Ultra-high-speed machining: a powerful tool for the manufacturing industry to achieve industrial upgrading

A few days ago, the ten-year development report card of my country’s industry and informatization was announced: From 2012 to 2021, the added value of the manufacturing industry will increase from 16.98 trillion yuan to 31.4 trillion yuan, and the proportion of the world will increase from about 20% to nearly 30%. … Each item of dazzling data and achievements marked that my country has ushered in a historic leap from “manufacturing power” to “manufacturing power”.

The core components of key equipment usually must have the properties of light weight, high strength, high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, wear resistance, etc., and traditional materials cannot meet the requirements. With the development of science and technology, new materials such as titanium alloys, nickel alloys, high-performance ceramics, ceramic-reinforced metal matrix composites, and fiber-reinforced composites continue to emerge. Although these materials can meet the performance requirements of core components, extremely difficult processing has become a common problem, and it is also a problem that scientific research institutions around the world have been trying their best to solve.

As an innovative technology to solve this problem, ultra-high-speed machining has high hopes by the manufacturing industry. The so-called ultra-high-speed machining technology refers to a new machining technology that changes the machinability of materials by increasing the machining speed, and improves the material removal rate, machining accuracy and machining quality. The ultra-high-speed machining speed is more than 10 times faster than traditional machining, and the material is removed before it is deformed during the ultra-high-speed machining process. The research team of Southern University of Science and Technology found that when the processing speed reaches 700 kilometers per hour, the “difficult-to-process” characteristic of the material disappears, and the material processing “turns difficult to easy”.

Titanium alloy is a typical “difficult-to-machine material”, which is known as the “chewing gum” in the material. During the processing, it will “stick to the knife” like chewing gum sticks to the teeth, forming a “chipping tumor”. However, when the processing speed is increased to a critical value, the titanium alloy will no longer “stick to the knife”, and there will be no common problems in traditional processing such as “workpiece burn”. In addition, the processing damage will also be suppressed with the increase of processing speed, forming the effect of “damaged skin”. Ultra-high-speed machining technology can not only improve machining efficiency, but also improve machining quality and precision. Based on ultra-high-speed machining theories such as “material embrittlement” and “damage to the skin”, as long as the critical machining speed is reached, the difficult-to-machine characteristics of the material will disappear, and the material processing will be as easy as “cooking a piece of meat to solve a cow”.

At present, the huge application potential of ultra-high-speed machining technology has attracted widespread attention. The International Academy of Production Engineering regards ultra-high-speed machining technology as the core research direction of the 21st century, and the Japan Advanced Technology Research Association also ranks ultra-high-speed machining technology as one of the five modern manufacturing technologies.

At present, new materials are constantly emerging, and ultra-high-speed machining technology is expected to completely solve processing problems and bring a revolution to the high-quality and efficient processing of “difficult-to-machine materials”, while ultra-high-speed machine tools known as “industrial mother machines” are expected to become breakthroughs “Difficult-to-process material” is a powerful tool for processing difficulties. In the future, the ecology of many industries will also change as a result, and several new fields of rapid growth will appear, thereby changing the existing business model and promoting the upgrading of the manufacturing industry.


Post time: Sep-08-2022