.

1. Processing of battery tray bottom plate

 

New energy vehicle batteries are basically battery packs composed of several 18650 or 21700 lithium iron phosphate batteries or ternary lithium batteries. After these small cylindrical batteries are grouped, they are heavy and fragile, and are afraid of cold and heat. Therefore, It needs to be protected by a strong case and a powerful thermal management system to ensure its safety, service life and performance are maximized.

2. Processing of battery tray side panels

After the side plate of the battery tray is welded with the battery tray as a whole: firstly, it can play the role of strengthening the strength of the battery tray, and secondly, it can play the role of fixing the position of the battery pack in the battery pack. Like the battery tray, the side panels of the tray are also thin-walled and large-sized profiles, and the amount of deformation during processing is also large. In addition, the sealing requirements after subsequent assembly and welding with the tray bottom plate are also relatively high. Therefore, processing is easy to deform, drilling is easy to penetrate the cooling chamber, and the position of each hole system is easy to deviate during processing, which has become a difficult point in processing.

What casting process is used in the new energy vehicle industry?

 

Die-casting is one of the commonly used casting methods for automobiles, and most of the die-casting materials are aluminum and magnesium. The principle is to hydraulically inject the metal into the mold with a press. The advantage is that metal parts with complex shapes and thin walls can be produced.

 

Integrated die-casting is currently mainly divided into body-integrated die-casting and battery-integrated die-casting. The overall size of integrated die-casting products is relatively large, and the first choice for equipment requirements is large-scale travel, followed by production efficiency; the processing technology is mainly drilling, tapping, etc., The processing accuracy is mainly based on silk grade.

Integrated die-casting brings increased demand for large-scale CNC; increased demand for four-axis and five-axis; increased demand for heavy-duty industrial robots, etc.

 

 

What requirements does the new energy automobile industry have for CNC systems and machine tools?

Based on the demand for battery life of new energy vehicles and the requirements for light weight and rigidity of parts, high-end machine tools are required to provide solutions for parts manufacturing. The transformation and upgrading of the domestic manufacturing industry and the rapid development of emerging industries have placed higher requirements on processing equipment.

For the processing of key parts of new energy vehicles, it can be concluded that the CNC system has the following requirements:

1. The stability and reliability of CNC products are the foundation;

2. Multi-axis (five-axis), multichannel technology is widely used in CNC machining;

3. High acceleration and high speed are generally required, and the demand for configuring linear motors is large.

 

Therefore, with the development of new energy vehicles, in the domestic auto parts manufacturing industry, the manufacturing of key parts such as engines, all-electric gearboxes, high-pressure oil pump drive units, hub units, steering knuckles, axles, bearings, and automobile chassis will be ushering in a huge market space, the demand for CNC machine tools and CNC systems will also grow exponentially.CNC machine tools must meet the high precision, high efficiency, high reliability requirements.