ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF

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                  ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF
                        E-Mail Newsletter

                               No.24
             Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, December 2003

           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) Zhenhua Set to Raise Port Crane Production (Source : CMES)
(2) Car-Brake JV (Source : CMES)
(3) Ford's Big Purchase in China (Source : CMES)
(4) China's Machinery Giant Reports Record Business Volume
    (Source : CMES)
(5) Introduction of a highly efficient RDF power generation
    -Internal Circulation Fluidized Bed-type Boiler- (Source : JSME)
(6) An ultra-compact fluid dynamic bearing motor for next -generation
    HDD (Source : JSME)
(7) Elastic Biodegradable Polymer (Source : JSME)

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(1) Zhenhua Set to Raise Port Crane Production (Source : CMES)

Shanghai Zhenhua Port Machinery Co Ltd has completed construction of
the world's largest port machinery manufacturing center on Changxing
Island, which will help it increase its crane output.
The 2 billion yuan (US$240 million) production facility is located
along a 3.5-kilometer-long coastline on the island, which is at the
mouth of the Yangtze River.
According to Guan Tongxian, Shanghai Zhenhua's General Manager, his
company will produce more than 90 large-scale quay cranes this year,
with output rising to 125 next year. The cranes are used to load and
unload containers.
Zhenhua, which occupies more than half of the global large-scale
crane market, currently has four production facilities in Shanghai's
Zhangjiang area and Changxing Island, and Changzhou and Jiangyin in
Jiangsu Province.

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(2) Car-Brake JV (Source : CMES)

Continental AG, the world's fourth-largest tiremaker, is combining
two ventures in China that make car brakes to maintain its lead in
supplying components to the country's auto industry. "Continental and
venture partner Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp, China's biggest
carmaker, agreed to merge their joint brake-making businesses under
the name of SABS", the Hanover, Germany-based tiremaker said in a faxed
statement.

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(3) Ford's Big Purchase in China (Source : CMES)

President and CEO of Ford, Bill Ford, expressed on Dec.2, the company
is expected to purchase about US$1 billion worth of car parts next
year from China.
It's reported he also indicated Ford may eventually open its gate to
Chinese car exporters. He claimed, "We might see export from China".
At present, Ford is the world's 2nd largest car manufacturer. It
expressed in October that as a part of its expansion scheme in the
fast growing Chinese auto market, its investment in China in the next
few years may increase by over US$1 billion.

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(4) China's Machinery Giant Reports Record Business Volume
    (Source : CMES)

China's biggest engineering machinery producer has become the
country's first corporation of its kind with annual business volume
exceeding 10 billion yuan (1.2 billion US dollars).
Xuzhou Engineering Machinery Group said in a press release that its
sales for the first 10 months of this year stood at 12.9 billion yuan
(1.57 billion US dollars), up 81 percent year on year.
Sales of industrial goods reached 10.6 billion yuan (1.29 billion US
dollars) during the 10 month period, up 66 percent over the same
period of last year, according to the press release.
With 26 wholly-owned companies, joint ventures, and companies with
or without controlling shares, the group company produced 418
varieties of machinery and equipment, including cranes, road rollers
and loading machines.
The group employs about 3,000 researchers and developers, according
to the release.
The group was founded in 1989 in Xuzhou City in east China's Jiangsu
Province, east China.

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(5) Introduction of a highly efficient RDF power generation
    -Internal Circulation Fluidized Bed-type Boiler- (Source : JSME)

    Koya TAKEDA
    Plant & Infrastructure Engineering Company,
    Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.

Omuta Recycle Power Plant which employed an internal circulation
fluidized bed-type boiler was completed and started commercial load
in January 2003. Burning capacity of RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel) reaches
315 ton / day and the rated amount of generation is 20,600 kW.
Kawasaki developed an internal circulation fluidized bed-type boiler
with a unique construction. Therefore, it is capable of preventing
from the major contact of corrosive gas contained in exhaust gas and
the corrosion of the heat exchanger tubes can be avoided effectively.
By this reason, this boiler generates high pressure and temperature
steam (8.14MPa, 503 degrees C.) stably and power-generation
efficiency achieves 30% and more, which is far higher than the
conventional waste power generation.
The stability of operation characteristic and low emission level of
pollutants like dioxin, CO and NOx were checked by operation.

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(6) An ultra-compact fluid dynamic bearing motor for next -generation
    HDD (Source : JSME)

    Kimio SATO
    President, Relial Corp.

Relial Corp. has developed an ultra-compact fluid dynamic bearing
motor (BM) for compact flash type-I hard disk drives (HDD). The BM is
20 mm in diameter and 1.5 mm in height, the same size as a one-Japanese
yen coin. In order to prevent contamination on the disk, magnetic fluid,
which can be sealed by magnetic flux generated by a permanent magnet in
the BM, is used as lubricating oil. The BM is excellent in shock
resistance, silence, operating life and rotational accuracy, as compared
with conventional ball bearing motors. The rotational accuracy of the BM
is sufficient for the compact flash type-I HDD of storage capacity over
20 GB. Furthermore, the BM structure is simple and the assembly is easy.

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(7) Elastic Biodegradable Polymer (Source : JSME)

    Takashi USHIDA
    Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo

Biodegradable polymer is a polymer that is degraded in vivo or under
environmental conditions. The polymer becomes more and more important
under the keywords of medico- or eco-. For example, poly-glycolic acid,
a biodegradable polymer, is used as a suture at clinical operations.
Other than poly-glycolic acid (PGA), PLLA and PLGA are known as
representative biodegradable polymers. All of them are, however,
hydrophobic and rigid. For the purpose to make the area of their
application wider, an elastic biodegradable polymer has been developed.
That polymer is synthesized by biding three-dimensionally lactic
acid-caprolactone-copolymer with pentaerythritol. That polymer could be
adopted as a 3D scaffold for regenerated blood vessel with small
diameter by combining endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells.

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Editor: Chisachi Kato, 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 2003
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
URL:http//www.jsme.or.jp/English/