Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Co. has ordered a new wedge press with a forging roll from SMS Meer, the heavy machinery and plant builder. The machinery will be installed at a new forging plant that the joint venture is developing at Guangzhou, in Huadu Province. The line will produce connecting rods for passenger cars, fully automatically and with flexibility.
The company was established by China’s Dongfeng Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. in 2003, and is Dongfeng’s largest joint-venture partnership. It produces 360,000 vehicles per year for the Chinese market.
The new forging line will be identical to two operations that Nissan operates in Japan. Commissioning of the new forging line is scheduled for early 2013.
The con rods will be produced for the existing assembly plant, and timely production and parts availability is important. Production on forging roll and wedge press will be fully automated, and the finished parts will be transported to the wedge press by a servo-electric automatic walking beam system. A quick-changing die holder quick is integrated to the design.
The plant will forge two con rods simultaneously in a cycle time of 4.8 seconds. SMS Meer’s wedge press design is an AKP 2500 with a forging force of 25 MN, so it will withstand large eccentric loads. The wedge drive of the ram will ensure consistently close forging tolerances. The ARWS 1 forging roll preforms material before forging and reduces the starting material input, thereby cutting material costs.
“That guarantees high productivity for Dongfeng Nissan. At the same time the plant is flexible to allow different con rod sizes to be produced in a minimum of time,” stated SMS Meer’s Dieter Blom, project manager – Sales, Closed-Die Forging Presses.
