ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF

==========================================================

                 ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF
                       E-Mail Newsletter

                              No.4
            Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, April 2002.

          The Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society (CMES)
          The Institution of Engineers, Indonesia (PII)
          The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME)
          The Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers (KSME)

===========================================================

About the Asian TOP Panel (ATOP)
   On August 29, 2001, presidents of four engineering societies gathered in Japan to pave the way for stepped-up collaboration. They are Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society, Institution of Engineers Indonesia, Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers. They agreed to establish the Asian TOP Panel (ATOP), which is a voluntary body and open to any Asian engineering society and institution.
At the first meeting, they decided to issue monthly E-mail newsletter which you are reading now. It will carry short technical news of Asian
countries, and be distributed to all individual members of the ATOP
societies and institutions.   ATOP will meet every two years. The next
meeting will be held in Korea in 2003.

===========================================================

[Contents]

(1) The University of Tokyo has Developed and Released an Open
Source CAE Software System for Large Scale Analysis and Design
on 1st March, 2002. (Source : JSME)
(2) CMES organized a group of experts compiling the series of textbooks.
(Source : CMES)
(3) Foreign academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering
(Source : CMES)
(4) Toshiba Sets up Switchgear JV. (Source : CMES)
(5) Machinery Industry Grows with Higher Speed. (Source : CMES)
(6) China, France Sign Fuselage Subcontract. (Source : CMES)
(7) Tornado Mill (Source : JSME.
(8) Fusion of Atomic Force Microscopy and Acoustic Microscopy
(Source : JSME)

===========================================================

(1) The University of Tokyo has Developed and Released an Open Source CAE Software System for Large Scale Analysis and Design on 1st March, 2002.

The ADVENTURE project headed by Professor S. Yoshimura at University of Tokyo has developed and released a CAE system named ADVENTURE. This project has been operated as one of the seven research projects in the "Computational Science and Engineering" field selected by the "Research for the Future" Program sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. The system is able to analyze various mechanics problems such as structural deformation, fluid flow, thermal conduction and electromagnetic with a three-dimensional finite element model of 10 million to 100 million DOF mesh, and additionally to enable parametric and non-parametric shape optimization.
Due to its excellent practical performance and its open source strategy,
the ADVENTURE system is now being used by a variety of industrial and
academic groups since the free release of the b version on 1st Dec. 2000.
The software can be downloaded free of charge from the website,
http://adventure.q.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp. Any private companies are freely
allowed to develop its commercial version.

===========================================================

(2) CMES organized a group of experts compiling the series of textbooks.

In order to upgrade the teaching program and teaching materials for the
engineering colleges in China in the new century, CMES has been broadly and profoundly envolved in various activities in this regard. Recently,
entrusted by the Ministry of Education, CMES organized a group of experts compiling the series teaching materials "Textbooks of Industrial
Engineering Facing the 21st Century", which are the general national
textbooks for IE specialty of all engineering colleges in China.

===========================================================

(3) Foreign academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering

The honorary member of CMES, Prof. Thomas Bell, University of Birmingham, has been awarded the title of the foreign academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering recently. Till now 24 foreign scientists and engineers have been entitled as the foreign academician of China Academy of Sciences and China Academy of Engineering.

===========================================================

(4) Toshiba Sets up Switchgear JV

World electric equipment leader Toshiba Corp began operating a US$21
million joint venture in Pingdingshan, a city in Central China's Hebei
Province, on Mar.2 to produce top-class high-voltage switchgears for
China's power industry. Henan Pinggao Toshiba High-Voltage Switchgrear Co Ltd (PTC) is a 50-50 venture with a registered capital of US$12.5 million between Henan Pinggao Electric Co Ltd and Japan's Toshiba Corp.
It produces three kinds of electrical switches: gas-insulated switchgears,
tank-type gas circuit breakers and hybrid-type gas-insulated switchgears, with a voltage range of 72.5 kilovolts to 550 kilovolts, said Zhang Bingwen, chairman of both PTC and Pinggao Electric. The joint venture targets an annual sales volume of 600 million yuan (US$70 million), he said, adding that the products are in great demand domestically and have been so far mainly imported.The joint venture can contribute to the further development of China's power industry by providing much-needed products domestically for the country's grid structural adjustment, west-east electricity transmission plan and upgrade of the rural and urban grids, said Wei Guangyao, chief of the International Co-operation Department of the State Power Corp. The new plant is expected to help Henan Pinggao Electric cement its position as a flagship in China's electric equipment sector.

===========================================================

(5) Machinery Industry Grows with Higher Speed

In the past year, China's machinery industry presented a favorable
operating situation with higher growth rate and efficiency. According to
China Machinery Industry League, in 2001, machinery industry enterprises, with an annual sales income over five million yuan, accomplished 1467.5 billion yuan of gross industrial output value, up 17.15% year-on-year. The output of 20 out of 24 kinds of major mechanical products increased with higher speed compared with the previous year. Sales income registered 1374.4 billion yuan, up 14.53%. The exports value of mechanical and electronic products reached US$118.8 billion, 12.8% more than the figure of 1999, and also 6.1 percentage points higher than the country's exports growth rate, accounting for 44.6% of the state's total exports value. Thus, the industry has become a major driving power for the country's foreign trade. In 2001, the profits of the industry registered 64.67 billion yuan, up 33.35%. The new added profit reached 16.2 billion yuan, accounting for 62.41% of the country's new added industrial profit.

===========================================================

(6) China, France Sign Fuselage Subcontract

China Aviation Industry Corporation I (AVIC I) and Group Dassault signed Mar.19 a subcontract on producing parts of the F2000EX aircraft fuselage.
According to the subcontract, Chengdu Aircraft Industry Company will
deliver the first parts in May, 2003, and produce another 349 gradually.
According to the subcontract, Chengdu Aircraft Industry Company will
deliver the first parts in May, 2003, and produce another 349 gradually.
AVIC I is mainly engaged in the development, manufacturing, sales and
after-sales services of military and civil aircraft. The 15 affiliated
companies of AVIC I have manufactured aircraft and aero parts and
components for several foreign companies, such as Boeing, Airbus and
General Electric. Total subcontract sales surpassed 120 million US dollars last year.

===========================================================

(7) Tornado Mill

Nikkiso Co., Ltd announced a new pulverization system "Tornado Mill" which has dramatically changed the pulverization methods. In this system, two sets of vanes mounted face to face are rotated at a high speed, and jet stream is generated. Particles are ground by the shearing force of the fluid and the mutual collision and milling by the particles themselves, which are carried on the streams. Its features are:
1. Low mechanical frictions and low ferriferous contamination
2. Capable of pulverizing any material - hard material, such as hard
charcoal and tourmaline or soft material such as tee leaves.
3. Sharp distribution curves are available without a pneumatic classifier
as a mill itself functions as pneumatic classifier.
4. Low exothermic reaction causes no material deterioration - suitable for use in food and pharmaceutical pulverization.
5. Simple structure requires only minimal maintenance.
6. Operational cost is substantially reduced with energy saving.
Details are available from http://www.nikkiso.co.jp/

===========================================================

(8) Fusion of Atomic Force Microscopy and Acoustic Microscopy

In Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), a micro-fabricated cantilever with a
sensor tip at its end is scanned over a sample surface to generate
high-resolution images of surfaces. The cantilever deflection is used to
detect small forces between a tip and a sample. If the cantilevers are
oscillated, the responses provide a sensitive method of probing the force
gradients, which shift the resonant frequencies. The dynamic operations
are utilized normally in non-contact mode of surface imaging. When the tip is in contact with the sample, the resonant frequency is likewise shifted by the contact stiffness, i.e., a force gradient in this case. Novel
techniques based on such contact resonance at ultrasonic frequencies have been proposed to generate images depending on the elasticity of the sample surface with the special resolution of about 10nm. However, poor sensitivity in such imaging of elasticity often confronts us for stiff
sample materials, such as ceramics and metals.

Contact:
Mikio MURAOKA, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Akita University

===========================================================

Editor: Kikuo Kishimoto, International Affairs Committee
Published by The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Shinanomachi-Rengakan Bldg, Shinanomachi 35,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0016, Japan

FAX : 81-3-5360-3508
All Rights Reserved, Copyright C 2002
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
URL:http//www.jsme.or.jp [English Version]