China's Rare-earth Magnesium Alloys Successfully Used in Heavy Truck Automotive Parts Manufacturing

A heat-resistant, creep-resistant rare earth magnesium alloy automobile cylinder head has recently been successfully developed by the Changchun Yinghua Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in cooperation with FAW Group, and has been applied to 460-horsepower engines for heavy-duty trucks, thus ending China’s heavy truck automotive parts without magnesium. The history of alloy materials. After testing, the performance of the cylinder head has reached or partially exceeded the level of similar foreign products.

According to reports, magnesium alloy has the advantages of light weight, high specific strength, high specific stiffness, anti-vibration, low noise, good damping, and excellent castability. It is praised as "the 21st century's green metal structural material" and the most The promising alternatives for aluminum alloys are therefore widely used in transportation, manufacturing, 3C electronics and aerospace. Taking automotive materials as an example, the use of single-wheel magnesium alloys has been used as one of the hallmarks of automotive advancement. The amount of magnesium alloys for bicycles in Europe has reached 9-20 kg. More than 60 kinds of magnesium alloy auto parts are being used and developed. There are more than 100 kinds of magnesium alloy auto parts being used and developed in North America.

China's magnesium and rare earth resources have great advantages in the world, but there is still a big gap between high-end products and industrialization compared with the world's most powerful countries. The research and development of rare earth non-ferrous metal alloys of Changchun Chemicals Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences has a strong accumulation and advantages. In the early 90s of last century, the researcher of the institute took the lead in pioneering the development of a magnesium-rich master alloy and won the national invention award. After 2002, they independently developed and developed patented technologies such as “sinking liquid cathode electrolysis” and “co-electrodeposition”, and developed a series of high-quality magnesium intermediate alloys composed of magnesium and single rare earths, which are magnesium rare earths that promote rare earth as an alloy component. Alloy development lays an important foundation. At the end of 2004, they together with FAW Group jointly undertook the project of "the high-performance rare earth magnesium alloy and its application in the automobile" of the major project of the northeast China revitalization science and technology action plan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. After more than a year of hard work, they broke through the key technologies of rare earth strengthening, rarefied phases, smelting, and die casting in rare earth magnesium alloys, solved the series of problems in the development of die casting and smelting processes for rare earth magnesium alloys, and applied research and development institutes. The rare earth magnesium master alloy successfully prepared for the first time in China with independent intellectual property rights, tensile strength of 260 ~ 280MPa, creep deformation of 0.2% (150 °C, 50MPa), elongation of more than 5% of the high strength, high toughness, resistance Hot, creep resistant magnesium alloys for rare earth applications. On this basis, they also adopted the 1400-ton magnesium alloy die-casting machine's installation and commissioning, trial production, and further optimization of the smelting and die-casting technology processes during trial production, which solved the quality control problems in mass production and greatly increased the The quality of alloys has advanced the industrialization process. At present, they have mass-produced 15072 pieces of rare earth magnesium alloy cylinder head caps for 460-horsepower heavy-duty trucks, whose performance has reached or exceeded the level of similar foreign products, and the product qualification rate is over 90%.

According to reports, this rare earth magnesium alloy and the cylinder head made of this alloy enhance the core technology of combining rare earth and magnesium, with the characteristics of lightweight, green, etc., will be the revitalization of the old industrial base in northeast and the upgrading of automobiles and other manufacturing industries. As well as enhancing the competitiveness of our die-casting products in the international market, we provide important materials and technical support. In order to further accelerate the industrialization of rare earth magnesium alloys, Changchun Yinghua is currently building a rare earth magnesium intermediate alloy with an annual output of 100 tons and an annual output of 1,000 tons of rare earth under the strong support of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, Changchun High-tech Zone and other departments. Magnesium alloy application of industrial demonstration bases, and through three years or so, the base will be built into a world-class rare earth magnesium alloy and rare earth magnesium alloy industrial base.