======================================================================                   ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF                         E-Mail Newsletter                                No.76              Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, April 2008            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) ======================================================================     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 JSME for the year 2008. ====================================================================== [Contents] 1) Development of Computational Human Models -Digital Medicine Initiative in Kyushu     University- (Source: JSME) 2) Development of Nanofiber Spinning Setup (Source: JSME) 3) Development of New Sound Source Search System in the Vehicle Interior     (Source: JSME) 4) The Route Search Method by Using Simulation in Transport System for     Semiconductor Factories (Source: JSME) 5) Quantification Method of Diverse Kansei Quality Application of Product Sound     Design (Source: JSME) 6) Development of a Model Satellite Installing in CAMUI Hybrid Rocket and a CubeSat     'HIT-SAT' (Source: JSME) 7) Promotion of Hydrogen Production from Ethanol Using Equilibrium Shifting with     CO2 Absorbent (Source: JSME) 8) Development of Wireless Monitor System for Structural Strength -Strain(Stress)     Measurement of Lead Wire-Free− (Source: JSME) 9) Research of the Robot Town Project in Fukuoka City (Source: JSME) 10) An Overview of Cell Broadband Engine and Its Industrial Applications     (Source: JSME) 11) Detecting Corrosion of Reinforcing Steel Bars by Inverse Analysis      (Source: JSME) 12) Design of Parallel Typed Walking Robot for Improvement of Walking Space and     Stability (Source: KSME) 13) The Effect of an Aluminum Mold on Densification of Copper Powder Under Warm     Pressing (Source: KSME) 14) Experimental Studies on the Evaporative Heat Transfer Characteristics of CO2     /Propane Refrigerant Mixtures in Horizontal Smooth and Micro-fin Tubes     (Source: KSME) 15) Application Research on Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of the Full Vehicle     Lightweight (Source: CMES) 16) Measurement of 3D Curve Structures by Using One Hand-Held Digital Camera     (Source: CMES) 17) Agreement Signed between CMES and Engineers Australia (Source: CMES) ======================================================================== 1) Development of Computational Human Models -Digital Medicine Initiative in Kyushu     University-     Yoshitaka NAKANISHI, KYUSYU UNIVERSITY Recent explosions of life science have tremendous impact on clinical medicine. However, mechanisms to incorporate basic knowledges into integrated pathophysiology in patients remain unestablished. To overcome such limitations of latest medical sciences, Kyushu University has founded the Center of Digital Medicine Initiative. The Center of Digital Medicine Initiative is a dedicated institution where we develop computational human models capable of reproducing pathophysiology by incorporating fundamental knowledges in life sciences, and investigate new modalities of treatments and diagnoses. ======================================================================== 2) Development of Nanofiber Spinning Setup     Ryuji INAI, MECC CO.,LTD Polymer nanofibers possess large surface area to volume ratio and build up the unique nanometer scale architecture. Such morphology makes nanofibers attractive as tissue engineering scaffolds, drug delivery media, filtration media, protecting clothes, and many more. For such wide range of applications, the nanofibers should be satisfied with requirements in terms of fiber morphology, properties, and so on. Due to such requirements, an electrospinning setup called 'NANON' was developed. Electrospinning is one of superior methods for producing continuous nanofibers from most polymers. Specific feature of NANON is its sample morphologies. Aligned nanofiber sample which shows developed molecular structure and high mechanical properties can be produced by NANON while randomly oriented fiber sheets are usually obtained by electrospinning process. NANON also can produce nanofiber samples with various morphologies such as ultra-fine fiber (around 10nm in a diameter), beads-like fibers, fibers with porous surface, core-sheath fibers, and so on. NANON could produce nanofiber sample which meet demands of wide range of applications in the view of morphologies and properties. ======================================================================== 3) Development of New Sound Source Search System in the Vehicle Interior     Masahiko YAMANOUCHI, TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION  CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) and hybrid systems have metal belts and electric units which are not used in conventional automatic and manual transmissions. There are new problems of noise and vibration from CVT and hybrid systems. Especially, hybrid vehicles use inverter systems, which have high frequency noise (5 kHz to 10 kHz). This noise is generated from electric chopper circuits and the frequency of the noise is dependent on the switching frequency. This high frequency vehicle interior noise could be more annoying to the driver and passengers, compared to interior noise in vehicles with conventional transmissions. The reduction of high frequency vehicle interior noise at 5 kHz and higher, is demanded for the vehicle development with new transmission systems.  Therefore, new sound source search system has been developed, which can identify sound sources between 1 kHz and 15 kHz in the vehicle interior. The system uses a contrived microphone arrangement and additional acoustic material on a microphone array using conventional beamforming methods. The system has been applied to the sound source identification for high frequency noise of a hybrid vehicle. ======================================================================== 4) The Route Search Method by Using Simulation in Transport System for     Semiconductor Factories     Masayoshi YOSHIDA,     ASYST TECHNOLOGIES JAPAN INC. In semiconductor factories, using transport system with OHT vehicle that moves on the merge-diverge rail is standard now. Hundreds of OHT vehicles are installed on the rail in order to transport a large amount of FOUP to semiconductor production equipments. When a large amount of OHT vehicles is installed, traffic congestion of vehicles is becoming a serious problem. In that case, it will be difficult to improve ability to transport more.To solve this problem, we designed new route search method which is forecasting the movement of vehicles by using the simulation. And a feature of the method is to execute simulation at the same time which considers all possibilities of target vehicle's route.When the method was built into the OHT System simulator, ability to transport improved about 15% compared with the original route search method. ======================================================================== 5) Quantification Method of Diverse Kansei Quality Application of Product Sound Design     Hideyoshi YANAGISAWA, THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO A product's emotional quality that evokes a customer's specific impression, feeling or emotion towards a product (e.g., comfort, luxury, delight) is becoming increasingly important especially for mature products. This article explains a quantification method of a product's emotional quality, which we call kansei quality, with attention paid to its diversity to support the affective design. The customer's sensitivity towards such a quality differs from person to person due to perception gaps and ambiguity. The method helps the designer to grasp such diverse sensitivities of customers. In contrast to the conventional approach that aims to generalize human sensitivity using average results of sensory tests, this method divides an emotional quality based on differences among the customers' sensitivity. The method is applied for designing a machine sound in which the designer deals with the sound quality as a kansei quality. Based on the method, a system that enables the designer to evaluate the kansei qualities of a created sound without conducting a sensory test is developed. ======================================================================== 6) Development of a Model Satellite Installing in CAMUI Hybrid Rocket and a CubeSat     `HIT-SAT     Ryuichi MITSUHASHI, HOKKAIDO INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY The CAMUI hybrid rocket is a small hybrid -type rocket and the main purpose is to reduce the cost of rocket experiments and thus attract potential users as metrological and microgravity researchers. The Spirits is a model satellite for installing in a CAMUI-250S that equipped with a 250kgf thrust CAMUI motor. By the telemetry data from the Spirits, the highest attainment altitude of the rocket was 3.5km.The HIT-SAT was launched successfully from the Uchinoura Space Center(USC) on the M-V-7 rockets as a sub-payload and is in a sun synchronous orbit at 6:36 a.m. on September 23, 2006(JST). The students is included in this satellite development member who developed a 500cc drink can size model satellite for a 50kgf class motor CAMUI hybrid rocket. ======================================================================== 7) Promotion of Hydrogen Production from Ethanol Using Equilibrium Shifting with CO2     Absorbent     Takehiko MURAMATSU, Kenji ESSAKI, Masahiro KATO     Corporate Research & Development Center, Toshiba Corporation Ethanol is a renewable biomass-derived fuel. It seems, therefore, one of the most suitable raw materials of hydrogen. Steam reforming can be applied to this hydrogen production and equilibrium shifting is considered to be effective for promoting the reaction. Our group has succeeded in removing by-product CO2 selectively from the reaction zone by using a packed bed reactor with a mixture of steam reforming catalyst and CO2 absorbent, lithium silicate (Li4SiO4). This absorbent, which Toshiba has developed, shows rapid CO2 absorption and emission. Moreover, CO2 emission occurs at considerably lower temperature than in the case of well-known CaO absorbent, resulting in highly reversible reaction between Li4SiO4 and CO2. Experiments showed an obvious effect that resulted in keeping not only the concentration of H2 at higher than 99 dry vol% but also the concentration of CO at lower than 0.03 dry vol% for 0.5 hour under pressurized condition. This result indicates the possibility of dispensing with a CO-shift reactor and of simplifying the CO removal reactor, which would reform the conventional H2 production system. ======================================================================== 8) Development of Wireless Monitor System for Structural Strength     −Strain(Stress)Measurement of Lead Wire-Free −     Akira KANNO, STRESS RESEARCH LAB CO. LTD Unexpected obstacles and increases of wiring cost in strain measurements are often caused by long lead wires between sensors(gauges)and instruments , when a great many sensors on engineering structures tested are measured by the instruments such as electrical resistance strain meters , transducers and others . The development to make wireless systems has been undertaken by applying solar (PV , photovoltaic )cells and HID (high intensity discharge )lamps , because the wireless instruments are urgently required to detect continually impending failures of the old structures and to eliminate the wiring cost under financial difficulties . As the results of the studies , the wireless monitor systems have been accomplished to show the features of high reliability , compact size and moderate price , and will be applied more widely to the safety engineering fields contained civil and construction engineerings , shipping industries etc. provided the sensors are voltaic output types . ======================================================================== 9) Research of the Robot Town Project in Fukuoka City     Nobuhiro OKADA, KYUSHU UNIVERSITY Robot Town project aims at developing a common platform where robots can work within an ordinary environment for dairy human life. RFID tags and sensors such as vision, laser range finder, and so on are distributed in the environment and connected with a network. Real time data from the sensors and the robots are integrated by the Town Management System (TMS). TMS arranges the data appropriately and serves them to each robot in the manner that it needs. Such the platform is called an Information-based Structured Environment. An area for experiments is now set in the Island City constructed in Hakata Bay of Fukuoka City. The area also includes a platform house. The researchers have developed TMS, the method to register range data obtained by laser range sensors for creating precise three dimensional environmental models, and robots that work communicating with TMS. ======================================================================== 10) An Overview of Cell Broadband Engine and Its Industrial Applications      Hiroki NAKANO, IBM JAPAN,LTD. The Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) is a novel multi-core microprocessor designed to provide compact and high-performance processing capabilities for a wide range of applications. The peak performance is over 200 Gigaflops at 3.2 GHz. Real-time image processing applications with parallelism for large amounts of data are good examples to demonstrate the unique capabilities of the Cell/B.E. This article reviews an overview of Cell Broadband Engine and its industrial applications. ======================================================================== 11) Detecting Corrosion of Reinforcing Steel Bars by Inverse Analysis     Shigeru AOKI, TOYO UNIVERSITY The research at the CCMR (Center for Computational Mechanics Research in Toyo University) on the non-destructive detection of corrosion of reinforcing steel bars in a concrete structure by using inverse analysis is outlined. Because corrosion on a reinforcing steel bar induces cracking in the concrete around the corroded part due to the volume increase of the corrosion products, its detection is important to prevent fracture accidents. Various methods for corrosion detection using the inverse analysis together with the measurement of potential field, magnetic field or stress wave propagation behaviors are being developed in the CCMR. Among them, the research using potential field measurement is highlighted in this article. The multi-step genetic algorithm (GA) is developed to overcome some difficulties for accurately detecting a corrosion profile on reinforcing steel bars from a small number of potential data measured on the structure surfaces. The fitness in the GA is defined as the square sum of the difference between the measured and calculated potential values. The calculated potential values are obtained with the Boundary Element Method. A net corrosion element is developed for the reinforcing steel bars which usually form a net structure. Use of the net corrosion element enables us to reduce a lot of computational time of the multi-step GA. ======================================================================== 12) Design of Parallel Typed Walking Robot for Improvement of Walking Space and      Stability     Chi Hyo Kim, Kun Woo Park, Tae Sung Kim, Min Ki Lee,     CHANGWON NATIONAL UNIVERSITY This paper presents a parallel typed walking robot to improve walking space and stability region. The robot is designed by inserting an intermediate mechanism between upper leg mechanism and lower leg mechanism. The leg mechanism is composed of three legs and base, which form a parallel mechanism with ground. Seven different types of walking robot are invented by combining the leg mechanisms and an intermediate mechanism. Topology is applied to design the leg mechanism. A motor vector is adopted to determine Jacobian and a wrench vector is used to analyze dynamics of the robot. We explore the stability region of the robot from the reaction force of legs and compute ZMP including the holding force to contact the foot to a wall. This investigates a walking stability when the robot walks on the ground as well as on the wall. We examine the walking space generated by support legs and by swing legs. The robot has both a large positional walking space and a large orientational walking space so that it can climb from a floor up to a wall. Key words: Parallel Typed Walking Robot, Leg Mechanism, Walking Space, Stability Region ============================================================ 13) The Effect of an Aluminum Mold on Densification of Copper Powder Under Warm      Pressing     Sungchul Lee, Taeuk Park, Kitae Kim     POHANG UNIVERSITY of TECHNOLOGY Densification behavior of copper powder was investigated to study the effect of an aluminum mold under warm pressing. The low flow stress of an aluminum mold is appropriate to apply hydrostatic stress to powder compacts during compaction under high temperature. The suggested powder metallurgy process is very useful under high temperature since copper powder compacts have higher relative density over axial stress of 100 MPa and show more homogeneity as compared with conventional warm pressing. Elastoplastic constitutive equation proposed by Shima and Oyane was implemented into a finite element program (ABAQUS) for densification behavior under warn pressing by using a metal mold. Finite element results agreed well with experimental data for densification and deformation of copper powder compacts in the mold. Key words: Aluminum Mold, Densification, Finite Element Analysis, Warm Pressing ============================================================ 14) Experimental Studies on the Evaporative Heat Transfer Characteristics of      CO2/Propane Refrigerant Mixtures in Horizontal Smooth and Micro-fin Tubes     Jin Min Cho, Yong Jin Kim, Min Soo Kim,     SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Evaporation heat transfer characteristics of CO2/propane mixtures in horizontal smooth and micro-fin tubes have been investigated by experiment. The experiments were carried out for several test conditions of mass fluxes, heat fluxes, compositions of CO2/propane refrigerant mixtures and tube geometries. Direct heating method was used for supplying heat to the refrigerant where the test tube was uniformly heated by electric current which was applied to the tube wall. Heat transfer coefficient data during evaporation process of CO2/propane mixtures were measured for 5 m long smooth and micro-fin tubes with outer diameters of 5 �o, respectively. The tests were conducted at mass fluxes of 318 to 997 �s/�us, heat fluxes of 6 to 20 kW/�u and for several mixture compositions (100/0, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75, 100/0 by wt% of CO2/propane). The differences of heat transfer characteristics between smooth and micro-fin tubes for various compositions of CO2/propane refrigerant mixtures and the effect of mass flux, and heat flux on enhancement factor (EF) and penalty factor (PF) were presented. Key Words: Evaporation, CO2/Propane, Heat Transfer Coefficient, Smooth Tube, Micro-fin Tube, Pressure Drop ============================================================ 15) Application Research on Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of the Full Vehicle      Lightweight     Zhang Yong, Li Guangyao, Sun Guangyong, Han Xu, HUNAN UNIVERSITY Sampling points were obtained by using optimal Latin hypercube design of experimental method, meantime, in order to improve computing efficiency, application of stepwise regression response surface approximate method in the MDO system of the vehicle crashworthiness and free mode of Body-In-White (BIW), the approximate model was optimized by using sequential quadratic programming method. It avoids consuming much of computing time in the traditional method and slow convergence or no convergence in the non-linear impact system. At last, it lightens the weight of the full vehicle in meeting the requirements of regulation CMVDR294 and improves first torsion mode frequency the BIW vehicle. Key words: multidisciplinary design optimization; stepwise regression response surface; lightweight; optimal Latin hypercube ============================================================ 16) Measurement of 3D Curve Structures by Using One Hand-Held Digital Camera      Ding Zhi'an, Zhang Liyan, Zhang Jiandong, Zhang Weizhong      NATIONAL UNIVERSITY of AERONAUTICS and ASTRONAUTICS A new method for 3D measurement and model reconstruction was introduced. First, we marked the interested curve structures on the object to make them visually outstand from the background. Then multi-images of the object were taken by using a digital camera. The images partially overlapped each other. A semi-automatic method was put forward to extract the marked curves on the images. After automatically recover the camera poses the curve correspondences on stereo image pairs were optimally established. Finally, the 3D curves structures were recovered by using the stereo triangulation method. The proposed method has the following advantages: (1) the hardware used for the measurement is quite simple; (2) the measuring process is very convenient and flexible; (3) no registration is needed for the digitized data obtained from different views; and (4) there is no redundancy in the digitized data for model reconstruction. The method can be widely used in reverse engineering and quality inspection. Key words: 3D measurement; model reconstruction; image matching; stereo triangulation ============================================================ 17) Agreement Signed between CMES and Engineers Australia CMES has signed a bilateral agreement of cooperation with the Institution of Engineers Australia (Engineers Australia) providing opportunities for the two engineering organizations to commence a cooperative partnership, which includes recognition of status, coverage and membership structure, promotion of international mobility and dual membership, general cooperation in conferences, workshops and access to activities. The two sides have also reached an agreement to strengthen the cooperation in engineering education accreditation. Experts of the two countries will participate in the exchange activities that support the mutual goals of both sides. Engineers Australia shows great interest in the 2009 International Congress of Mechanical Engineering Societies and the 2009 International Mechanical Engineering Education Conference which will be held in Beijing, and will send representatives to these events in October 2009. ============================================================ Editor : 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 2008 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers URL:http//www.jsme.or.jp [English Version]

 

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