Recently, WHTY Additive Manufacturing Technology Group, China's leading developer of metal 3D additive manufacturing equipment technology, received a large order: to provide a batch of large pump jet propeller blades for China's large shipbuilding units. WHTY adopts the self-developed metal 3D printing "micro-casting and forging" technology, and successfully manufactures large pump jet propeller blades used in heavy equipment such as Shipbuilding Heavy Industry and other countries. The "bottleneck problem" in the manufacture of large-size parts in 3D printing technology.
Pump jet propeller is mainly used in submarine military, ship heavy industry and other fields, is an important power device for ship navigation. The manufacturing cycle of the large pump jet propeller blades successfully manufactured by metal 3D printing "micro-casting and forging" technology has been shortened by 2/3 compared with the traditional method, the mechanical properties of the components have been greatly improved, and the manufacturing accuracy is reduced from the previous 0.5mm Raised to 0.1mm, no casting defects such as pores and cracks were detected.
The traditional metal parts manufacturing method has gone through three stages: equal material manufacturing, subtractive material manufacturing, and additive material manufacturing. Material manufacturing refers to the production of products by casting, forging, welding, etc. The material weight is basically unchanged, and has a history of more than 3,000 years ago. Reduced material manufacturing refers to the use of car, milling, planing, Grinding and other equipment cut the material to achieve the designed shape, which has a history of more than 300 years. Additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, is a "bottom-up" manufacturing method that uses materials to accumulate from scratch. This makes it difficult to manufacture complex structural parts that were constrained by traditional manufacturing methods in the past.
"Conventional metal 3D printing also has the problem of" bottlenecks ": first, the metal fatigue resistance is seriously insufficient without forging; second, the performance of the parts is not high, and there are inevitably defects such as looseness, porosity, and non-fusion; third, laser, The electron beam is a heat source and the cost is high. Therefore, it has formed an embarrassing situation that cannot be used. "The WHTY technical team introduced that because of this, despite the advantages of global metal 3D printing in the manufacture of small and medium-sized parts, large-size parts It cannot be compared with large forging presses in manufacturing, so it cannot enter high-end applications of large and complex parts.
After 20 years of unremitting efforts, WHTY's R & D team invented the "micro-casting and forging" 3D printing technology, creatively combining metal casting and forging technology into one, realizing the subversive originality of side casting and forging in the first super Western Innovation.
Zhang Haiou said that at present, the international cutting-edge metal 3D printing process is a step of printing. After this layer is printed, continuous cold forging and rolling are counted as one step. The two steps must be carried out separately, that is, the previous step is completed, the next step is It can be done, and there is still time for the metal to cool down. "The micro-casting and forging technology can perform the above steps synchronously. When the printing is completed, the casting and forging are also completed at the same time, and the deposition efficiency is three times that of the former."
"We reduced the action that originally required 80,000 tons of force to 1 / 80,000, that is, less than 1 ton of force can be completed, and at the same time, one equipment completed the work that many large equipment used to complete, production The power of the equipment is only 50 kilowatts, and the energy consumption per unit time is two-thousandths of that of a giant press. It is green and efficient. "He said.
Metal 3D printing "micro-casting and forging" technology turns the traditional industrial production method of "dirty, heavy and dangerous" into a beautiful production method of "clean, light and safe", and realizes the green intelligent transformation and upgrading of high-end manufacturing industry. The independent innovation of heavy equipment is of great significance. The industry generally believes that metal 3D printing "micro casting and forging" technology is very likely to open up a new era of green manufacturing unprecedented in the history of machinery manufacturing, and help China transform from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing power.
At present, related products have been used in the equipment manufacturing field of heavy aircraft such as large aircraft, aero engines, gas turbines, aerospace, ships, advanced rail transit, nuclear power, etc. "Taking aircraft manufacturing as an example, there are currently tens of thousands of body structure parts of a large passenger aircraft. If 3D printing technology can be used to produce large, complex, integral, high-performance, lightweight components in the future, then a large passenger aircraft The number of body structure parts may only need hundreds. Not only that, in the future, using metal 3D printing technology, coupled with simulation technology, the development and production cycle of the aircraft will also be reduced by orders of magnitude. "Zhang Haiou said," Maybe only need to be in the past Half of the time, a big plane can be transformed from a drawing into a real touchable 'Big Mac'. "