ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF

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                  ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF
                        E-Mail Newsletter

                               No.31
             Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, July 2004

           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)

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    According to the agreement made in the 2nd Asian TOP Panel Meeting,
the ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF (E-mail newsletter) has now been edited
by the KSME for the year 2004.

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[Contents]

(1) Fischer to Invest in China's Auto Industry (Source: CMES)
(2) JV to Make Turbochargers (Source: CMES)
(3) China: World's Important Elevator Market (Source: CMES)
(4) China, Europe strengthen aviation cooperation (Source: CMES)
(5) Development of 24/36kV Solid Insulated Switchgear (Source: JSME)
(6) Reduction of Environmental Impact of Cylindrical Grinding with Ultrasonic
     Activated Coolant (Source : JSME)
(7) Micro cell counter integrated with an oxygen Micropump (Source : KSME)

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(1) Fischer to Invest in China's Auto Industry (Source: CMES)

Fischer Automotive, a subsidiary operation of the Swiss firm Georg Fischer Group, is due to build a light metal casting plant in Suzhou, China as a prime supplier of auto parts to European and Chinese users.
Such a plan will enable Fischer to directly participate in China's auto part supply. It is estimated that China's auto part market grows by 20% per year.
Fischer's board of directors has approved 10 million Swiss francs for this project.
The new plant will be situated in the well-equipped and easily accessible Industrial Park of Suzhou. It will become a supplement to Fischer's plant in Zhangjiagang. Fischer will gradually increase its investment in light of the market demand. It will take full advantage of its technical expertise to expand its market share in China.

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(2) JV to Make Turbochargers (Source: CMES)

BorgWarner, the world's leading manufacturer of vehicle engines, transmissions and four-wheel drive systems, plans to produce turbochargers at its joint venture
in Ningbo, in East China's Zhejiang Province in the fourth quarter of this year. Company executives said the company was committed to the Chinese market in the
long-term to cash in on the rapidly growing market. Executives said the company's revenue in China will contribute 30 to 40 per cent of BorgWarner's total sales
in Asia up from the current 10 per cent.

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(3) China: World's Important Elevator Market (Source: CMES)

China has become the world's most important elevator market, with market demand accounting for 40 percent of the total on the global market, Mr. Mark Noble, President and CEO of Schindler China, announced recently in Shanghai, the Wenhui Daily reported today. More than 7,000 elevators are expected to be needed in Shanghai this year, with 70 percent for residential buildings. Schindler will offer two elevators this year designed specifically for mid and low-height residential apartments and common office buildings.

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(4) China, Europe strengthen aviation cooperation (Source: CMES)

China's aviation companies have signed subcontract agreements worth 250million US dollars with Airbus in the past two years.
Up to now, there are five Chinese companies involved in aircraft assembly for Airbus, respectively in Chengdu, Shenyang, Xi'an and Guizhou.
China and Airbus signed an agreement worth 100 million in June, including a subcontract program for the world's biggest aircraft A380. This will be the first time Chinese companies ever took part. In Jiangsu province, the Jinling shipyard factory has delivered a special ship for transporting A380 aircraft assembling.
Airbus not only sold aircraft in China but was also devoted to China's long-term aviation development, said Laurence Barron, president of Airbus China.
Airbus planned to increase purchasing volume from China from 10 million to 60 million US dollars every year in 2007. Up to now, one fourth of the total 3,500 Airbus aircraft in service have parts made in China.

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(5) Development of 24/36kV Solid Insulated Switchgear (Source : JSME)

Junichi Sato, Toshiba corporation

We have developed medium voltage switchgear to meet the demand for size reduction, environmental conformity, and improved safety and reliability.
The use of Cubicle-type Gas Insulated Switchgear (C-GIS) has contributed to the minimization of size, because of the higher dielectric strength of SF6 gas.
However, SF6 gas was put on the list of greenhouse gasses in the Kyoto protocol 1997. Therefore, we have developed the new 24/36kV Solid Insulated Switchgear
(SIS) that uses no SF6 gas and conforms to environmental requirements.
SIS is a cast with a newly developed hybrid epoxy resin. Moreover, by isolating each phase and providing an electrostatic shield on the insulator surface, phase-to-phase fault are prevented and safety is improved. In addition, far fewer parts, low maintenance and improved reliability are achieved through the adoption of a vacuum circuit breaker (VCB), a vacuum disconnecting switch (VDS) and a balanced magnetic actuator (BMA) in the operating mechanism.
The SIS is about 60% of the volume, and about 50% of the weight of the conventional C-GIS. SIS is the next generation switchgear developed through continuous innovation.

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(6) Reduction of Environmental Impact of Cylindrical Grinding with Ultrasonic Activated Coolant (Source : JSME)

Haruhisa Sakamoto, Sophia University

The environmental impact by the disposal of waste coolant cannot be disregarded, and then the reduction of coolant consumption is needed strongly. To answer this, a method to reduce the coolant consumption with the ultrasonic activation is under development.
A nozzle with the oscillator of PZT generates the ultrasonic vibration of 3MHz in coolant flow. The activated coolant shows cleaning effect to prevent the chip welding on the cutting edge, and then keeps the working surface condition well. And the activated coolant markedly suppresses the generation of the scratch on ground surface. The reason of this is thought that the ultrasonic activation increases the spouting strength of coolant and then makes the infiltration of coolant into the grinding point easier. Furthermore, the activation keeps the ground surface roughness constantly against the decrease in the coolant flow rate. Based on this result, it is confirmed that the flow rate of the activated coolant can be reduced into one fourth of ordinary coolant to obtain the same surface roughness.
By these results, it is made clear that the high-frequency ultrasonic vibration activates the coolant to work more effectively, and then reduces the coolant
consumption to obtain the same grinding performance.

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(7) Micro cell counter integrated with an oxygen Micropump (Source: KSME)

Prof. Seung Seob Lee of KAIST reported the development of micro cell counter integrated with an oxygen pump in a recent issue of KSME Transactions (vol. 28, no. 8). They described the fabrication of a micro cell counter integrated with an oxygen micropump and counting experiment with Sephadex G-25 beads(70~100 ??/FONT>). The pumping part consisted of a microheater, catalyst (manganese dioxide) enveloped with paraffin, hydrogen peroxide, and microchannel, and the counting part consisted of collimated light, a microwindow, and a phototransistor including an external circuit. The micropump generated oxygen gas by decomposing hydrogen peroxide with manganese dioxide, which was initated by melting the paraffin with the microheater, and pumped beads in the microchannel.
When the beads passed the microwindow, they shaded the collimated light and changed the illumination on the phototransistor, which caused the current variation
in the circuit. The signals, according to the bead size, reached up to 22 mV with noise level of 2 mV during 50 seconds and the numbers of peaks were analyzed
by magnitude.

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Editor : Professor Mansoo Choi of Seoul National University,
           Director of General Affairs, KSME
           ksme@ksme.or.kr