Xi'an Jiaotong University in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, recently developed China's first ultra-precise lathing-grinding composite machine with large caliber of 1,500 mm and aspheric surface.

The school, also well-known as Xi'an Jiaoda, announced on Wednesday the successful development of one of the key national science and technology projects. Led by Jiang Zhuangde, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of Xi'an Jiaoda's mechanics collage, the project was highly praised at a national appraisal meeting of scientific research achievements.

Guo Dongming, president of Dalian University of Technology, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering and head of the expert team for the appraisal meeting, said that the development of the machine achieved by Jiang and his team had complete independent intellectual property rights and filled the gaps of this kind of machinery in China.

The national engineering and national defense advanced technology such as laser nucleus fusion devices, satellite optical system and large astronomical telescope have great demand for high precision and large aperture aspheric optical element (diameter of more than 400mm).

This kind of element is hard brittle materials which are very difficult to be processed and has very high requirement for the aspheric surface machining precision. Compared with foreign countries, the current domestic precision and ultra precision processing technology and equipment still have gaps and the overall level of technology lags the developed countries.

In order to meet the significant demand for high precision and large aperture aspheric optical elements, Xi'an Jiaoda cooperated with Qinchuan Machine Tool Group Co., Ltd., Harbin Institute of Technology, Beijing Space Electromechanical Research Institute, Xiamen University and Soochow University to have successfully developed the machine.

The expert team said the successful development had great significance to enhance the core competitiveness and innovation capability of China's related fields.