ME PhD Students Won Student Competition Awards in ISSW32

Two ME PhD students, Liang Yu and Liu Lili won the Student Competition Awards in the 32nd International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW32) held at the Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore in Singapore on 14-19 July 2019. Since the inception of the International Symposium on Shock Wave (ISSW) in 1957, ISSW has served as authoritative platforms for the international scientific community to meet and exchange ideas on the study of shock wave and blast wave related phenomena and their applications. ISSW32 is a continuation in the series of biannual international symposia that have been held throughout the world. It had over 400 participants, including more than 370 overseas delegates. Student authors were encouraged to participate in the Student Competition. Winners were selected based on the best oral and poster presentations. Liang Yu and Liu Lili are both devoted to Richtmyer-Meshkov instability (RMI) investigation. RMI plays a crucial part in promoting the supersonic combustion efficiency but impeding the ignition in the Inertial Confinement Fusion. Therefore, it is significant to investigate how to improve or suppress RMI developments. Liang Yu reported “Evolution of an air/SF6/air Finite-thickness Fluid Layer Impacted by Shock Wave” and Liu Lili presented “Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability on Dual-mode Interface Impacted by Shock Wave”. Both of them concisely explained the interface coupling as well as compressibility effects on the fluid layer evolutions and the mode-competition effects on the multi-mode interface evolutions. The judging panel acclaimed their presentations, and each received an award of USD250. Both research study is under the supervision of Prof. Chih-yung Wen and affiliated to the High-speed Thermo-fluid and MAV/UAV Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

ME PhD Graduate Won Young Investigator Award in 11th Asia-Pacific Conference

Dr Dawei Zhang, a PhD graduate of PolyU Department of Mechanical Engineering, won the Young Investigator Award in the 11th Asia-Pacific Conference on Combustion (ASPACC 2017) held in Sydney, Australia on 10-14 December 2017. He presented a paper “Hypergolic Ignition Induced by Binary Collision of TMEDA and WFNA Droplets: Non-Monotonic Effects of Impact Parameter”. The corresponding author of the paper is his PhD supervisor, Dr Peng Zhang. Mr Yicheng Chi, a PhD student of Dr Peng Zhang, collected the award as a delegate at ASPACC 2019 held in Fukuoka, Japan on 1-5 July 2019. The Asia-Pacific Conference on Combustion (ASPACC) is a biennial event sponsored by the Combustion Institute and organized by members of the Asia-Pacific regional sections. Its goal is to promote the exchange of information and to elevate combustion science and technology through regional and global scientific partnership. ASPACC provides a forum for mutual exchange of information in the Asia-Pacific combustion community involved in both fundamental and application-oriented research and development works. In ASPACC 2017, six winners of the Young Investigator Awards from different regions were selected by the Conference Scientific Committee from nearly 400 papers. Dr Dawei Zhang received his PhD degree under the supervision of Dr Peng Zhang in 2018. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of State Key Laboratory of High Temperature Gas Dynamics, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

ME PhD student awarded Best Student Poster in TAROS 2019

The 20th TAROS (Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems) conference was hosted by the Centre for Advanced Robotics @ Queen Mary, Queen Mary University of London from the 3rd to the 5th of July 2019. PolyU ME department was honored to have the PhD student Omar Zahra appeared in the prestigious Robotic research conference of its kind, and he was awarded the Best Student Poster. TAROS is the longest running UK-hosted international conference on Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS), which is aimed at the presentation and discussion of the latest results and methods in autonomous robotics research and applications. TAROS offers a friendly environment for robotics researchers and industry to take stock and plan future progress. It welcomes senior researchers and research students alike, and specifically provides opportunities for research students and young research scientists to present their work to the scientific community. Omar joined the ROMI-Lab in January 2018 as a PhD student in PolyU, under the supervision of Dr David NAVARRO-ALARCON. His research interest includes robotic manipulation, bio-inspired control, AI, and multi-modal perception. Currently, he is developing neuro-inspired methods for modelling and coordinating the motion of robotic systems.

ME PhD student Won Excellent Oral Award in CEEGE 2019

GUO Zhenbin, PhD student of the Department, got the Excellent Oral Award in the 2nd International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Green Energy (CEEGE 2019) in Roma, Italy from June 28-30, 2019. This conference was a premier forum for electrical engineering and green energy researchers and professionals getting together to help our globe to be sustainable, green-living, more human through their insights and innovations. The forum focused on providing an opportunity to technologists, scientists, industrialists, environmentalists and experts to showcase their novel energy efficient technologies. The goal of the conference was to address energy and environment related challenges, especially those facing the developing world by providing networking opportunities for global collaborations for developing suitable solutions for diverse applications and user groups. Outstanding world leaders as faculty presented their research on modern technologies, providing solutions for sustainable development. Participants were from across the globe, including the oil producing countries Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the vital oil-consuming developed and developing countries. GUO Zhenbin presented a paper “Improving Electrochemical Performance of Si-based Electrode via Gradient Si Concentration”, stood out amongst the participants. His presentation was selected as the best one at the conference. Zhenbin joined the Department in July 2016 as a PhD student in PolyU, under the supervision of Dr Yao Haimin. His research interest includes the performance optimization of lithium-ion batteries. Currently, he is a Research Assistant of the department, developing high-performance lithium-ion batteries with functional gradient designs.

Success in securing GRF/ECS 2019/20

In the 2019/2020 results of grants from the Research Grants Council’s General Research Fund (GRF) and Early Career Scheme (ECS) announced in June 2019, five of our GRF proposals and one ECS were funded. Congratulations to the following colleagues who were successful in securing a GRF/ ECS grant in this round. Principal Investigator Project Title Prof. CHEN Guohua Conformal coating of elastomeric conducting polymer with ionic conductivity on Ni-rich layered cathodes for enhanced redox cycle stability of lithium-ion batteries Dr RUAN Haihui Towards low-cost thermal imaging based on chalcogenide glasses: exploiting nonlinear viscoelasticity in precision lens molding Prof. SU Zhongqing In-situ 3-D Nonlinear Ultrasonic Imaging for Embedded Scatterers with 3-D Features Using Diffuse Waves: from Offline NDE to Continuous SHM Prof. WEN Chih-yung Numerical and Experimental Investigations of Thermochemical Nonequilibrium Phenomena in Hypersonic Flows Dr ZHU Jie Study of genetic algorithm-based inverse metamaterial design for acoustic wave manipulation in water Dr JIAO Zengbao Phase stability and deformation mechanisms of nanocrystalline fcc medium- and high-entropy alloys at low and intermediate temperatures

ME Student Team won the Gold Award of ASM Technology Award 2019

Terrific! The PolyU ME student team won the Gold Award of ASM Technology Award 2019. The team members, CHOW Hung Ming Roy, SHIN Ji Ho and SOMESHWAR Rudra Ajay, supervised by Dr Henry Chu and Dr Curtis Ng, competed with HKU, HKUST, CUHK and City U. The PolyU ME team project “ASME Competition Robot Development & Vision Based Target Alignment” stood out from the rest, triumphed in the competition. For the sake of promoting technological innovation in Hong Kong, ASM Technology Award proposes to be fertile soil for the growth of potential engineers. Each year, five established local institutions, including The Chinese University of Hong Kong, The City University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and The University of Hong Kong are invited to join the Competition by nominating two outstanding Final Year Projects (FYP) of their undergraduate students with engineering or related background. This year, 10 nominated FYP teams have made their impressive and fabulous presentations in the finale on 28 June 2019. After a day-long intense competition, the PolyU ME team won the championship. The project and presentation were judged by technical performance and project quality, creativity, quality & originality, applicability and practicability application of technology, clear communication of key areas, approaches & arguments, clarity and organization of presentation. The panel of judges consisted of senior professionals and experts from ASM, invited academic staff from universities and also industry practitioners. We are very proud of the outstanding performance by the PolyU ME student team. The team was awarded HK$50,000 as scholarship. And the PolyU Faculty of Engineering, as the institution of the Champion, received a donation of HKD100,000 as an encouragement to the outstanding students of the Faculty.

ME Scholar lauded with the IAAM Medal 2019 for contributions in advanced materials

IAAM Medal is a prestigious international award recognized by the International Association of Advanced Materials, Sweden, for notable and professional achievements, which fostered and enriched the development of Materials Science and Technology filed through outstanding research in Physical, Chemical, Biological, Engineering, Medical, Mathematical, Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences. The medal is awarded based on contributions made through work done during the ten years preceding from the year of award. The selections for the IAAM awards are done by a duly constituted awards committee and the awards are given to the awardees at the assembly of Advanced Materials Congress. Prof. Wallace Woon Fong Leung, Chair Professor of Innovative Products and Technologies, Department of Mechanical Engineering, PolyU, is the IAAM medal recipient in 2019. Prof. Leung has been honoured with the prestigious IAAM Medal for his notable and outstanding research contribution in the field of Graphene and 2D Materials in Energy and Environmental Applications in the 26thaward ceremony of International Association of Advanced Materials held on 11th June 2019 at Conference Centre, M/S Mariella, Stockholm, Sweden. As the awardee/ laureate, Prof. Leung was invited to deliver an award lecture at the June 10-13th assembly of Advanced Materials Congress.

A novel fuel cell system design featured in International Journal of Energy Research

Fuel cells have received worldwide research interest as a promising energy conversion technology in the last decades, primarily due to their simple system design, high conversion efficiency, low carbon dioxide emissions as well as quick fuel refueling. Currently, hydrogen fuel cells are widely studied and preliminarily commercialized. However, realizing the widespread application of hydrogen fuel cells requires addressing the production, transportation, and storage of hydrogen. A new study about a novel fuel cell system design using ethylene glycol as fuel and hydrogen peroxide as oxidant, reported by Mr Zhefei Pan, a PhD student of Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Dr Liang An, an Assistant Professor of Department of Mechanical Engineering, was recently published in International Journal of Energy Research and selected to be featured as the front cover. Theoretically, this fuel cell exhibits a theoretical voltage as high as 2.47 V, while it is experimentally demonstrated that the hybrid fuel cell delivers an open‐circuit voltage of 1.41 V at 60°C. More impressively, this fuel cell yields a peak power density of 80.9 mW cm−2, boosting the peak power density by 20.8% as compared to the fuel cell using oxygen (67 mW cm−2). This novel design is a promising application for situations where oxygen is not sufficient, such as underwater and outer space. Read more at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/er.4176. Z.F. Pan, B. Huang, L. An, Performance of a hybrid direct ethylene glycol fuel cell, International Journal of Energy Research 43 (2019) 2583-2591.

ME-led research project secured $8.5m ITF funding to improve sonic perception

Dr Tracy Yat Sze Choy, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME), leads a research team to work on a project “Tunable Sonic Perception control for headset”. The research team is comprised of Prof. Li Cheng, Chair Professor, ME; Dr Henry Chu, Assistant Professor, ME; Prof. Chetywn Chan, Chair Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Science (RS); Dr Andrew Siu, Associate Professor, RS; and Dr Daniel Lun, Associate Professor, Department of Electronic and Information Engineering. The team works in close collaboration with the industrial sponsor Innovation Technology Company Limited and Dr Steve Mung from the company. The research project has been awarded a three-year grant about HK$6.6 million by the Innovation Technology Commission. Dr Choy has also secured additional funding around HK$1.9 million by the Innovation and Technology Fund for Researcher Programme and Postdoctoral Hub Programme.

The 5th ME Research Presentation Competition 2019

The 5th PolyU Mechanical Engineering Research Presentation Competition was successfully held at the Lecture Theatre in the Jockey Club Innovation Tower, PolyU, on 28 May 2019. It is an annual event for research students to display their research project results and share knowledge with the PolyU community. This year, we emphasized on academic pitching skills, with an aim to train research students to explain academic ideas to peers and non-experts clearly. Twenty-four research student participants each delivered a high-impact brief in a 3-minute presentation. With their professional and animated presentations, those Fouling Species, Bidimensional Talbot Self-imaging, Linear Deformable Objects, Acoustically Actuated Artificial Micro-swimmer were no longer distant to the layman. After the oral presentations, participants interacted with the audience in the research posters exhibition. Displayed posters not only highlighted their research project results, but it was also an occasion for participants to convey their ideas, communicate with viewers and professionals, and let their talents be known.   Congratulations to their fabulous presentations and excellent research work! Champion Student: Miss LIN Dongmei Supervisor: Prof. Zhou Limin Title: Rate-Independent and Ultrastable Low-Temperature Sodium Storage in Dual-Phase TiO2 Nanowires 1st Runner-Up Student: Miss GAO He Supervisor: Dr Zhu Jie Title: Bidimensional Talbot Self-imaging With Coding Metamaterials 2nd Runner-Up Student: Mr FAN E Supervisor: Prof. Wen Chih-Yung Title: Effects of Combustion on Shock Bubble Interaction Merit Student: Miss MA Wanyu Supervisor: Dr David Navarro-Alarcon Title: Shape Control of Linear Deformable Objects Based on RGB-D Sensing and Model Estimation Merit Student: Miss WANG Jingwei Supervisor: Prof. Chen Guohua Title: Flexible Supercapacitor With a Na-ion Conducting Gel Polymer Membrane as Electrolyte and Separator Merit Student: Miss ZHOU Bingchen Supervisor: Dr Jiao Zengbao Title: Design of Advanced High-Strength Steels Strengthened by Nanoscale Co-precipitates More photos on PHOTO GALLERY