I. Project Background
Since the beginning of the new century, my country's shipbuilding industry has experienced rapid development and its international standing has risen quickly. However, compared with the shipbuilding technology of advanced countries, my country's design and manufacturing level of large ships still lags behind. The ship's propulsion system is the most critical system ensuring its navigation capability, maneuverability, and safety, often referred to as the "heart" of the ship. Its value accounts for approximately 35% of the total cost of all ship equipment and about 20% of the total ship price. New types of ships use gas turbines as their power source, placing new demands on manufacturing equipment. Huazhong Numerical Control Co., Ltd. has collaborated extensively with a key ship equipment manufacturing enterprise and related machine tool companies, achieving the first batch application of Huazhong Numerical Control's high-performance CNC system in my country's large ship equipment manufacturing industry, with significant demonstration application results.
Ship propulsion systems are highly customized, diverse, and complex systems, and the manufacturing of their key components plays a crucial role in shipbuilding. For example, in the equipment of large ships, the controllable pitch propeller is the core equipment of the ship propulsion system, a key component that directly affects the performance of the power plant, and a key component for enabling the ship to move forward, backward, stop, and change speed.
Currently, the manufacturing of key components for large ship propulsion systems in China largely relies on imported CNC machine tools and systems. This dependence on foreign suppliers for critical manufacturing equipment poses significant safety risks. Furthermore, after prolonged use, some imported CNC equipment experiences a decline in precision and functional deficiencies, severely impacting normal production. Moreover, imported CNC systems suffer from closed architectures and poor openness, with some core functional interfaces and code not being publicly available. This creates technical bottlenecks for enterprises in networking machine tools, integrating with MES/ERP and other information systems, and promoting intelligent manufacturing transformation and upgrading. Therefore, promoting the localization of manufacturing equipment for key components of large ship propulsion systems is of paramount importance.
II. Project Implementation Status
As a leading domestic CNC system manufacturer, Huazhong Numerical Control, with strong national support, has collaborated closely with a key domestic shipbuilding equipment manufacturer to retrofit and configure foreign CNC systems on dozens of large, heavy-duty, and precision CNC machine tools using the Huazhong CNC-848 high-end CNC system. These machines are used for machining key components of ship propulsion systems, including floor-type milling machines, gantry milling machines, and horizontal machining centers. The system utilizes the intelligent functions of the Huazhong 848 CNC system, integrating error compensation, machining process health status monitoring and evaluation, and real-time efficiency and energy consumption evaluation. Most of the machine tools have four or more axes and are equipped with high-precision linear scales, achieving full closed-loop control. This batch application of the Huazhong CNC system marks the first large-scale application of a domestically produced CNC system in the large-scale shipbuilding equipment manufacturing industry, significantly enhancing user confidence and demonstrating a positive example.
The HNC-848 CNC system used for the upgrade
CNC gantry milling machine modified using Huazhong 8 CNC system
CNC floor-type boring machine modified using Huazhong 8 CNC system
In response to the challenges posed by the deteriorating performance of upgraded equipment, the numerous processing steps, frequent reference changes, long processing times, and high precision requirements, Huazhong CNC replaced and upgraded the domestic CNC system and overhauled and modified the mechanical components of the machine tools. Simultaneously, based on the improved equipment performance and integrated CNC system functions, process research was conducted on key components, comprehensively improving the processing efficiency and quality of critical ship parts. Both processing precision and efficiency were significantly enhanced compared to the foreign CNC machine tools used before the upgrade.
CNC floor-type boring and milling machine modified using Huazhong 8 CNC system
III. Project Experience
1. Key equipment, boosting confidence
Huazhong Numerical Control has collaborated closely with user companies to establish a demonstration application base for upgrading and transforming machine tools using domestically developed CNC systems in the field of large-scale shipbuilding equipment manufacturing. Through the large-scale application demonstration of domestically developed CNC systems in the field of large-scale shipbuilding equipment, the needs of key equipment applications have been largely met, enhancing the confidence of the large-scale shipbuilding equipment manufacturing sector in domestically produced CNC machine tools and CNC systems.
2. Upgrade and renovate to improve efficiency.
Huazhong CNC has worked closely with user companies to replace and upgrade CNC production line equipment with domestically produced CNC systems. At the same time, based on the improvement of equipment performance and the integration of CNC system functions, it has conducted process research on key components and formed a complete process solution, which has comprehensively improved the efficiency and quality of CNC machining for large ship equipment.
3. Summarize experiences and continue to promote.
With the introduction of national maritime strategies such as the "Maritime Silk Road," the importance of my country's maritime security has become increasingly prominent, and the demand for advanced naval equipment has become more urgent. The successful batch application of Huazhong Numerical Control Systems in the processing of key components for naval equipment will help transform and upgrade large-scale naval equipment manufacturing enterprises in my country, further meeting the strategic needs of independent and controllable development of key manufacturing equipment in key areas of my country. Huazhong Numerical Control, together with user companies and machine tool manufacturers, will summarize the experience and continue to explore applications in more industry sectors, contributing to the development of "Made in China."
