ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF

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                  ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF
                        E-Mail Newsletter

                               No.8
             Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, August 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)

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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.

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[Contents]

(1) Chinese Enterprises Improve Performance (Source : CMES).
(2) Chinese Auto Part Market Full of Business Opportunities
    (Source : CMES).
(3) The 7th World Conference on Integrated Design & Process Technology
    (Source : CMES).
(4) Annual Spring Conference of the KSME - 2002 (Source : KMES).
(5) Innovative Ultra Rapid Cooling Method for Amorphous Production Process
    (Source : JMES).
(6) Stability of Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) cathode for long-term
    operation was further improved.- JFCC developed a new MCFC cathode
    covered with MgFe2O4 layer - (Source : JSME).

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(1) Chinese Enterprises Improve Performance
Chinese enterprises improved their performances steadily in the second quarter of this year, with the enterprise performance index rising 7.5 points over the previous quarter to 125.5 points in June.
Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on July 8 showed that the enterprise performance index for the second quarter this year was 0.3 points higher than in the same period last year.
In the April-June period this year, industrial and construction enterprises improved performance markedly, while key state-owned enterprises, listed companies and township enterprises reported good performance.
The NBS attributed the improvement of enterprise performance to rapid growth in production and sales, stable inventories, and increased profits and employment.
However, the NBS said, Chinese enterprises, which faced the continued low prices of industrial products and a lack of running capital, were facing new problems such as increasing cost and default payments.
These problems would have a negative impact on enterprise performance in the latter half of the year.
The NBS predicts that the enterprise performance index will remain at about 126 points in the third quarter of this year

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(2) Chinese Auto Part Market Full of Business Opportunities
In addition to the chic (and slick) cars and royal limousines at the 2002 Beijing auto show, a wide range of varied auto parts were to catch the eye of shrewd business people.
Yellow car fuses on display were being made on the scene in the exhibition hall, different-sized tyres were hung on the walls, and colorful bulbs, steering wheels and car-chairs attracted many visitors.
The booming Chinese auto industry provides great opportunities for auto part entrepreneurs, experts say. Mainly located in Shanghai municipality, and provinces of Zhejiang, Jilin, Jiangsu and Hubei, more than 1,400 manufacturers make up the bulk of the Chinese auto part industry.
The global purchase of transnational auto giants has been seen in recent years, which benefit local small and medium-sized businesses.
Targeting China as a profitable market, approximately 500 corporations from overseas began their investment here, including those rising above their auto part peers.
Some labor intensive and raw-material-auto parts have been batch-exported
from China, and the number of locally made parts being used in Chinese cars is increasing. Over 80 percent of auto parts in the Chery car manufactured by the Shanghai Motor Corporation are made in China.
As China is now a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), its tariffs on imported auto parts will be reduced from 25 percent to 10 percent in four years, and relevant import licenses will be canceled.
Lacking high-tech advantages, the Chinese auto part makers are still not well matched with foreign competitors, and thus face enormous pressure in years to come

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(3) The 7th World Conference on Integrated Design & Process Technology
This conference sponsored by Society for Design & Process Science (SDPS),
Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society (CMES), Software Engineering Society (SES), George Kozmetsky Endowment (GKE) and the Academy of Transdisciplinary Learning & Advanced Studies (TheAtlas) will be held on June 16-20,2003 in Fragrant Hill Hotel, Beijing-China. The theme of the conference is :
The Future of Software Engineering in the networked world.
The IDPT Conference is a major international forum for the integration of design and process technologies to create a symbiotic relationship among scientists, engineers, software developers, decision makers, and other critical thinkers.

The conference program will consist of invited and selected papers emphasizing knowledge integration through the study of processes leading to the delivery of a more robust, high-quality line of products, software and services.

The important deadline:
Abstract submissions due October 15, 2002
Full paper submissions due February 11, 2003
Final acceptance March 1, 2003
Final manuscript due March 15, 2003

People who would like to join the conference or want to get more information about it, please visit the website:
www.cmes.org or SDPSwebsite：http://www.sdpsnet.org/conferences.html

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(4) Annual Spring Conference of the KSME - 2002

Annual Spring Conference of the KSME - 2002 was held at Fitness Center Tower Condominium and Dragon Valley Hotel in YongPyung Resort, Kangwon Provice, May 23 - 24. About 700 participants were present at the Conference. The Conference involved over 360 papers, 10 special sessions, 7 Invited Lectures and 1 Plenary Lecture. The presentation of the papers was divided into oral and poster sessions. Regarding the latter, 12 papers won Excellent Poster Session Prizes. 19 companies including Korea Tech-Math Corporation took part in Machinery and Books Exhibition that was held in parallel with the Conference, offering new information on
machinery and books. Meeting of the Councilors of the KSME was also held during the Conference. The closing accounts of the year 2001 were approved in the meeting unanimously.

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(5) Innovative Ultra Rapid Cooling Method for Amorphous Production Process

Vapor explosion has been regarded as an industrial disaster, since it generates catastrophic mechanical energy as a result of rapid vaporization of a coolant contacting a molten alloy.
At the same moment, the molten alloy is rapidly cooled and fragmented finely.
Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) proposes CANOPUS method, which is innovative rapid cooling and liquid atomization process utilizing a sustainable small-scale spontaneous vapor explosion with a vapor explosion promoter as a quenchant. In this manner, one can utilize vapor explosion securely and efficiently to produce the fine amorphous powder. The cooling rate of the CANOPUS method was up to 1.5×108K/s, which was 280 times higher than that of the SWAP method and was several thousands times higher than hat of the widely-used gas atomizing method. The CANOPUS method allows us to produce amorphous materials with excellent tenacious, corrosion resistant, and soft magnetic properties for more practical use, which was difficult to a morphize by the other cooling methods so far.

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(6) Stability of Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) cathode for long-term
operation was further improved. - JFCC
developed a new MCFC cathode covered with MgFe2O4 layer -

Nickel oxide (NiO) is widely used as cathode material for MCFCs because the large sized NiO cathode with an area of 1 m2 can be fabricated from filament shape Ni powder (Inco255) by using a tape casting technique.
However, the NiO cathode fabricated from Ni powder has not yet satisfied a long-term stability over 40,000h of operation because the short circuit of cells due to the dissolution of NiO and deposition of Ni in the carbonate melt.
To improve the stability of cathode in a carbonate melt, Dr. Fukui et al., Fuel Cell Group of Japan Fine Ceramics Center (JFCC), have developed a new cathode structure that consisted of the NiO grains (core) covered with stable outer layer, which contained MgFe2O4. Composite particles, which consist of Ni particles covered with fine MgFe2O4 particles, play an important part as the starting material to fabricate the new cathode structure, and a composite cathode, which had the new cathode structure, was formed from the composite particles by the usual tape casting method.
Corrosion resistance of NiO in a carbonate melt was improved by formation of the outer layer. Stability of the new cathode was improved four times higher than that of NiO cathode and two times higher than that of NiO cathode added MgCO3, which was used as a usual cathode. A practical sized new cathode will be deemonstrated in near future.
This work has been conducted under a contract from NEDO (New Energy and
Industrial Technology Development Organization) and MCFC Research Association (Technology Research Association for Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell Power Generation system) as a part of Research Program of METI (Ministry of Economy and Industry).

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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/