ME Scientists secured highly competitive national funding in NSFC/RGC Joint Research Scheme

The RGC has recently announced the application results for the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Research Grants Council (RGC) Joint Research Scheme in 2024/25 exercise. A total of 50 research projects out of 616 eligible applications for a total sum of HK$59.666 million in this round of exercise were granted. In this highly competitive research grant, 25 full proposals submitted by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) were funded and only 7 full proposals have been awarded the funding support. We are particularly proud that Prof. SU Zhongqing, Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Chair Professor of Intelligent Structures and Systems, and Prof. WANG Zuankai, Associate Vice President (Research and Innovation), Kuok Group Professor in Nature-Inspired Engineering and Chair Professor of Nature-Inspired Engineering, were two of the seven awardees. Prof. SU will receive around HK$1 million to conduct a joint project entitled “Ultrafast Laser-enabled Three-dimensional Characterization of Stacked Coatings” with Prof. YE Lin at South China University of Science and Technology. While Prof. WANG will receive around HK$1.2 million to conduct a joint project entitled “Solar Interfacial Evaporation-driven Water-electricity hydrogen-fuel Co-generation: Materials and Devices Design” with Prof. ZHU Jia at Nanjing University. In NSFC/RGC Joint Research Scheme (JRS) 2023/24 exercise, a total of 40 research projects out of 423 eligible applications for a total sum of HK$47.3 million in this round of exercise were granted. Four PolyU projects have received total funding support of HK$4.8 million for a duration of four years. The projects cover topics in life science, new materials science and sustainable city development. Prof. CHENG Li, Associate Dean (Research) of Faculty of Engineering, Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering, was one of the four awardees. Prof. CHENG received around HK$1.2 million to conduct a joint project entitled “A New Paradigm for Designing and Manufacturing of 4D Printed Reconfigurable Lattice Structures for Tunable Broadband Vibration Suppression” with Prof. MENG Han at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The NSFC/RGC Joint Research Scheme aims to promote collaboration between researchers/research teams in Hong Kong, China and the Chinese Mainland on the basis of complementing the existing strengths of both sides. The amount of funding for Hong Kong China applicants is limited to HK$1.25 million. The grant encourages young researchers of similar fields from Hong Kong China and the Chinese Mainland to foster collaboration through the dissemination of their recent and unpublished research works. Having successfully secured funding through this highly competitive scheme for two consecutive years, we affirm our continued commitment to fostering innovation and collaboration within our research community. It is very encouraging to see that ME scientists from the Department are acclaimed by the Nation to further develop scientific research in cutting-edge technologies.  

The 10th ME Research Presentation Competition

The 10th PolyU Mechanical Engineering Research Presentation Competition was successfully held on November 7, 2024. This annual event provides research students with a platform to showcase their project results and share knowledge with the PolyU community. Dr Li Mengying, the Research Student Liaison Officer, introduced the competition and emphasized the importance of academic pitching skills. The aim is to train research students to effectively communicate their academic ideas to both peers and non-experts. Dr Tang Hui, the Associate Head (Research), addressed the opening of this 10th annual competition, noting its significance in providing invaluable opportunities for ME research students to showcase their talents. This year, fourteen academics from three main research clusters (Acoustics & Robotics, Manufacturing Materials & Mechanics, Thermofluids & Energy) were invited to form the panel of judges. Following the oral presentations, participants engaged with the audience during the research posters exhibition. The displayed posters not only highlighted their research project results but also provided an opportunity for participants to convey their ideas and interact with viewers and professionals. The event was attended by other research students and PolyU staff members, who also had the chance to vote for the People's Choice award. The participants actively sought support from the large audience in securing votes. Prof. Su Zhongqing, the Head of the Department, concluded that this competition has served as an excellent platform for our PhD students to showcase their research achievements and practice the art of delivering compelling presentations over the past 10 years. A good presentation acts as a bridge, connecting complex ideas with the audience's understanding and willingness to embrace those ideas. We should applaud everyone for their outstanding presentations. Congratulations to all the participants on their fabulous presentations and excellent research work!   Champion & People’s Choice: Miss WANG Qing (Supervisor: Dr AN Liang) Title: Green Hydrogen Generators: Inspection and Evaluation 1st Runner-Up: Miss ZHOU Yingying (Supervisor: Dr ZHANG Xiao) Title: Hydrogen peroxide from water, for disinfection  2nd Runner-Up: Miss XU Jialu (Supervisor: Dr MA Yuan) Title: TactiSound Film: A multimodal film type auditory-haptic feedback device Merit: Mr PI Rendong (Supervisor: Dr YU Xiang) Title: TSSL: Trusted Sound Source Localization  

Prof. Zhang Xiao Secures Highly Competitive Innovation and Technology Fund for Fuel Cell Technology

Prof. ZHANG Xiao, Assistant Professor and Presidential Young Scholar of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been awarded the Innovation and Technology Fund - Innovation and Technology Support Programme (ITF-ITSP) research grant of around 1.4 million Hong Kong dollars for a Nanotechnology and Materials Science project. The project is titled "Mass Production of Low-cost High-efficiency Catalysts for Anion Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (AEMFCs)". As the project investigator, Prof. ZHANG will lead a 1.5-year project, in collaboration with Siphone Science and Technology Limited. Anion exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) offer a promising alternative to proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) due to their ability to use non-precious metal catalysts with reduced costs. However, the sluggish anodic reaction of AEMFCs, i.e., hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR), requires a higher amount of platinum (Pt) catalysts, resulting in higher costs and posing a significant economic challenge for the development of high-performance AEMFCs.  This project aims to address this challenge by mass production of low-cost, but efficient HOR catalyst. Isolated Pt on metallic substrates using a hydrothermal and dipping strategy developed by the project group will be created, which can produce 3000-mg-catalysts/time/batch, with the HOR activity nearly ten times higher than that of commercial catalysts. The technology developed in this project has a high potential for commercialization as it can be easily applied to existing catalyst development and fuel cell production lines. Launched in November 1999, the Innovation and Technology Support Programme (ITSP) (Platform & Seed) aims to support applied research and development (R&D) projects undertaken by R&D Centres or designated local public research institutes, aiming to transfer the R&D results to local industries, with strong commercialisation potential or exploratory and forward-looking in nature.  

ME PhD student wins Second Prize at 7th International Symposium on Laser Ultrasonics and Advanced Sensing

Congratulations to Mr LUO Guojie, a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) won the Second Prize for Outstanding Report at the 7th International Symposium on Laser Ultrasonics and Advanced Sensing (LU2024) held on 21 to 25 Oct 2024 in Nanjing, China. The team members, Mr Luo Guojie (PhD student), Dr He Yi (Postdoctoral fellow), Mr Zhang Wanglinhan (PhD student), supervised by Prof. SU Zhongqing, presented a paper entitled “Photoacoustics-driven annular tweezers for acoustofluidic manipulation of particles”. The LU2024 international conference is dedicated to the latest scientific results, methodological and technological advancements, and applications of Laser Ultrasound, Optoacoustics, Phononics and light-matter-sound interactions. The symposium was started in order to bring together world leading researchers in this field and offer a forum for those involved with basic researches and industrial applications of laser ultrasonics, bringing a remarkable impact to this field. The LU2024 focused on the laser generation and/or detection of acoustic waves, application to nondestructive testing, ultrafast optoacoustics, innovative instruments and research achievements in biomedical applications, guided waves, advanced sensing including noncontact, micro/nanoscale or nonlinear measurements and so on.  /* Apply default table styles */ /* Apply mobile-specific styles */ @media (max-width: 600px) { .img-size { width:100%; } }

ME Final Year Project wins the HKEIA Innovation & Technology Project Competition Award 2024

Congratulations to our team of three 2024 graduates of BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering for receiving the Silver Prize of the Hong Kong Electronic Industries Association (HKEIA) Innovation & Technology Project Competition Award 2024 for their final year project entitled “Design and Creation pf a Flow Reactor for Green Hydrogen Generation”. The team, consisting of Zhang Zhewei, Zhao Zhen and Zhu Yao, was supervised by Dr AN Liang.  This award is aimed to recognize and reward students with outstanding projects which demonstrate excellence in technology and innovation. This achievement not only showcases the students' exceptional talents in engineering, but also reflects their excellence in creative thinking and teamwork.   

Dr Tang Hui Elected as Fellow of The Royal Aeronautical Society

Dr Tang Hui, Associate Head (Research) of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society in October 2024, in recognition of his significant contributions to education, research, and service in aerospace engineering. The Fellowship (FRAeS) is the highest honour awarded to professionals in aeronautics or aerospace who have made outstanding contributions, attained high levels of responsibility, or had a long and distinguished career in the field. Dr Tang's research interests primarily focus on fluid dynamics, particularly the fundamentals and applications of flow control technologies. His work aims to enhance the performance of complex systems that interact with fluid flows, such as aircraft and wind turbines. Established in 1866, the Royal Aeronautical Society has been at the forefront of aerospace developments, promoting the highest professional standards and providing a central forum for knowledge sharing. The Society now boasts over 25,000 members and has evolved into an international, multidisciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community.

ME PhD Graduate achieves the PolyU PhD Thesis Award for Merit

We are delighted that Dr FAN Haiyan, a PhD graduate from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has received the competitive PolyU PhD Thesis Award for Merit. The PolyU Graduate School establishes the PhD Thesis Award to recognize, reward and promote the distinguished research achievements by graduating PhD students. There are two award classes, namely Outstanding and Merit, recognizing students’ performance of different levels. In 2024, there were only two awardees across the entire university. Dr Fan completed her PhD under the supervision of Prof. SU Zhongqing and has demonstrated exceptional research achievements through her graduating thesis.   Thesis Title: Non-Hermitian Topological Phases in Elastic and Acoustic Lattices - For contribution to precise sound control and defend against intrusion by small underwater targets Chief Supervisor: Prof. SU Zhongqing Natural materials usually have inherent acoustic characteristics that are difficult to meet the special needs in precise sound control. In this thesis, the proposed metamaterials show unprecedented abilities to engineer the characteristics of sound including but not limited to amplitude, phase, frequency and mode shape, thereby improving sound detection resolution and enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio. This thesis starts with one-dimensional (1D) metamaterials with additional loss treatments to produce a gathering effect of the weak acoustic signals, which amplifies the signals by 9 times. Then, we extend to a two-dimensional (2D) space, achieving high directivity anti-interference sound wave beam based on the valley Hall effect, solving the problem that target acoustic signal propagation is susceptible to interference. Last but not least, a three-dimensional (3D) metamaterial with fluid-solid interaction coming into play which improves the identification ability of underwater small target acoustic signals. These works offer potential applications in acoustic detection and identification of underwater small targets.

ME Scholars ranked among World’s Top 2% Most-cited Scientists

In the newly released metrics compiled by Stanford University, 14 scholars of PolyU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) have been ranked among the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists in their main disciplines for career-long citation impact. In addition, 3 other ME academics have also been ranked for single recent year impact *. Scientists are classified into 22 scientific fields and 174 sub-fields according to the standard Science-Metrix classification. Field- and subfield-specific percentiles are also provided for all scientists with at least 5 papers. Career-long data are updated to end-of-2023 and single recent year data pertain to citations received during calendar year 2023. The selection is based on the top 100,000 scientists by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2% or above in the sub-field. This version (7) is based on the August 1, 2024 snapshot from Scopus, updated to end of citation year 2023. This work uses Scopus data. Calculations were performed using all Scopus author profiles as of August 1, 2024.  The recognition reflects the significant influence and research excellence of the Department’s scientists, who are committed to furthering their knowledge for the benefit of the world. Congratulations to the following ME scholars who have been ranked among the top 2% of scientists in the world in their respective fields: Dr An Liang Prof. Christopher Chao Yu Hang Prof. Chen Guohua Prof. Cheng Li Prof. Cheung Chun Shun Prof. Fu Mingwang Prof. Mai Yiu Wing Prof. Su Zhongqing Prof. Wang Liqiu Prof. Wang Zuankai Dr Yao Haimin Prof. Zhang Dan Dr Zhang Xiao Prof. Zheng Guangping Dr Jiao Zengbao * Dr Wu Maochun * Dr Yu Xiang * Data available at Elsevier Published: 16 September 2024 | Version 7 | DOI:10.17632/btchxktzyw.7

ME & ABCT Student Team won second prize at the 2024 RAICOM National Finals

Congratulations to the PolyU Robotics Team, the first team from Hong Kong to participate in the 2024 RAICOM Robot Developer Competition, achieved remarkable success in their first year of participation.  The PolyU Undergraduate ME & ABCT Team, composed of YIU Chung Ki and CHOW Man Pan from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and CHOW Tsz Ching from the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, won the first runner-up in the "Treasure Hunter - Autonomous Mission" and the bronze prize in the "Treasure Hunter - Semi-Autonomous Mission" at the RAICOM Southern China Regional Competition in Shenzhen. In August, they won the second prize in the "Treasure Hunter - Autonomous Mission" at the National Finals in Hangzhou! RAICOM, a competition certified by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, covers 31 provincial administrative regions and attracts participation from over 1,000 schools and top institutions. Under the leadership of Prof. Zhang Dan, Director of PolyU-Nanjing Technology and Innovation Research Institute, Chair Professor of Intelligent Robotics and Automation, and advisor to the Faculty of Engineering, along with Mr. Lee Kam-pui, Coach of the Industrial Centre, the students worked tirelessly day and night. They successfully completed their tasks in a short timeframe and achieved excellent results.

Prof. CHENG Li named Fellow by the Royal Society of Canada

Prof. Cheng Li, Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Engineering and Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), has been honoured by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC). This year, the RSC has elected a new class of Fellows, recognizing 104 individuals for their outstanding scholarly achievements. This prestigious recognition is the highest honour awarded in the Arts, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Sciences in Canada. Prof. Cheng is elected into the Academy of Science, one of the three Academies of the RSC. Prof. Cheng is a world-leading scholar renowned for his seminal contributions to acoustics, structural vibration, and wave mechanics. His pioneering work in modeling vibroacoustic systems, manipulating and controlling acoustic and elastic waves, fluid-structure-sound interaction, and structural health monitoring has significantly advanced knowledge in these fields and led to impactful engineering applications. On Friday, November 8, 2024, the RSC will induct the 2024 Fellows and Members of the RSC College during a ceremony as part of the Celebration of Excellence and Engagement in Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded in 1882, the RSC is Canada's foremost national organization for distinguished scholars, artists, and scientists. Its mission is to promote learning, research, and public engagement in the arts, humanities, and sciences. The RSC honours individuals for their exceptional contributions to knowledge and culture, provides expert advice to governments and organizations, and fosters collaboration through lectures, symposiums, and discussions, enhancing the understanding of science and the humanities in Canada and with national academies worldwide.