Recently, the first domestically developed 6MN radial forging machine, independently designed and manufactured by Lanzhou LS Heavy Machinery Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred as LSHM), successfully completed its hot trail. This marks another major breakthrough in the field of high-end forging equipment, following the 1.6MN, 2MN, and 3.4MN radial forging machines, and signifies that China's medium- and large-scale radial forging equipment has officially entered a new stage of independent control and high-precision manufacturing.
The successful hot trail of the 6MN radial forging machine has achieved breakthroughs in a number of core "bottleneck" technologies. By overcoming the challenge of high-inertia, high-frequency-response hydraulic servo cooperative control, LSHM resolved the challenge of high-speed start-stop and precise positioning of large-mass components, ensuring the stable and efficient operation of the multi-axis system. The adoption of hydraulic buffering technology significantly suppresses forging impact and vibration, enables precise compensation of workpiece elongation, and fundamentally improves the straightness and forging accuracy of long-axis components. Based on the process requirements of complex forgings, a programmable forging control system and an automated process execution system have been developed, ensuring forging quality and efficiency. Relying on servo drives, high-precision sensors, and real-time adjustment algorithms, the system achieves fully programmed and automated forging throughout the entire process, from feeding to discharging. Furthermore, the machine can achieve a forging frequency of 310 strokes per minute, which greatly improves production efficiency while effectively controlling workpiece temperature drop, perfectly preserving the plasticity and fluidity of the metal. Coupled with precision control of ±0.5mm, this provides robust support for the near-net shape forming of forgings.
The 6MN radial forging machine offers strong versatility, making it suitable not only for ordinary steel processing but also demonstrating unique advantages in the field of difficult-to-form materials. It can efficiently achieve the cogging and precision forming of high-strength, low-plasticity materials, including high-alloy steel, superalloys, titanium alloys, medium and high-alloy tool and die steels, and various refractory alloys. In the future, it will serve as a core equipment engine empowering the capability upgrade of nationally strategic pillar industries such as aerospace, energy and power, rail transportation, and petrochemicals.
For a long time, core technologies for high-end radial forging equipment have been controlled by foreign countries, leading to heavy reliance on imports, which has become a key bottleneck restricting the security and industrial upgrading of China's high-end forging supply chain. The successful hot trail of the 6MN radial forging machine not only fills the technological gap in domestic medium and large-scale radial forging equipment but also achieves independent control over core technologies, laying a solid foundation for national strategic security and industrial upgrading.
Looking ahead, LSHM will continue to deeply cultivate the field of forging equipment, building a safe, efficient, and independent modern industrial ecosystem through technological innovation. LSHM will also deepen upstream and downstream collaborative innovation, comprehensively enhance the resilience and core competitiveness of the industrial chain, and lay a solid foundation and inject long-lasting momentum into the high-quality development of China's high-end equipment manufacturing industry.
