ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF

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                  ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF
                        E-Mail Newsletter

                               No.53
             Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, May 2006

           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 CMES for the year 2006.

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[Contents]

(1)The 11th Beijing Essen Welding & Cutting Fair Fell Curtains Successfully(Source: CMES)
(2)Novel Wavelet Based Method For Vibration Signal Noise Cancellation (Source: CMES)
(3)Principle and Control of New-Style Purification Equipment of 5N High Purity Aluminum (Source: CMES)
(4)Experimental Analysis and Simplified Modeling of Pressure and Power in Rotary Vane Air Compressors (Source: CMES)
(5)Development of 6-Axis Material Testing Machine and Measurement of the Spinal Mechanical Property(Source: JSME)
(6) Development of new magnetic fluid polishing by MCF(Magnetic Compound Fluid) polishing(Source: JSME)
(7)Super water-repellent durable plastic films with fractal structures (Source: JSME)
(8)Driving Performance Analysis of the Adaptive Cruise Controlled Vehicle with a Virtual Reality Simulation System (Source : KSME)
(9)Cooling System with Nanofluidic Loop Thermosyphon l (Source : KSME)
(10)Part-load Performance Characteristics of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell/Gas Turbine Hybrid Power System Operating with Various Load-following Operation Modes (Source : KSME)

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(1) The 11th Beijing Essen Welding & Cutting Fair Fell Curtains Successfully

Approved by Ministry of Science and Technology, sponsored by the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society and its Welding Institution, China Welding Association, Electric Welding Machine Committee of China Electrical Equipment Industry Association, German Welding Society and Messe Essen GmbH, the 11th Beijing Essen Welding & Cutting Fair was successfully held at China International Exhibition Centre in Beijing on May 16-19,2006.
With floor space of 40,000 sqm, there are 708 companies from 17 countries and regions participated in the show, such as USA, Britain, Singapore, Germany, France, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Korea, Mexico, Canada, Italy, India, China as welll as Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan Province. It attracted over 16,000 visitors from 75 countries. The entries to the exhibition center reached almost 30,000.
The fair has received unprecedented results in all aspects, under the alliances of all influential welding organizations in China. It is recognized internationally to wider extent. Welding organizations worldwide has taken Beijing Essen Welding & Cutting Fair as a big platform for plenty of trade and academic activities.

For further information, please visit website: http://essen.cmes.org.

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(2) Novel Wavelet Based Method For Vibration Signal Noise Cancellation

PENG Zhike LU Wenxiu CHU Fulei Tsinghua University

Noise cancellation is one of the most successful applications of the wavelet transform. Its basic idea is to compare wavelet decomposition coefficients with the given thresholds and only keep those bigger ones and set those smaller ones to zero and then do wavelet reconstruction with those new coefficients. It is most likely for this method to treat some useful weak components as noise and eliminate them. Based on the cyclostationary property of vibration signals of rotating machines, a novel wavelet based noise cancellation method is proposed. A numerical signal and an experimental signal of rubbing fault are used to test and compare the performances of the new method and the conventional wavelet based de-noising method provided by Matlab. The results show that the new noise cancellation method can efficaciously suppress the noise component at all frequency bands and has better de-noising performance than the conventional one.

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(3) Principle and Control of New-Style Purification Equipment of 5N High Purity      Aluminum

ZHANG Jiao SUN Baode HE Bo Material Science and Engineering School,
Shanghai Jiaotong University

Comparing with the old technique and equipments of Al purification, combined with solidification characteristic of pure Al, a new-style purification furnace and corresponding technology is developed. Double induction coils heating mode is adopted and a higher and adjustable thermal gradient above solid and liquid interface is obtained. The growth velocity is controlled automatically by computer and the morphology of HPA crystal is stable cellular or single crystal. The results of concentration analysis show that, the purity of the ingots fabricated by this furnace can reach 99.999 3%, and there is a reasonable axial distribution of impurities.

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(4) Experimental Analysis and Simplified Modeling of Pressure and Power in Rotary Vane      Air Compressors

HE Xuehong LIU Quanhe ZHANG Mingchuan School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Northeastern University

The pressure states and power compositions of rotary vane air compressors under working are analytically studied. The results are validated by comparing the theory data and experiment data, which come from pressure-temperature sensors and galvanometers equipped in the compressors. In pressure analysis, pressure process is divided into six sections and six simultaneous pressure equations are established for these six sections respectively. Similarly, four simultaneous power equations are established for four power sections respectively. Then, the pressure and power values are obtained by establishing the theory models. The pressures and powers of two different compressors are tested under normal working conditions. The analytical results are in good agreement with the experiment data, which validate the theory analysis. The study is useful to predict the working performance of rotary vane air compressors.

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(5) Development of 6-Axis Material Testing Machine and Measurement of the Spinal
     Mechanical Property

Takanori MASUDA, Mie Prefectural Science and Technology Promotion Center,
Industrial Research Division, Metals Laboratory

Spine has the functions of supporting body, transmission of movement through joint
and muscle, and protection of spinal cord. It is important to clarify the spinal mechanical properties for the orthopedics and the welfare engineering. However, the mechanical properties of spine that have multiple degrees of freedom were conventionally difficult to measure. We developed the 6-axis material testing machine which is the Parallel Mechanism that is implemented with the position and force hybrid control. And we specially arranged 6-axis testing methods for spinal mechanical properties. It can measure estimate indices that are a spinal instability (Neutral Zone) and an influence of intervertebral interference (Coupling Motion). The material tests using animal spine were performed and the results are shown.

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(6) Development of new magnetic fluid polishing by MCF(Magnetic Compound Fluid) polishing

Kunio SHIMADA, Fukushima University

This report is written on the development of new float polishing technique with large clearance utilizing magnetic compound fluid (MCF) that has been developed as one of magnetic responsive intelligent fluids by the present author. The cause of float polishing with the large clearance is due to the existence of large magnetic clusters involved in the MCF. Not only the possibility and the technique of simultaneous float polishing all surfaces of three-dimensional complex shape is shown. But also those of mirror finishing on the many kinds of material, on the μm-order uneven material over a flat surface and on the small sized IC tips are shown. He and FDK, Co. Ltd. in Japan are developing the polishing technique.

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(7) Super water-repellent durable plastic films with fractal structures

Kaoru TSUJII, Nanotechnology Research Center, Hokkaido University

Super water- and oil-repellent surfaces are crucially useful and important in daily life as well as industrial processes, and can be made utilizing fractal structures. Fractal surfaces have large actual surface area compared with their projected one, and the wettability of the surfaces for liquids is highly enhanced. A wax named alkylketene dimer forms spontaneously fractal surface structures when crystallized from its melt, and shows a contact angle of 174°for water (world record now!). Anodically oxidized aluminum surface with fractal structure exhibits the contact angle of more than 150°for rapeseed oil when treated with a fluorinated agent. These super water- and oil-repellent surfaces, however, show poor durability for practical applications.
In order to overcome this problem a plastic film, poly(alkylpyrrole), having fractal structures has recently been synthesized by electrochemical polymerization. This film shows the contact angle of 154° for water, and is stable against high temperature and organic solvents.

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(8) Driving Performance Analysis of the Adaptive Cruise Controlled Vehicle with a Virtual Reality Simulation System

Seong Jin Kwon, Jee Hoon Chun, Suk Jang, Myung Won Suh
Sungkyunkwan University

Nowadays, with the advancement of computers, computer simulation linked with VR (Virtual Reality) technology has become a useful method for designing the automotive driving system. In this paper, the VR simulation system was developed to investigate the driving performances of the ASV (Advanced Safety Vehicle) equipped with an ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control) system. For this purpose, VR environment which generates visual and sound information of the vehicle, road, facilities, and terrain was organized for the realistic driving situation. Mathematical models of vehicle dynamic analysis, which includes the ACC algorithm, have been constructed for computer simulation. The ACC algorithm modulates the throttle and the brake functions of vehicles to regulate their speeds so that the vehicles can keep proper spacing. Also, the real-time simulation algorithm synchronizes vehicle dynamics simulation with VR rendering. With the developed VR simulation system, several scenarios are applied to evaluate the adaptive cruise controlled vehicle for various driving situations.

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(9) Cooling System with Nanofluidic Loop Thermosyphon

Seok Ho Rhi, Jong Chan Park, Ta Kyu Lim, Chung Gu Lee,
Chungbuk National University

Dong-Ryun Shin,
Myungji University

Gi-Ho Park
Korea Institute of Energy Research

This study shows the experimental and modeling results of the cooling system using nanofludic loop thermosyphon. The experimental results show that nanofluid is not effective for small scale cooling system. The heat transfer performance is not much improved with the current small scale loop system comparing with the convectional water based loop system. In this study, various effects of nanofluids such as the concentration, the kind of particle, host fluid, and heat capacity and so on were investigated. With nanofluid as the working fluid, the flow instability was improved at a certain concentration.

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(10) Part-load Performance Characteristics of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell/Gas Turbine Hybrid Power System Operating with Various Load-following Operation Modes

Jae Hoon Kim, Jin Sik Yang, Jeong Lak Sohn, Sung Tack Ro
Seoul National University

The purpose of this study is to compare the part-load performance of a SOFC/GT hybrid power system with three different kinds of load-following operation modes. The primary mode for the part load operation of a hybrid power system is the reduction of supplied fuel (e.g., fuel control mode) to the hybrid system. The other two options, i.e., variable speed and VIGV controls, are related to the reduction of supplied air simultaneously with the reduction of supplied fuel to the system. With the performance analysis of a SOFC/GT hybrid power system, it is concluded that the variable speed control mode provides the best performance for the part-load operations. It is also found that the VIGV control mode, with its better performance behavior than the fuel control mode, can be used as an important option for the part-load operation especially in case that the variable speed control mode can not be adopted.

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Editor : Tian Ruizhu
           The Dept. of Internationa Affairs
           Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society