Recently, Professor Zhang Ruifen of ZHY gear said at a gear industry seminar: “there are many fundamental technical problems of high-end gear related equipment in China that need to be solved.” At present, the industry has basically reached a consensus on the high-end development of the domestic gear industry: the basic parts represented by gears are the core and foundation of major equipment, which directly determines the performance, level and reliability of major equipment and main engine, and is also the “bottleneck” restricting the development of major equipment in China. In order to become a powerful country in equipment manufacturing industry, China must first become a powerful country in basic parts manufacturing represented by gears. Parts are not “high-end” and no complete set of equipment can reach “high-end”. Therefore, the development of gear and other basic parts industry is very urgent and important to improve the independent innovation ability and technical level of high-end basic parts in China, and to improve the core competitiveness and independent supporting ability of equipment manufacturing industry.
During the “12th Five Year Plan” period, the scale of China’s gear industry continues to expand. There are more than 1000 large-scale gear manufacturing enterprises, more than 300 backbone enterprises, and the sales volume of gear products accounts for 61% of the total sales volume of general mechanical parts. China’s gear industry has not only become one of the largest industries in China’s mechanical basic parts, but also the leading position in the world.
During the 12th Five Year Plan period, breakthroughs have been made in R & D and industrialization of some high-end gear products in China. Through technological breakthrough, China has overcome some technical problems in the design and manufacturing of high-end gear products, realized industrialization and changed the situation of dependence on imports. For example, Nanjing high precision transmission equipment manufacturing group Co., Ltd. and other enterprises have the capacity of mass production of 1MW ~ 6MW wind power growth gearbox, which not only changes the situation that the megawatt wind power gearbox relies on imports, but also realizes mass export; the vertical gearbox of circulating water pump in megawatt nuclear power plant has also achieved industrialization through tackling key problems, and no longer depends on imports.
According to industry experts, through technological innovation, the technological innovation capacity of China’s gear industry has been significantly enhanced. First, great achievements have been made in the construction of gear innovation and service platforms. Some innovation platforms, such as engineering laboratories, engineering research centers, enterprise technology centers recognized by the state, and postdoctoral research stations, have been built and operated in succession. Second, major breakthroughs have been made in scientific and technological achievements. Third, the number of patents has increased significantly.
At the same time, the supporting capacity of China’s gear industry continues to improve. With the improvement of technical level and equipment level, China’s gear industry has basically formed a complete range of supporting systems that can basically meet the needs of the main engine. The supporting capacity of key projects and gear products for major equipment has been continuously improved. For example, the high-end gear products such as the large planetary gearbox, gear rack lifting transmission device of offshore platform, gear transmission device of 200km / h high-speed passenger locomotive and heavy-duty freight locomotive supporting the circulating water pump of the million kilowatt nuclear power station basically meet the matching needs.
At present, China’s gear products are changing from low-end to high-end, and some of the high-end products have reached the international advanced level. However, high-end gear products such as auto transmission, RV Reducer of industrial robot, gear transmission of high-speed railway with speed ≥ 350 km / h, and gearbox of construction machinery still rely heavily on imports, resulting in a huge foreign trade deficit.
Experts in the industry said that the current situation of China’s gear industry is: on the one hand, the innovation capacity is significantly enhanced, the supporting capacity is constantly improving, the gear products are changing from the low-end to the high-end, and some high-end products such as megawatt wind power growth gearbox have reached the international advanced level. On the other hand, most of our gear products still have a big gap with the international advanced level in power density, reliability and service life, and still need to be imported in large quantities.
