ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF

======================================================================

                  ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF
                        E-Mail Newsletter

                               No.47
             Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, November 2005

           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 KSME for the year 2005.

======================================================================

[Contents]

(1) Design and Study of the Non-contact Force Sensor Based on Magnetoelastic Effect (Source: CMES)
(2) Application of Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) in Weigh ?in? Motion of Vehicles (Source: CMES)
(3) Development of lightweight optical mirror fabricated by Reaction-Sintered Silicon carbide (Source: JSME)
(4) Face Detection and Tracking in Video Streams (Source: JSME)
(5) Hemodynamic Analysis of Coronary Artery Microcirculation Using a Pig’s Morphometric Data (Source: KSME)

========================================================================

(1) Design and Study of the Non-contact Force Sensor Based on Magnetoelastic Effect (Source: CMES)

Shi Yanping Huaihai Institute of Technology
Zhang Yongzhong China University of Mining and Technology

In order to online detect force and realize trouble monitoring for mechanical equipment, Prof. Shi Yanping and Prof. Zhang Yongzhong designed a non-contact force sensor with three magnetic poles based on magneto-elastic effect. Besides, it made discussions on its structure and working principles, derived its equations of induced voltage outputs. Experiments were conducted to analyze the influence of field current intensity, frequency, and the gap between the probe of sensor and the surface of tested material upon the output characteristics of the sensor. Results show that the sensor’s measuring precision and sensitivity can meet the application demands for general projects.

========================================================================

(2) Application of Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) in Weigh in Motion of Vehicles (Source: CMES)

Zhou Zhifeng Cai Ping Xu Jia Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Chen Rixing Shanghai Yamato Scale Co., Ltd.,

Prof. Zhou Zhifeng and other three professors introduced the concept of EMD and brought forward the concept of false mode and discussed its influences on the trend of signals. EMD was used to analyze field signals with respect to the features of the weigh-in-motion signals. The results show that EMD is effective in processing the weigh -in-motion signals and the max deviation of front axel weight, rear axel weight and gross weight are less than 5.23%, 10.30% and 6.93% respectively when the speed of the vehicle is less than 30km/h.

========================================================================

(3) Development of lightweight optical mirror fabricated by Reaction-Sintered Silicon carbide (Source: JSME)

Yoshiyasu Itoh, Power and Industrial Systems R&D Center, TOSHIBA Corporation
Shoko Suyama, Power and Industrial Systems R&D Center, TOSHIBA Corporation

Newly developed high-strength reaction-sintered silicon carbide is an attractive material for lightweight optical mirror with twice higher bending strength than other SiC materials.
The material has advantages in its fabrication process. The sintering temperature is significantly lower than that of sintered silicon carbide ceramics and its sintering shrinkage is less than one percent. These advantages will provide rapid progress to fabricate large objects. The polish of the test piece demonstrated that the polished surface has no tpore and is suited to visible region as well as infrared without CVD SiC coating. It is concluded that reaction-sintered SiC has potential to provide a large lightweight optical mirror.

=======================================================================

(4) Face Detection and Tracking in Video Streams (Source: JSME)

Shinjiro Kawato, ATR Intelligent Robotics & Communication Laboratories

Technologies for face detection and tracking in video streams are very basic to human-computer interaction systems. Research in this field has been very active for a decade, and many real-time systems have been reported.
In a system that we recently developed, face candidates are extracted with a face filter, a six-segmented-rectangular filter, which is simple and fast. Then, a SVM (support vector machine) determines whether or not each of them is a face. Once a face is detected, it tracks the pattern between the eyes (BTE), which is fairly stable for any facial expressions. Eyes are re-searched on both side of the BTE.
To cope with face scale variations, it prepares multiresolution images by sub-sampling the original image. An appropriate resolution image is selected based on the distance between the eyes so that a fixed size of BTE template can be applicable. The system processes 30 frames per second.

============================================================

(5) Hemodynamic Analysis of Coronary Artery Microcirculation Using a Pig’s Morphometric Data (Source : KSME)

Stenosed coronary artery may play an important role in various coronary heart diseases. However, it has not been known how much stenosed coronary artery affects coronary circulation system, quantitatively. Professor Sehyun Shin of Kyungpook National University developed a mathematical model for microcirculation in the left common coronary artery (LCCA) with adopting a previously measured morphological data and mechanical properties of the coronary vessels (J. of Mechanical Science and Technology (KSME Int. J.) vol. 19. They examine the effect of percent diameter stenosis on blood flow rate and shear stress. Case I comprised of one-stenosed element at 10th order (% diameter stenosis are 10, 30, and 50, respectively). Case II consisted of completely occluded element at 10th order (number of occluded elements are 0, 1, and 2 out of 8, respectively). As the level of stenosis becomes severe, the shear stress increases significantly but the flow rate reduction was relatively small. However, for the occluded case, there was linearly proportional reduction of flow rate according to number of occluded elements. Either such high shear stress associated with coronary artery stenosis or reduced flow rate due to occlusion may cause atherosclerosis and myocardial ischemia.

============================================================

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