ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF

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                  ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF
                        E-Mail Newsletter

                               No.34
             Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, October 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) ASME visited CMES in Beijing (Source: CMES)
(2) China to Use 8 Million Tons of Steel for Autos in 2005 (Source: CMES)
(3) JV supplies natural gas stations (Source: CMES)
(4) Development of a wind turbine with brimmed diffuser (Source: JSME)
(5) Development of Lithium-Ion battery system (Source : JSME)
(6) Construction and Measurement of Three-Dimensional Knee Joint Model of Koreans (Source : KSME)

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(1) ASME visited CMES in Beijing (Source: CMES)

Mr. Harry Amen, the President of American Society of Mechanical Engineering and Mr. Virgil Carter, Secretary-general of American Society of Mechanical Engineering visited Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society on Sept. 23, 2004 in Beijing . Mr. Lu Yongxiang, the president of Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society met with the guests.
The main topic of the meeting was the 2006 Mechanical Engineering Education Conference which will be held in Beijing, China. Presidents from CMES and ASME signed the Memorandum of the Conference on Sept. 25, 2004.

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(2) China to Use 8 Million Tons of Steel for Autos in 2005 (Source: CMES)

China annual consumption of steel for automobiles is expected reach 10 million tons in six years time. It is expected to reach eight million tons next year. Industry insiders point out that China's automobile steel market is growing rapidly with the fast increase in car production. China consumed 5.6 million tons of steel for auto production in 2002. The figure is expected to reach eight million tons next year.
China used to import most of its sheet steel for auto production, but domestic production has grown rapidly since the 1990s and now accounts for more than half of domestic consumption.

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(3) JV supplies natural gas stations (Source: CMES)

China's first foreign-funded joint venture to manufacture equipment for compressed natural gas (CNG) stations was set up in Shanghai on Sept.28, 2004.
The venture is a result of a joint effort between Britain's CompAir Group and the Shanghai Electric Company, with the British side taking up a 60 per cent share and SEC 40 per cent, reported China Daily. The JV echoes China's huge project to transport western natural gas to the coastal region, which will be operational on Friday.
Local energy insiders say the establishment of the venture will provide momentum to the development of the natural gas market in China as well as Asia-Pacific region. Shanghai now has only four CNG stations for about 470 vehicles.The city is expected to establish more than 10 CNG stations for 5,000 CNG vehicles in 2006, according to Davis Huang, general manager of the newly-established Shanghai CompAir-Dalong HP Equipment Co. Ltd.

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(4) Development of a wind turbine with brimmed diffuser (Source: JSME)

Takaharu MIYAZAKI, TORISHIMA PUMP MFG.CO.,LTD

TORISHIMA PUMP MFG.CO.,LTD and Kyushu University developed a new wind turbine with brimmed diffuser. The wind turbine is covered with brimmed diffuser. The brimmed diffuser is a structure to collect wind and speed it up.
Therefore the wind turbine gets 5 times as much output as conventional one of the same diameter. Moreover the structure prevents foreign objects from touching to the blades and aerodynamic noise from being generated. This turbine is excellent in safety and performance. In addition, free yaw system enable easy maintenance.

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(5) Development of Lithium-Ion battery system (Source : JSME)

Takeshi KIYOKAWA, MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CO.,LTD
Yutaka KURIBAYASHI, MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CO.,LTD

In order to reduce weight and volume of rechargeable batteries on an artificial satellite, Lithium-Ion battery system which has higher energy density, higher specific energy, higher cell discharge voltage and lower self discharge rate as well as long cycle life than both Ni-Cd battery and Ni-H2 battery has been developed for space applications.
Lithium-Ion cell is based on one for electric vehicle (EV), and some modifications, such as hermetic sealing, application of an aluminum alloy casing for weight reduction and space radiation exposure testing, are adapted.
The Lithium-Ion cell is mounted to the battery system by being attached to an aluminum alloy chassis with a thin wall holding plate like a cradle individually under suitable mounting surface pressure. An elliptic-cylindrical cell design provides large contact area and good thermal conductivity between the cell and the chassis.
50Ah X 11 Lithium-Ion cells battery was developed and installed in SERVIS-1 satellite as one of experimental equipment. The satellite was launched in October 2003, and the battery has successfully been tested in the orbit.
100Ah X 10 cells battery and 100Ah X 24 cells battery are also being developed, and qualification tests on those batteries have successfully completed.

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(6) Construction and Measurement of Three-Dimensional Knee Joint Model of Koreans (Source : KSME)

Professor Kwon Son of Pusan National University recently reported that they constructed a Korean model for knee joint (Transactions of KSME, A, Vol. 28, No. 11)
Until then, Koreans did not have their own knee joint model to be used in the total knee replacement. Three-dimensional visualization techniques are found to be useful in a wide range of medical applications. Three-dimensional imaging studies such as CT(computed tomography) and MRI(magnetic resonance image) provide the primary source of patient-specific data. Three-dimensional knee joint models were constructed by image processing of the CT data of 10 subjects. Using the constructed model, the dimensions of Korean knee joint were measured. And this study proposed a three-dimensional model and data, which can be helpful to develop Korean knee implants and to analyze knee
joint movements.

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