The current development trend of flat grinding is shifting towards forming, stepping, cutting, rapid shaking, and three-dimensional curved surface grinding. It can be said that flat grinding is a type of machine with great potential for evolution among grinding machines. Our country's flat grinding manufacturing plants should break away from the traditional thinking of flat grinding and further develop towards non flat grinding processing such as curves or contours, in order to form our own unique technology and products.

1、 Development Trends of Surface Grinding Machines

From a specification perspective, small flat grinding is mainly used. Almost 50% of the tabletop width is below 200mm, making transportation and layout of small-sized machine tools more convenient; Foreign flat grinding does not distinguish between ordinary and high-precision precision grades, and compared to small-sized machine tools, it is easy to achieve high precision; In the international market, there is a great potential demand for medium and small-sized flat mills.

From a control perspective, more than 70% of the models are CNC types, including single axis, dual axis, and three-axis CNC, and can achieve five axis control, especially for large-sized models above 400, all of which are CNC types. Due to the development of technology leading to functional changes, flat grinding has shifted from traditional flat grinding to forming grinding, and conventional control is no longer able to meet functional requirements. CNC flat grinding has become a market trend.

From a functional perspective, more than 50% of flat grinding is not only used for horizontal plane machining, but also for surface grinding machining such as forming, stepping, cutting, rapid shaking, and three-dimensional spatial curves. For example, ELB and BLM companies have developed five axis linked grinding centers based on flat grinding, which can achieve grinding of non planar complex surfaces; Unison and Trutech's flexible grinding system can achieve grinding processes such as forming, centerless, outer circle, tool, and contour; There are also fast shaking grinders from companies such as Yufu and Parker, which reflect that flat grinding is a type of machine with great potential for evolution among grinding machines.

2、 Development presents four major changes

1. High speed, composite, high-precision, and high rigidity are still the main development trends of metal cutting machine tools, but there are also new changes. Composite has shifted from the original focus on composite to practical considerations, such as the combination of turning and milling, turning, milling, and drilling, milling machines, and electrical discharge machines; From a functional perspective, composite machine tools have strong targeting, considering certain types of parts; In terms of accuracy, machine tools with positioning accuracy less than 2 μ m and repeated positioning accuracy of ≤± 1 μ m are ubiquitous; From the perspective of spindle speed, the 8.2kW spindle can reach 60000r/min, and the 13kW spindle can reach 42000r/min. High speed is no longer a proprietary feature of low-power spindles; From a rigid perspective, machining centers capable of processing materials with a hardness of 60HRC have emerged.

Modular design has been applied to machine tool manufacturing to perfection. The modular design of horizontal series, vertical series, full series, and cross series, whether represented by Japanese machine tools such as Okuma and Makino, or American machine tools such as Haas and Cincinnati, may look exactly the same in appearance, but their functions are completely different, and many of the modules formed are universal.

The concept of fully automated has changed. Traditional fully automatic machine tools use a pneumatic or hydraulic robotic arm to achieve automatic loading and unloading of workpieces, while now multi joint serial robots are used to achieve loading and unloading of workpieces, including stacking of finished parts. The scope of control has been expanded, the flexibility of the assembly line has been strengthened, and the auxiliary machinery has been greatly reduced.

4. Environmental protection requirements are becoming increasingly high. In the exhibited exhibits, the vast majority of machine tool products adopt fully enclosed casings, without the phenomenon of chips or cutting fluid splashing out. On the other hand, the exhibition of a large number of industrial cleaning machines and cutting fluid processing systems also reflects the increasingly high environmental requirements of modern manufacturing.

3、 Fundamentally, it lies in design innovation

1. Flat grinding is a machine tool with great potential for development among grinding machines. In addition to completing traditional flat grinding functions, based on the bed, drag plate, table, grinding head and other large components of flat grinding, it can evolve into cylindrical, curved, tool, centerless and other grinding machines. For example, the C1020N2 cylindrical grinding machine and B6062PC2 tool grinding machine from K.O.Lee company are based on flat grinding. After completing the improvement of the flat grinding specification series, China should break away from the traditional thinking of flat grinding and shift to the idea of non flat grinding processing such as curves or contours, and further develop our own unique technologies and products.

Modular design will be a mainline that runs through the entire product design process, whether it is the trend of machine tool technology development or the requirements of market competition; Whether it is the need to reduce costs or improve product quality, it requires us to effectively carry out modular design work in future product development and design.

The fundamental development of the world's machine tool industry is the development of innovative design concepts. The traditional metal cutting principle, combined with a new modern design concept and advanced control technology, is driving significant changes in machine tool technology.