What are the trends in automotive moulds?

In the development of domestic and foreign automotive mold industry, China's automotive mold industry production and sales demand and transformation and upgrading of forward-looking mold technology presents the following nine major development trends.

1, mold three-dimensional design status to consolidate

Mold three-dimensional design is an important part of the digital mold technology, is to achieve the integration of mold design, manufacturing and inspection of the basis. Japan Toyota, the United States and other companies have realized the three-dimensional design of the mold, and has achieved good application results. Foreign three-dimensional design in the mold to take some practices worthy of our reference. Mould three-dimensional design is conducive to the realization of integrated manufacturing, in addition to another advantage is to facilitate interference inspection, can be carried out movement interference analysis, to solve a problem in the two-dimensional design.

2, the simulation of the stamping and forming process (CAE) role is more prominent

In recent years, with the rapid development of computer software and hardware, the simulation technology of the stamping and forming process (CAE) is playing an increasingly important role. In the United States, Japan, Germany and other developed countries, CAE technology has become a necessary part of the mould design and manufacturing process, and is widely used to predict forming defects, optimise the stamping process and mould structure, improve the reliability of mould design and reduce the time for mould trials. The application of CAE technology can greatly save the cost of mold trials and shorten the development cycle of stamping dies, which has become an important means to ensure the quality of the dies.

3、Digital mold technology has become the mainstream direction

In recent years, the rapid development of digital mold technology, is an effective way to solve many of the problems faced in the development of automotive molds. The so-called digital mold technology, is the computer technology or computer-aided technology (CAX) in the mold design and manufacturing process of application. Summarising the successful experience of domestic and foreign automotive mould enterprises in applying computer-aided technology, digital automotive mould technology mainly includes the following aspects: ① Design for manufacturability (DFM), i.e. considering and analysing manufacturability during design to ensure the success of the process. ②Assisted technology for mould profile design and the development of intelligent profile design technology. ③CAE-aided analysis and simulation of the process of stamping and forming to predict and solve possible defects and forming problems. ④Replace traditional two-dimensional design with three-dimensional mould structure design. ⑤CAPP, CAM and CAT technologies are used for the manufacturing process of moulds. ⑥Processing under the guidance of digital technology to solve the problems arising in the process of mould trial and stamping production.

4、The rapid development of mould processing automation

Advanced processing technology and equipment is an important basis for improving productivity and ensuring product quality. In the advanced automotive mold enterprises with double table CNC machine tools, automatic tool changer (ATC), automatic processing of photoelectric control system, workpiece online measurement system, etc. is not uncommon. CNC machining has been developed from simple type surface processing to type surface and structure surface of the comprehensive processing, from low-speed processing to high-speed processing, processing automation technology development is very rapid.

5, high strength steel stamping technology is the future development direction

High-strength steel has excellent characteristics in terms of flexural strength ratio, strain hardening characteristics, strain distribution capacity and collision energy absorption, etc., and its use in automobiles is increasing. At present, the main high-strength steels used in automotive stampings are baking-hardened steels (BH steels), dual-phase steels (DP steels) and phase change-induced plasticity steels (TRIP steels). The International Ultra Lightweight Body Project (ULSAB) expects that 97% of the material in the Advanced Concept Model (ULSAB-AVC) to be launched in 2010 will be high-strength steel, and the proportion of advanced high-strength steel plates in the overall vehicle will exceed 60%, while the proportion of duplex steel will account for 74% of the steel plates used in the vehicle.

Now a large number of IF steel-based soft steel series will be replaced by high-strength steel series, high-strength low-alloy steel will be replaced by dual-phase steel and ultra-high strength steel plate. At present, the application of high-strength steel plates for domestic automotive parts is still mostly limited to structural parts and beam-like parts, and the tensile strength of the materials used is mostly below 500MPa. Therefore, the rapid mastery of high-strength steel stamping technology, is China's automotive mold industry is an important problem to be solved.

6、New mould products launched in time

With the development of automobile stamping production efficiency and automation, progressive die will be more widely used in the production of automobile stamping parts. Progressive die is a high-tech mold products, technical difficulty, high manufacturing accuracy requirements, long production cycle, multi-station progressive die will be one of the key development of China's mold products, the shape of complex stamping parts, especially some according to the traditional process requires multiple punching die sub-order punching system of small and medium-sized complex stamping parts, more and more use progressive die forming.

7, mold materials and surface treatment technology will be reused

The quality and performance of the mould material is an important factor affecting the quality, life and cost of the mould. In recent years, in addition to a variety of high toughness and high wear resistance of cold working mold steel, flame quenching cold working mold steel, powder metallurgy cold working mold steel launched, foreign in large and medium-sized stamping die on the choice of cast iron materials, is a development trend worthy of attention. Ductile iron has good toughness and wear resistance, its welding performance, machinability, surface quenching properties are also better, and the cost is lower than alloy cast iron, so more applications in the automotive stamping dies.

8, the scientific management and information technology is the direction of development of mold enterprises

Another important aspect of the development of automobile mould technology is the scientification and informatization of management. The scientificization of management makes the mould enterprise continuously to just-in-time manufacturing (Just-in-TimeManufacturing) and lean production (LeanProduction) direction development, enterprise management is more accurate, production efficiency increased significantly, ineffective institutions, links and personnel continue to streamline. With the progress of modern management technology, many advanced information management tools, including enterprise resource management system (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), project management (PM), etc., are widely used in mould enterprises.

9、The refinement of mould manufacturing is an inevitable trend

The so-called mold refinement manufacturing, is the development process and manufacturing results of the mold, specifically for the press process and mold structure design rationalization, mold processing of high precision, high reliability of mold products and technical management of the tightness. Mould refinement is not a single technology, but a comprehensive reflection of design, processing and management technology. Mold refinement manufacturing in addition to the realization of technical excellence, but also rely on strict management to ensure.

At the end of August 2011, China's car ownership exceeded 100 million for the first time, the national motor vehicle ownership up to 219 million, the annual production of 18,418,900 cars in 2011. It is expected that by 2020, China's car ownership will exceed 200 million vehicles, and by then the annual renewal volume will still be as high as about 15 million vehicles, plus the annual export volume of about 5 million vehicles, the annual car production will still maintain the scale of 20 million vehicles.

China is the world's largest country of automobile production and sales, car ownership is also expected to be the first in the world, but has never been able to produce their own high-grade cars, which is known as the "mother of the automotive industry" of the automotive mould industry lagging behind the development of a great relationship, automotive mould is applied to the field of automotive mould, known as the The "mother of the automobile industry", more than 90% of the parts in the production of cars need to rely on mold forming, auto body mold, especially large and medium-sized covering parts mold, is an important part of the body manufacturing technology, but also the formation of automotive independent development capabilities of a key link. Auto mould products include auto cover parts mould, tyre mould, interior and exterior plastic parts mould, lamp mould, auto bumper mould, auto instrument panel mould, etc.