“We are not far from the goal of auto-transmission of the automotive market, and basically no problem within three to five years.” On June 11th, Xia Dejiang, secretary-general of the Gear Machining Committee of the China Automotive Engineering Society, disclosed.

He said that in recent years, China's gear products have been upgraded from low-end to high-end, and after-sales service has also been converted to OEMs. "We have become a veritable gear manufacturing country."

“But we still have a big gap from the gear manufacturing countries,” Xia Dejiang reminded. At the 16th Annual Academic Annual Meeting of the China Association of Automobile Engineers' Gear Processing Committee held on the same day, the theme of “Making fine and high-end gears and promoting the marketization of automatic transmissions” also appeared to have profound implications.

Accelerate the process of industrialization

"If the engine is the heart of the car, then the automatic transmission is the brain of the car. It is a combination of interdisciplinary, cross-professional, and mechatronics. The technical difficulty is very large." Xia Dejiang told reporters, "But China is now away from its market Not far away."

Xia Dejiang listed several reasons for the reporter: "First of all, there is a strong demand for automatic transmissions on the market. Second, the industry began to grasp the industrialization of automatic transmissions during the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period, and related standards It has also been in the process of development, not to mention the products developed by some companies have entered small-scale production and are in the experimental stage, it can be said that the industrialization of automatic transmissions has begun to make substantive progress; in addition, the industry has been actively promoting automatic transmission of automobiles. The box assembly innovation alliance has also made great progress."

At the annual meeting of the Gear Machining Committee, Li Shengqi, deputy secretary-general of the Gear Machining Committee, disclosed that the Ministry of Science and Technology will hold a symposium in the near future and plans to formally include the Auto Union Automatic Insulation Assembly Innovation Alliance in the second batch of launch projects.

It is understood that as early as 2004, the Gear Association has jointly completed a research project with the China Automobile Association on the status quo and development of the Chinese automobile transmission industry. From 2004 to 2008, Tooth Association organized the industry's automatic transmission assembly to be independent innovation. After five years of organization and development, it has achieved a number of AMT, CVT, 6-8AT, and DCT research and industrialization core technologies and independent intellectual property rights. , as well as the original invention of live teeth CVT.

“As represented by the automatic transmission, the gear industry in China has continuously strengthened its strength in recent years, and its production capacity, equipment level, product quality, and service level have all been greatly improved.” Xia Dejiang said, but there is still a lot of work to be done to realize a gear country. To do it.

Four major problems blocking road

At the annual meeting, Xia Dejiang broke ground and analyzed the current industry gap.

First of all, the competitiveness of our gear industry is not strong, the ability of technological innovation is weak, and the design platform is backward. “Especially key technologies such as automatic transmissions, automotive electronics, high-precision high-strength gears, high-strength bearings, and hermetic seals are not yet fully under control.” Xia Dejiang cited: research on the design and standards of automatic transmissions has not been followed up in a timely manner. Foreign-funded transmission design companies have taken over China, and most of the key technologies and components have relied on the introduction. As a result, standards have lagged behind the industrialization of products, and the gap between independent innovation is large. The product design has been copied and copied. Original innovations and invention patents have lagged far behind developed countries.

Second, gear processing companies are small and scattered, with low levels of specialization and unbalanced development. The level, brand, and quality of products among enterprises vary greatly. In particular, vehicle gears have poor reliability, large gear noise, severe leakage, and low life span. Counterfeit and shoddy products have a great impact on the market. "Some media reported that last year, more than 6,000 complaints from car users, of which 25% are vehicle gear. This issue needs to arouse everyone's attention." Xia Dejiang stressed.

Secondly, the gear manufacturing technology is more differentiated, and the same equipment of the enterprise cannot meet the same accuracy requirements and the process capability is not stable. “This is mainly manifested in the poor accuracy and stability of domestic equipment. The manufacturing quality of workholding grinding tools and cutting tools can not meet the needs of special users. Most of the high-end gear materials, high, large, precision, thin and complex equipment and gear complex tools still need to be imported. ”

Finally, the cultivation of modern management and technical personnel also needs focus. “The company’s talents are unreliable, its liquidity is very large, and there are very few professionals.” Xia Dejiang told reporters, “Can we basically realize the power of gear technology in the 12th Five-Year Plan? A breakthrough was achieved in the short term."

High-end market to be strong

"The "Auto Industry Adjustment and Revitalization Plan" proposes that within three years, the key technologies for domestic auto parts will be upgraded to the international advanced level. The gear industry must timely respond to the adjustments and upgrades of the industrial structure, product structure, market structure, and technical structure." Dejiang said.

He suggested that manufacturing companies should not be overwhelming, to overcome small and scattered disorderly competition, to promote professional, large-scale production, while improving the level of the supporting chain to achieve cluster-style development.

"To respond to market changes, increase technological transformation and investment in science and technology, establish high-end technological research and development centers, and refine and strengthen high-end gears." Xia Dejiang told reporters that China should promote the structural adjustment and industrial upgrading of the transmission assembly industry, so that a single The market pattern dominated by manual transmissions has changed into a market pattern of about 50% of manual and automatic market share.

"We must adhere to a high starting point for independent innovation and improve the gear industry's equipment level." Xia Dejiang suggested that "we must consider tooling quick change and online measurement, to achieve automatic loading and unloading of processing units, to lay a solid foundation for production automation."

“At present, the international automotive gear manufacturing technology is in a period of replacement. Its basic development goals are integrated manufacturing and green manufacturing. The main development trend is high-efficiency and high-speed, and its typical representative is cold precision forging and high-speed hobbing.” China Automotive Engineering Society Equipment Minister Chen Changnian said, “The utilization rate of cold precision forging materials has reached more than 90%, and one cold forging machine can replace hundreds of cutting equipment. The domestic gear factory has formed a large-scale production. Enterprises should Change the concept and gradually switch from cutting to cold forging,” he suggested.

“Now the gear materials commonly used in China have been used for six decades. Everyone is just trying to improve its processability and heat treatment deformation. In fact, to improve the quality of gears and transmissions, we must first start with materials.” At the meeting, Chen Yong, Chief Engineer of Zhejiang Geely Automotive Research Institute Co., Ltd. emphasized that "To achieve high speed, we must first improve materials and improve the quality of materials."

In this regard, Xia Dejiang also believes that the key to the quality of gears is raw material gear steel. “Tooth Association has established gear steel procurement standards, so that the quality of gear steel has been greatly improved, but at present the technical level and quality stability of domestic products are still far from those of foreign countries, and foreign countries have been constantly developing new materials. We must understand and track the latest international technologies in a timely manner, and we must constantly improve the stability of quality."