ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF

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

                  ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF
                        E-Mail Newsletter

                               No.9
             Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, September 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) Five Packaging Machine Has Good Prospect in China (Source : CMES).
(2) Mobile Network Growing in China (Source : CMES).
(3) China's Machinery Industry Reports Strong Growth (Source : CMES).
(4) Japan Speeding Up Its Automobile Hydrogen Station Network Project
    (Source : JSME).
(5) Three International Symposiums at Mechanical Engineering Congress,
    2002 Japan (MECJ-02) (Source : JSME).
(6) New Magnetic Materials for Refrigeration Machines Operating in the
    Room Temperature Region (Source : JSME).
(7) Strip caster running at Nucor (Source : JSME).

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

(1) Five Packaging Machine Has Good Prospect in China

Packaging Machinery industry are the supporting industry to packaging industry, which occupy great position in food and packaging machinery trade.
Packaging Machinery offer important technical support to the food packaging trade, ensure food transportation, preservation and relevant article relevant added values. In "the 10th five-year plan for food and packaging industry", many experts propose that China need to increase the pace for develop five below machine, bag making,-filling-sealing packaging machine, corrugated paper carton production equipment, metal packaging container processing equipment, pulp and mould processing equipment and vacuum packaging machinery.

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

(2) Mobile Network Growing in China

China's second biggest cellular company, China United Telecommunications, said it has experienced a boom of subscribers to its CDMA-based mobile network. United's CDMA (code division multiple access) subscribers, including those from the company's China Unicom unit, reached two million by Aug. 15, according to the company. The Unicom unit said it had 1.258 million CDMA customers at the end of July. Unicom operates a network based on the CDMA technology standard in 12 provinces; China United also has CDMA subscribers elsewhere in the country. "The scale of subscribers is now growing rapidly, laying a good foundation for larger scale
development in the future," said Wang Jianzhou, president of United and Unicom.
One analyst said growth had picked up due to promotional offers, such as
subsidized handsets, which he said is a poor way to win new subscribers and reach the company's ambitious objective of seven million customers this year.

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

(3) China's Machinery Industry Reports Strong Growth

The total output value of China's machinery sector reached 839.7 billion yuan (101 billion US dollars) in the first half of the year, up 21.38 percent over the same period last year, according to the China Machinery Industry Federation (CMIF).
Machinery sales reached 763.29 billion yuan (92 billion US dollars), up 20.39 percent. Machinery companies scored total profit of 36.42 billion yuan (4.3 billion US dollars), up 35.39 percent compared with the same period last year.
Vice director of CMIF Cai Weici said domestic demand provided good market
opportunities for rapid development in the machinery sector. In the six months, fixed assets investment increased 21.5 percent, and large proportion of which was used to purchase machinery products.
The booming demand for cars and heavy trucks also boosted growth in the
machinery sector.
The sector will maintain a good momentum in the second half of 2002, experts predict.

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

(4) Japan Speeding Up Its Automobile Hydrogen Station Network Project

New compressed hydrogen station for automobiles opened in Yokohama, Japan. Constructed by Iwatani International Corporation with the investment of New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, the station supplies high-purity hydrogen produced from chloralkari off-gas to fuel cell automobiles with the capacity of filling up five cars in succession.
This year, two Japanese automobile companies, Toyota and Honda, will place the compressed hydrogen fuel cell cars on the market, urging government to pave the way for this new automobile era. Iwatani, having completed the verification test of portable hydrogen refueling equipment, will also join the construction of another station in Tokyo. Japan will construct five more stations, expanding the network to eight stations by the end of fiscal year 2003.

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

(5) Three International Symposiums at Mechanical Engineering Congress,
2002 Japan (MECJ-02)

The following international symposiums will be held during the Mechanical
Engineering Congress, 2002 Japan (MECJ-02) sponsored by the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) at the University of Tokyo.

* International Symposium on "Distributed Energy Systems in the 21st Century"
September 24 & 25, 2002
Organized by Thermal Engineering Division
Organizer: Prof. Nobuhide KASAGI at the University of Tokyo
<kasagi@thtlab.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
（For details: Takeshi KANEDA <kaneda@mri.co.jp> ）

* International Symposium on "Machine Condition Monitoring and Diagnosis"
September 25 & 26, 2002
Organized by Dynamics, Measurement & Control Division
Organizer: Prof. Takuzo IWATSUBO at Kobe University
<iwatsubo@mech.kobe-u.ac.jp>

* International Symposium on "Cell Biomechanics & Tissue Engineering"
September 28, 2002
Organized by Bioengineering Division
Organizer: Prof. Tetsuya TATEISHI at the University of Tokyo
<tateishi@ingram.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp>

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

(6) New Magnetic Materials for Refrigeration Machines Operating in the Room
Temperature Region

Because of the need for energy efficiency and environmental safety, research on and development of new materials are strongly desired.
Magnetic refrigeration is one of the candidates in stead of the conventional gas refrigeration.
Tohoku University group has developed new magnetic refrigerant materials,
La(Fe100-xSix)13 compounds, which exhibit a first-kind magnetic transition (metamagnetism) in applied magnetic fields (see J. Appl. Phys. 85(1999) 4756).
Associated with the sharp magnetic changes against temperature and magnetic
field due to the first-kind metamagnetic magnetic transition, these new magnetic materials exhibit large values of the change in magnetic entropy as well as the change in adiabatic temperature, that is,　large magnetocaloric effects　(see Mater. Trans. 43(2002) 1202, Appl. Phys. Lett. 81(2002)1276).
These large values are closely correlated to the metamagnetic transition, and the large magnetocaloric effects are obtainable in relatively low magnetic fields generated by hard magnets such as Nd-Fe-B. In addition, the elements in the developed materials are inexpensive and completely inoffensive to the natural environment in contrast with chlorofluorocarcon (CFC, Freon gas). Keeping excellent characteristics for the refrigeration, the working temperature of the new materials is easily controlled from -85 to 60℃ by adjusting the hydrogen content, because La atoms have a strong affinity with hydrogen.
Consequently, the new materials are one of the most promising refrigerant
materials working in wide temperature ranges in relatively low magnetic fields.

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

(7) Strip caster running at Nucor

Strip caster was started commissioning in May '02 at Nucor steel Crawfordsville works, Indiana USA. Carbon and stainless flat sheet are produced from molten metal directly through twin rolls into thin gauge of 1.5-2 mm by 1300 mm width. It is announced that carbon steel coils are routinely cast on a daily basis in full heats, and they have been processed to galvanized decking plate successfully. The Nucor strip casting facility is expected to be fully operation by late 2002. Total length of strip caster facility is 60 m, which is 1/5 to 1/7 of thin slab caster & hot
strip mill, and is 1/8 to 1/12 0f conventional slab caster & hot strip mill plant.
Expected annual production is around 500,000 tons. The significantly smaller size of facility minimize environmental impact as well as capital costs for producing strip coil. This strip casting technology will be licensed by Catrip LLC which was formed between Nucor Corporation, BHP Steel Ltd. of Australia and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries(IHI) of Japan.

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

Editor: Osamu Mochizuki, 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/