In the context of the in-depth advancement of the “Manufacturing Power” strategy, the construction machinery industry is undergoing a critical transformation from “quantitative expansion” to “qualitative leap”.
Heavy equipment such as loaders, excavators, and bulldozers have long served in harsh working conditions with high dust, strong impact, and heavy loads. The service life and reliability of their core components directly determine the market reputation and brand value of the entire machine.
Ultrasonic mirror processing technology, a metal surface processing technology, can simultaneously achieve mirror finish on the workpiece surface, optimize surface stress, and strengthen hardness and wear resistance. It has been implemented on a large scale in the mass production and processing of core parts of engineering machinery.
Ultrasonic mirror processing technology is different from the processing logic of traditional cutting and grinding to remove materials. It is a non-cutting, cold plastic surface strengthening process.
Its core principle is: a special ultrasonic generator converts electrical energy into high-frequency mechanical vibration, driving the processing tool head to uniformly impact the metal surface of the workpiece at a frequency of tens of thousands of times per second.
Under the continuous action of high-frequency micro-impact, the metal microscopic wave peaks on the surface of the workpiece are compacted and flattened, and the wave troughs are filled, achieving a smooth microscopic surface; at the same time, the metal surface layer is promoted to undergo nanoscale plastic deformation, the surface metallographic structure is reconstructed, the residual tensile stress generated by turning and grinding is eliminated, and a dense compressive stress strengthening layer is formed.
Finally, without changing the dimensional accuracy of the workpiece, multiple performance improvements such as high smoothness, high hardness, high wear resistance, fatigue resistance, and corrosion resistance are simultaneously achieved, adapting to the heavy-duty and durable working conditions of engineering machinery.
Based on the processing pain points of the three core vulnerable parts of engineering machinery cylinders, crusher spindles, and precision transmission shafts, we used ultrasonic mirror processing technology to upgrade the process, and the results were remarkable in mass production cases.
Case 1: Mirror processing and transformation of the inner hole of the oil cylinder.
The oil cylinder is the core power component of engineering machinery. The surface quality of the inner hole of the oil cylinder directly affects the sealing performance and service life.
When the equipment is operating at high pressure, the sealing ring is easily worn by the micro-texture, causing oil leakage and oil leakage in the cylinder. This not only causes the loss of hydraulic oil and decreases operating efficiency, but also requires frequent shutdowns to replace the sealing ring. The operation and maintenance cost remains high, which is a common problem in engineering machinery manufacturing.
In response to the processing needs of large engineering machinery cylinders, we use integrated ultrasonic mirror processing equipment to adapt to large-aperture, long-stroke cylinder processing scenarios and achieve one-time clamping and one-time molding.
There is no need for secondary polishing and grinding processes in the entire process. The equipment is equipped with an intelligent system to ensure accurate and stable processing pressure, avoid workpiece deformation, and adapt to mass production needs.
After the modification, the surface of the inner hole of the oil cylinder reaches an industrial mirror effect, the roughness is stably controlled below Ra0.2μm, and the microscopic texture of the inner wall is uniform and dense.
Actual working conditions verification shows that the wear of the cylinder seal ring is greatly reduced, the equipment sealing performance is improved by more than 30%, and there is no leakage or pressure relief under high-pressure working conditions. The overall wear resistance of the oil cylinder is improved, the service life is extended, and the average annual maintenance frequency of the equipment is reduced.
Case 2: Mirror-enhanced processing of the main shaft of a mining crusher.
The main shaft of the crusher is the core load-bearing and transmission component of mining crushing equipment. It is widely used in major mining engineering machinery such as jaw crushers, cone crushers, and impact crushers. It has long been subjected to extreme working conditions such as high-intensity impact, heavy-load extrusion, sand and gravel friction, and dust corrosion.
Under continuous operation with high frequency and heavy load, the surface of the main shaft is prone to problems such as abrasive wear, scratches, and pitting corrosion, which can lead to main shaft shaking, increased radial runout, bearing failure, and other failures. In severe cases, fatigue fracture of the main shaft may occur, causing equipment shutdown and production capacity interruption, which brings huge economic losses to mining production. It is also the core reason for the high failure rate of crusher equipment and high maintenance costs.
In view of the machining characteristics of the crusher spindle’s large diameter, long shaft, and heavy-load mating surface, as well as the pain points of the inability to completely eliminate surface stress and insufficient surface wear resistance with traditional processes, we use a customized ultrasonic mirror processing technology to fully cover the main shaft’s outer circumferential working surface and bearing mating position with high-frequency micro-impact processing to reconstruct the metallographic structure, eliminate grinding residual tensile stress, and form a high-density, high-hardness compressive stress-strengthened layer.
After the transformation of ultrasonic mirror processing technology, the surface roughness of the main shaft of the crusher is stably controlled below Ra0.2μm, and the surface is smooth and dense without stress concentration points.
Actual measurement data under working conditions show that the friction coefficient of the spindle surface is significantly reduced, the resistance to sand and gravel wear, pitting corrosion, and corrosion resistance is significantly improved, and the surface hardness is steadily increased, which improves the problems of traditional spindles being prone to wear and peeling.
At the same time, the surface compressive stress structure effectively inhibits the generation and expansion of fatigue cracks, improves the anti-fatigue life of the spindle, greatly reduces the radial runout during equipment operation, makes the transmission operation more stable, significantly reduces vibration noise, reduces the failure rate of the entire machine, greatly reduces the frequency of shutdowns and maintenance of mining equipment, and effectively guarantees continuous high-yield operations in the mine.
Case 3: Mirror finishing of precision transmission shaft of engineering machinery.
Core transmission components such as engineering machinery power transmission shafts and gear shafts have extremely high requirements for surface accuracy, coaxiality, and fatigue resistance.
There are residual tensile stresses on the surface of the shaft body. Stress concentration is prone to occur under long-term high-speed operation and heavy-load impact, causing shaft distortion, cracking, tiles and other failures, seriously affecting the stability of equipment transmission.
Ultrasonic mirror processing equipment and customized professional tool heads are used to complete the mirror finishing and strengthening in one clamping, avoiding positioning errors caused by multiple clampings and ensuring the coaxiality and dimensional accuracy of shaft parts.
After processing, the surface roughness of the transmission shaft can reach less than Ra0.2μm, and a certain surface residual compressive stress is preset to form a uniform compressive stress strengthening layer, which greatly improves the fatigue resistance.
During the operation of the equipment, the transmission is smoother and the noise is lower, and faults such as tile holding and breakage are eliminated, and the reliability and durability of the entire transmission system are qualitatively improved.
Based on the above-mentioned mass production cases, compared with traditional grinding and polishing processes, ultrasonic mirror processing technology has outstanding advantages in engineering machinery manufacturing, accurately solving the pain points of industry production and application:
1. Double upgrade of smoothness and performance, adapting to high-end manufacturing standards: it can stably achieve super mirror processing effects, simultaneously complete surface finishing and surface layer strengthening, improve the four core properties of wear resistance, fatigue resistance, corrosion resistance and sealing of parts, and meet the quality requirements of precision parts of high-end engineering machinery.
2. No pollution, green and energy-saving: It is a non-cutting processing technology that does not consume the base material of the workpiece and has no dust pollution. It is in line with the development trend of green production and low-carbon upgrading of machinery manufacturing.
3. Wide adaptability and strong compatibility: It can be adapted to most engineering machinery metal parts such as cylinders, shafts, valves, gears, etc., taking into account the processing of conventional workpieces and complex workpieces, without the need to significantly modify the production line.
The domestic construction machinery industry is currently in a critical stage of transformation from “scale manufacturing” to “high-end intelligent manufacturing”. Insufficient precision, short lifespan and insufficient reliability of parts have always been the core bottlenecks restricting the breakthrough of domestic high-end construction machinery.
The innovative implementation of ultrasonic mirror processing technology has made up for the quality shortcomings from the parts manufacturing side, effectively narrowing the performance gap between domestic construction machinery and international high-end products.
For manufacturing companies, this technology can not only enhance the core competitiveness of products and create high-end engineering machinery products with high durability, low failure, and low operation and maintenance, but also improve the company’s market profitability and brand reputation by reducing costs and increasing efficiency; for the industry, it has completely revolutionized the traditional metal surface processing model and provided core process support for the precision, long-term, and localized upgrading of engineering machinery.
Process innovation is the core driving force for equipment manufacturing upgrades.
With its multiple advantages, ultrasonic mirror processing technology has become one of the best process solutions to solve the problems of wear, leakage, and fatigue fracture of core parts of engineering machinery.
In the future, we will continue to delve into the field of ultrasonic precision processing, continue to optimize process solutions, create customized processing solutions for various core components of engineering machinery, help more manufacturing companies break through process bottlenecks, and empower the high-quality and high-end development of the engineering machinery industry with precision manufacturing.
