Domestic heavy truck market sales surge, efficient manufacturing technology is the key

In the post-epidemic era, economic recovery and industrial upgrading have spawned a large number of industries that are advancing rapidly. Heavy-duty trucks are a typical example. In September, the domestic heavy-duty truck market sold about 150,600 vehicles of various types, an increase of 80% year-on-year, setting a sales record. The surge in sales has put forward high standards for the production capacity of heavy-duty trucks. How to cope with the changes in the macro environment of increasing production capacity requirements and the continuous personalization of customer requirements, the support of cutting-edge technology is indispensable. Hexagon has been deeply involved in the field of heavy-duty truck manufacturing for many years, serving well-known brands such as FAW Jiefang, BAIC Foton, Daimler Trucks, and ZF. Today, let us jointly unveil the efficient manufacturing technology behind the production of heavy-duty trucks. 

Design system: Simulation technology accelerates the launch of new models

In the design of heavy trucks, manufacturers need to consider more factors than ordinary cars, such as noise, fatigue durability, truck ride comfort, fluid dynamics, etc. Before the physical test of new trucks, the use of CAE technology for precise simulation can effectively reduce the number of tests and prototype costs, and shorten the time to market.

Hexagon's CAE software solutions provide solutions for structural finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics and multi-body dynamics, and simulate material constitutive structure, product performance and process. Based on the principles of low cost and high quality, they help designers share product design work and continuously improve product design and manufacturing processes.

Typical case: Daimler truck fatigue simulation

Daimler Trucks manufactures and sells commercial trucks and buses, and provides services and maintenance for these products. Daimler pursues efficiency and innovation, and they try to make vehicles lightweight to improve fuel efficiency and reduce related emissions. The ability to predict the fatigue life of vehicle components is also extremely important. Hexagon MSC Nastran software accurately predicts fatigue life in the early stages of the design and development cycle, which can extend product life, reduce the number of tests and prototype costs, and shorten time to market.

First, multi-body simulation is used to accurately reproduce the dynamic and nonlinear behavior of the bushing, and all durability events of the physical test plan are simulated in full size according to the operating cycle. The stress distribution in the vehicle substructure (such as the chassis, cab or hood) is calculated using the finite element method in MSC Nastran. Then, transient modal analysis is performed on all durability events, the participation factors of all durability events are calculated, and combined fatigue damage is accurately predicted according to the operating cycle. The entire durability analysis process can more effectively identify high-stress areas, which is 10 times faster than previous methods, and has an extremely outstanding performance in simplifying and accelerating durability analysis.

Manufacturing system: Digital production and manufacturing technology reduces costs and increases efficiency

Modern heavy truck production plants generally have dozens of advanced high-precision welding robots, modular assembly equipment, standard process systems, and strict manufacturing management and control. In addition to these dazzling automated hardware, software technology is also a powerful tool for factories to reduce costs and increase efficiency. As a heavy truck production, mold processing is a difficult point in the manufacturing process. Hexagon's manufacturing software WORKNC can greatly reduce programming time through automated programming, avoid the appearance of stripes and ripples in the program, and improve processing quality.

Typical case: Beiqi Foton mold programming

Foton Mould Company, located in Weifang, Shandong, is one of the largest automobile mould processing companies in China. It not only serves BAIC Foton, but also develops moulds for Auman light trucks, Auman medium and heavy trucks, Fengjing Alpha and other models.

Since 2007, Futian Company has introduced three sets of WORKNC software, and has achieved excellent results in processing quality, cost optimization, and programming time. First of all, under the same processing parameters, the programs compiled by WORKNC have no stripes or ripples, and the processing brightness is higher, which greatly improves the processing quality of mold products. In addition, since the adoption of WORKNC, WORKNC has a fast processing speed, which greatly reduces the processing time of mold products; the tool path optimized by the software not only improves the processing quality of the product, but also extends the service life of the tool. Finally, Mr. Liu of Futian Mold introduced: Before using WORKNC, Futian Mold often took a week to process an ordinary small mold, but now it only takes 2-3 days to complete.

Quality system: a combination of hardware and software to achieve real-time quality control

A complete heavy-duty truck that leaves the factory needs to go through many quality inspections. From the casting accuracy of the blank, the assembly accuracy of different shells to the appearance defect detection, etc., each heavy-duty truck produced on the assembly line has to go through more than 100 quality inspections. Heavy-duty truck parts are relatively large, so in the inspection process, we must not only focus on high efficiency and high precision, but also automatic inspection based on the production workshop is also an important consideration.

Hexagon has a lot of successful experience in quality inspection of heavy trucks, providing high-efficiency and high-precision inspection of large, medium and small-sized parts, moving the measurement forward to the production workshop, and completing efficient inspection of parts through portable measurement and automated online inspection. At the same time, it provides intelligent tool compensation solutions to achieve intelligent quality control.

Typical case: Intelligent quality management of a Sinotruk Group

In the production process of heavy trucks, efficient quality inspection of steering knuckles is a difficult problem. There are many types of steering knuckles and the inspection cycle is long, which cannot meet the fast-paced production needs. In addition, traditional inspection cannot timely feedback production information to the production line. Hexagon has proposed a revolutionary intelligent quality solution for the production of heavy truck steering knuckles. It can adapt to the workshop environment and be close to the production line, realizing online inspection of steering knuckles and intelligent compensation of tool parameters.

The online detection and intelligent tool compensation solution for the steering knuckle is mainly composed of an automatic control assembly, a task management system, an information processing system, an intelligent identification system, a flexible clamping system, an intelligent monitoring system, etc. After the automatic loading and unloading, positioning, and clamping system, the entire solution will automatically read the QR code information on the workpiece, identify the work identity, automatically call the measurement program, and feed the results back to the MES system. The Q-DAS software automatically statistically analyzes the data to obtain the wear of the tool during the cutting process. When the wear exceeds the threshold, the task management system automatically compensates the tool wear into the machine tool control system to ensure the machining accuracy of the steering knuckle.