Thin Plate Welding Development Case for After-sales market

With the rapid development of the automotive market, competition has become increasingly fierce, and demands for cost control have grown stronger. Lightweight design and high performance have become key technical breakthrough points for enterprises, and corrugated hoses are no exception. High flexibility has become one of the important criteria for evaluating corrugated hoses in the aftermarket. To align with market demands, the company conducted a technical analysis of its existing corrugated hoses and found that the thickness of the corrugated hose material plays a decisive role in determining the product's service life, high flexibility, and lightweight properties. Changing the corrugated hose thickness from 0.3mm to 0.2mm presented a major technical challenge: ultra-thin plate welding technology. The company's technical team conducted a feasibility analysis, confirmed the solution was viable and achievable to meet market feedback requirements, and decided to initiate the project.

The project was initiated in October 2006, and the development of ultra-thin plate welding for corrugated hoses commenced. After a series of development work including equipment and mold design, sample production, and testing & verification, the welding strength of the corrugated hoses passed all performance tests. Additionally, the product flexibility and fatigue resistance tests of the corrugated hoses also met the design requirements, which could satisfy market demands and received consistent praise from customers in use.

During the development process, through repeated optimization and improvement of welding molds and equipment, a breakthrough was achieved in continuous welding technology for plates with a thickness of 0.15mm, reducing the welding defect rate to below 1%. The implementation of on-line CNC cutting for arbitrary lengths and rapid mold changeover increased production capacity by nearly 20%.

The improved products have been applied to aftermarket vehicle models in Europe, America, Russia, Southeast Asia, and other regions.

* Design and manufacturing of tooling and gauges;

* Design, development and manufacturing of special equipment for production capacity improvement;

* Various product performance testing and verification (including welding sensitization testing, welding strength testing, corrosion resistance testing, air tightness testing, material physical property testing, product precision section testing, etc.);

* Implementation of various PPAP requirements, etc.

The market competitiveness was enhanced, meeting customers' dual demands for product performance and price by offering products with higher cost-effectiveness. The procurement BOM cost was reduced by 20%, and the fatigue life was increased by 50%.