106th Departmental Advisory Committee Meeting

The 106th Departmental Advisory Committee (DAC) meeting took place on 21 March 2019, under the chairmanship of Ir Conrad Wong, Vice Chairman of Yau Lee Group. We were grateful to have new committee members joining us. They were Prof. Li Bing (Acting Dean of School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen), Mr Richard CW Chan (Assistant Director, Engineering Services Branch 3, Electrical & Mechanical Services Department, HKSAR), Dr Lawrence CC Cheung (Director, Technology Development Hong Kong Productivity Council), Mr Banting WP Sze (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Freetech Road Recycling Technology (Holdings) Limited) as well as two student representatives, Mr Farhan Khalid (full-time BEng student) and Mr Andre Eccel Vellwock (full-time PhD student). It was a very useful meeting as members, with their wide range of expertise, had a fruitful discussion, sharing their expectations on our students and graduates, and provided very constructive views and suggestions to the Department of its efforts in the future development in teaching and learning, research and consultancy and strategic development. We in particular thank Ir Wong for his leadership and contribution to our Department as our DAC Chairman for 6 years since 27 March 2013. Ir Dr Angus HW Cheung (Chief Executive Officer, China Aircraft Services Limited) will be the next DAC Chairman starting on 27 March 2019.

ME Staff received Faculty Awards for Outstanding Performance/ Achievement in 2017/18

The PolyU Faculty of Engineering Spring Reception cum Faculty Awards Presentation Ceremony was held on 22 February 2019. Three staff members from the Department of Mechanical Engineering were awarded for their outstanding performance and achievement. Prof. WEN Chih-yung Associate Head and Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Engineering Research Grant Achievement Award Faculty of Engineering Outstanding Award in Teaching (Individual) Prof. SU Zhongqing Associate Head and Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Engineering Research Grant Achievement Award Dr JING Xingjian Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Engineering Merit Award in Research and Scholarly Activities (Individual) Since 2003, the Faculty Research Grant Achievement Award has been set up by the Faculty Research Committee to recognize the outstanding performance of FENG academic staff members in securing external competitive research grants. Besides, the Faculty Awards in Teaching, Research and Scholarly Activities, and Services have also been established to encourage and recognize excellent practices in respective areas. Winners of the awards have demonstrated a high level of professionalism and dedication, and contributed to the achievements of the Faculty.

ME Department Head and Staff Honoured for Loyal Service

The University held the Long Service Award ceremony at the PolyU Jockey Club Auditorium on 22 February 2019 to pay tribute to long-serving staff members for their loyal and committed service over the years. This year, our Department Head, Prof. Shi San-Qiang received the Award for his 20th year of service in PolyU. Besides, 3 staff members of ME, Ms Packy Chan, Dr Liu Yang and Ir Elsa Tang received the Award for their 25th, 20th, and 15th year of service. Congratulations to the award recipients and thank for their years of dedication and devotion which have marked the achievements of the Department.

ME Student Team won the 2nd Runner-up in ASME E-Fest Asia Pacific Student Design Competition 2019

A team of Mechanical Engineering (ME) students won the 2nd Runner-up in the 2019 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Student Design Competition, E-Fest Asia Pacific Region, held at Velore, India. The winning team, along with winners from different regions, now advance and will compete for the Championship at the E-Fest Global. The team, comprised of year three final-year undergraduate students, Ji-ho SHIN, Hung Ming Roy CHOW and Rudra SOMESHWAR, under the supervision of Dr Henry CHU and Ir Dr Curtis NG of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, designed a wheeled mobile robot, which can pick up as many balls as possible in the field. With great support from the department and Industrial Centre (IC), the robot design is capable of grasping balls, ranging from ping pong ball to basketball, in the field rapidly without knocking the balls off the tube stands. Students feel excited with their achievement and they are looking forward to improving their robot design for the final competition.

Alumni Mentorship Dinner 2018/19

The PolyU Department of Mechanical Engineering Alumni Mentorship Dinner 2018/19 was successfully held on 16 Jan 2019. About 100 alumni, honorable guests and academics, together with around 150 students from the graduating classes of BEng(Hons) in Mechanical Engineering and BEng(Hons) in Product Analysis and Engineering Design, attended the dinner. The Alumni Mentorship Dinner is a tradition of ME to enhance the bonding between alumni with members of the Department and more importantly, to provide a platform for our final year students to learn practical experience and to get professional advice from alumni mentors. For this year, we had high-flying members of the Departmental Advisory Committee joining the event: Ir Darryl CH Chan Managing Partner, Hong Kong Radar Aviation Services Ltd. Mr Richard CW Chan Assistant Director, Engineering Services Branch 3, Electrical & Mechanical Services Department Ir Dr Angus HW Cheung Chief Executive Officer, China Aircraft Services Limited (CASL) Ir Chris KC Cheung Director, Generation Engineering, CLP Power Hong Kong Limited Dr Daniel Yip Managing Director, G.E.W. International Corporation Limited Mr Banting WP Sze Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Freetech Road Recycling Technology (Holdings) Limited In the remarks by our outstanding alumni Dr Angus Cheung and Mr Banting Sze, their encouragement and previous experience to the final year students were a bonus and motto to them. Our Department has always got talents, swinging up and down, around one’s body, not talking about the acrobatics but the diabolo tricks. ME Student LOW Kah Onn did an impressive performance in the dinner and this linked the guests closer together. Cannot wait for another year! Check out more photos of the event HERE.

ME Staff Appointed New Editor-in-Chief to Prestigious Elsevier Journal

Prof. Zhongqing Su, Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been appointed by Elsevier as the new Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of Ultrasonics. Prof. Su will assume office on 1st January 2019, and Prof. Every, the current EiC, will remain as Co-EiC until July 2019. Published by Elsevier, Ultrasonics is a leading international journal dedicated to the science and technology of ultrasonics, covering all aspects of the field. In retrospect, Ultrasonics has been very well developed over half a century, being shaped into today’s excellent standard. As one of the principal titles in this field, this illustrious journal has secured its prestige, recognition, and reputation in the community, playing an indispensable and vital role in the development and dissemination of original research work in the allied fields of ultrasonics. Ultrasonics is the only internationally established journal which covers the entire field of ultrasound research and technology and all its many applications, including particularly Physics of ultrasound, Nonlinear ultrasound, Biomedical ultrasound, Underwater acoustics, High power ultrasonics, Ultrasonic NDT Research, Ultrasonic transducers and systems, to name a few. Prof. Su has been working in the area of ultrasonic-wave-based structural health monitoring over the years, and his research group in PolyU has been dedicated to a wide array of research and development pertaining to ultrasonics, with both fundamental investigations and real-world engineering applications. He was the Chair of the 7th Asia-Pacific Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring which was successfully held in Hong Kong in 2018.

ME scholar developed new technology on putting electrostatic effect on nanofibers and using it as an air filter

The research team in Mechanical Engineering PolyU under Prof. Wallace Leung has developed nanofiber mats that has electrostatic charges deposited on the nanofibers. Nanofiber has diameter which is typically 1/1000 times smaller than a human hair. The charged fiber mat has been applied for air filtration of pollutant particles for all sizes, from sub-micron size (less than 1/1000 of 1 millimeter) down to 10 nanometers (100 times of a hydrogen atom). With reference to the attached diagram, when a neutrally charged (i.e. no charge) particle is in close proximity to the charged nanofiber, the particle is polarized with an induced positive and also an induced negative charge (a dipole). The charged fiber further attracts the opposite charge of the dipole to effect capture of the particle. Given the electrostatic force varies inversely as the square of the distance, due to the small-diameter nanofiber, the particle can get closer to the fiber thereby experiencing strong electrostatic induction followed-by attraction of the particle. Larger particles, several hundreds of nanometers (smog size), has higher capture than smaller particle because the induced dipole is stronger by virtue of the larger particle size. Given the electrostatic filtration mechanism has no effect on pressure drop, therefore, smog mask and other air filters (face masks, respirators, etc. ) developed using this technology can enjoy high breathability with low pressure drop, yet with excellent capture efficiency. Further, the charged fibers are arranged in a special way to enhance the charge effect to further excel the performance on air filtration. Viruses usually carry negative electrostatic charges. The viruses can be captured very effectively by the positively charged nanofiber mat made into a face mask. This would be an ideal defense during virus outbreak. In addition, the charged nanofiber mat can also be used for western blot for protein identification by transferring protein from a two-dimensional gel containing the original protein sample. Further, it can also be used for drug release where users can inhale released drug once the drug is captured electrostatically by the nanofiber mat. Prof. Leung comments that this is a very exciting, patent-pending, new technology. “We are looking for licensee and partners who might have interest to further explore the commercial application for air filters as well as collaborators to continue the R&D development on non-filtration applications (drug release and western blot, etc.).”

Prof. Teik Lim Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors

Our Departmental Academic Advisor Prof. Teik Lim from University of Texas at Arlington was elected the Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) 2018. Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. The 2018 class of NAI Fellows has made an incredible impact in a variety of fields, including biomedical engineering, laser photonics and computer sciences. Prof. Lim is the founding director of the highly successful and enduring Hypoid and Bevel Gear Mesh and Dynamics Modeling Consortium, and UC Simulation Center. More details of NAI, please click here.

ME scholar co-authored a paper in Science on high-entropy alloys

Advanced structural materials with gigapascal strength and high ductility are highly desirable for a wide range of engineering applications, such as aerospace, automotive, marine, and constructions. However, most metallurgical mechanisms for increasing material strength lead to a loss of ductility. A new study about multicomponent-nanoparticle-strengthened high-entropy alloys, co-authored by Dr. Zengbao Jiao, assistant professor of Department of Mechanical Engineering, was recently published in Science. In collaboration with Prof. C.T. Liu from CityU and other colleagues from BUT, IMR, and CSU, the researchers designed new Fe-Co-Ni-Al-Ti high-entropy alloys, which exhibit superb mechanical properties with 1.5 GPa tensile strength and 50% uniform elongation. Atom probe tomography (APT) reveals that the nanoparticles have multicomponent compositions, and the key of alloy development is getting the composition tuned correctly, such that the nanoparticles can fully exert the strengthening effect and also help to maintain high work-hardening ability and plastic deformation stability. This multicomponent-nanoparticle-strengthening strategy offers a new paradigm to develop next-generation materials for structural applications. Read more at: T. Yang, Y.L. Zhao, Y. Tong, Z.B. Jiao, J. Wei, J.X. Cai, X.D. Han, D. Chen, A. Hu, J.J. Kai, K. Lu, Y. Liu, C.T. Liu. Multicomponent intermetallic nanoparticles and superb mechanical behaviors of complex alloys. Science, 2018; 362 (6417): 933.

ME hosted the 8th East Asia Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Workshop

Organized and hosted by ME Department, the 8th East Asia Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Workshop (EAMAEW-2018) was very successfully held in PolyU, 1-3 December 2018. EAMAEW-2018 was the eighth one in this annual workshop series. Four top-notch universities in the East Asia region, i.e., Hokkaido University, Korea University, National Cheng Kung University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, are the main participating universities. This workshop series has created a platform not only for academics from these four universities to exchange ideas and views in the broad area of mechanical and aerospace engineering, but also for research students to mingle together and exchange their learning and research experiences. EAMAEW-2018 has extended the success that has been well maintained by previous workshops in Seoul (2011 & 2015), Tainan (2012 & 2016), Sapporo (2013 & 2017) and Hong Kong (2014). Approximately 100 participants participated in EAMAEW-2018, delivering about 70 oral presentations in 9 structured sessions covering three broad fields, i.e., materials & solid mechanics, thermofluids & combustion, as well as control, acoustics & dynamics. In addition, two senior/junior professors from each of the four universities were invited to deliver keynote lectures. Meanwhile, discussions were made among the participating departments on continuing the facilitating of student exchange programs. All these have made EAMAEW-2018 one of the events in this series history, with the largest number of submissions and the most attendees. EAMAEW-2018 was also highlighted with elaborately designed social activities reflecting the unique culture of Hong Kong. These activities include Cantonese-style Banquet Dinner, Excursion Trip and some others in which participants mingled together and had a lot of fun. The Organizing Committee, chaired by ME Head Prof. San-Qiang Shi, consisted of 8 staff and 13 research students who had fully committed themselves to preparation of this event. It was the aspirations, hard work, and devoted efforts from this group of staff and students that have made EAMAEW-2018 another successful event in this workshop series. The next EAMAEW will be hosted by Korea University in Seoul in 2019.