Department of Vehicle Engineering and Mechanics

Prof. Hongwu Zhang, Chair Professor and Dean, Faculty of Vehicle Engineering

Prof. Wanxie Zhong, CAS Academician

Prof. Jiahao Lin, CAS Academician
Email: Jhlin@dlut.edu.cn

Prof. Hualiang Jiang, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of CAS

Prof. Guo Xu; Email: guoxu@dlut.edu.cn

Prof. Chujie Wu

Prof. Xikui Li; Email: Xikuili@dlut.edu.cn

Prof. Ping Hu, DUT School of Automotive Engineering

Prof. Yuefang Wang; Email: yfwang@dlut.edu.cn

Dalian University of Technology was founded in 1949 as the School of Engineering of Dalian University and became independent as Dalian Institute of Technology the following year. The graduate school was established in 1986, and the present name was adopted in 1988. DUT has received two successive infusions of “211 Project” (higher education construction) infrastructure funds in the 1996 and 2003 five-year cycles, and two “985 Project” (building world-class university structures for the 21^st Century) awards in the 2001 and 2004 cycles. Today DUT is one of China’s top engineering and technology-oriented universities, with 1,800 faculty members (of whom 6 are members of the China Academy of Science, CAS, and 4 are members of the China Academy of Engineering, CAE), 15,000+ graduate students (3,100+ of whom are PhD students), and almost 19,000 undergraduate students. Strong ties with industry and a focus on applied innovation are reflected in the makeup of DUT’s 2006 research budget: RMB 518 million,² of which RMB 48.4 million (about 9%) came from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

SBES research activities at DUT were featured in a symposium held in the morning for the WTEC visiting team, hosted by the Department of Vehicle Engineering and Mechanics, and in afternoon tours of two key laboratories. The symposium included presentations on foundational contributions in mechanics from two CAS Academicians (Wanxie Zhong and Jiahao Lin), and featured recent examples of high-impact work with industry, e.g., SBES for the automotive industry (Prof. Ping Hu) and for the energy/off-shore oil production industries. Prof. Hualiang Jiang of the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica gave a talk on SBES applied to drug discovery and his collaborations with DUT in software engineering.

Computing resources at DUT are desktop workstations focused on visualization and engineering (CAD/CAE) tools. The WTEC visiting team did not see a high-end cluster in our tour.

With the exception of the bioinformatics/drug discovery work, high-end computing did not feature prominently in the SBES work presented at the symposium. Indeed, some of the participants stressed the importance of mathematical analysis to reduce the scope of the computational requirements to fit within computing resources available on the DUT campus. But despite this modest scale of computing, the symposium presented a uniformly strong picture of the impact of SBES in the DUT faculty’s prominent contributions to the buildup of national infrastructure (bridges, dams, and buildings) and key industries (automobile design and off-shore oil production).

• 
  Prof. Wanxie Zhong, CAS Academician (some issues of computational mechanics in China) presented a talk on symplectic theory, featuring a matrix-mechanics and energy integral version of the classical mathematical (exterior algebra and differential forms) theory of Kang Feng, with applications to the long-time stability and accuracy of FE simulations. His symplectic theory appears to be an application of a unitary, energy-preserving algorithm applied to FEM. Prof. Zhong is interested in having his treatise translated into English.
  
• 
  Prof. Hualing Jiang, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (some issues of computational mechanics in China) presented an overview of the activities in his institute and its collaborations with DUT in software engineering. The R&D at his institute spans the drug discovery activities from early phase discovery biology to ADME/Tox studies, i.e., the pharmacology R&D pipeline upstream of human clinical trials. Accordingly, the SBES activities of Prof. Jiang and coworkers include curation of bioinformatics databases and cheminformatics tools for target identification (docking and reverse docking), with the high-end computing done at the Shanghai Supercomputer Center. His team members publish in the leading international journals in bioinformatics and protein science and technology. They currently use open-source tools (AMBER, Gromacs) and commercial codes (suite of products from Accelerys), but they are interested in developing their own next-generation capabilities, e.g., GasDock, InduFitDock for flexibility of proteins. They have applied their suite of toolsets to create a screen for ligands based on increasing the potency of traditional Chinese medicines; this approach has recently generated licensed compounds. The institute leads an 863 Project (China high-tech program) for Drug Discovery/Computational Biology. The institute’s advance into clinical trials is limited by budgetary constraints.
  
• 
  Prof. Guo Xu (Advances of Computational NanoMechanics in DUT) presented recent work on multiscale SBES, including heat transfer modeling of MEMS devices, 2D-nonlocal extensions of the Cauchy-Born rule in the fracture mechanics analyses of carbon nanotubes, and stochastic modeling of grain growth. He presented a recent publication and media attention from his group’s analysis of the mosquito leg using nanoscience principles. In that vein, future research directions are headed towards biomolecular interactions with nanostructures.
  
• 
  Prof. Chujie Wu (Advances in CFD in China) gave, in lieu of presenting his own work, a most helpful overview of the CFD landscape in China. The talk featured the organization of CFD and fluid mechanics research in China, including the larger-scale collaborative efforts (e.g., Alliance for Fluid Mechanics), the key journals, and funding sources and statistics. From the SBES perspective, he drew special attention to the All Flow/OpenCFD Project. His talk included an interesting demonstration with computer visualization of 3D CFD applied to optimizing the drag on a swimming fish and fish pairs.
  
• 
  Prof. Jiahao Lin (High-Efficiency Computing of Random Vibrations and Its Applications in China) presented the extensive applications of his Pseudo-Excitation Method (PEM) to the buildup of infrastructure in China. This k-space method reduces the complexity of vibrational analyses to desktop computations and has gained wide usage in China, including within industrial infrastructure (offshore oil platforms of China National Offshore Oil Corporation, CNOOC).
  
• 
  Prof. Xikui Li (Numerical Simulation of Porous Media) presented SBES research applied to composite and porous materials. The first part of his talk featured the chemo-thermo-hygro-mechanical analysis of different failure modes of high-performance concrete vs. normal-strength concrete in building fires. The second part of his talk featured SBES of pollutant transport in clay barriers and its impact on the design of landfills. He concluded with an SBES presentation on non-Newtonian fluid mechanics (the classical 4:1 contraction flow benchmark problem) and the automatics/adaptive identification of the mesh-free region.
  
• 
  Prof. Ping Hu (Simulation-Based Design of the Modern Automobile Industry) presented his research and development of the KingMesh Analysis System (KMAS) and its adoption by the auto industry worldwide, including in the United States and Europe. He had to leave immediately after his presentation for another meeting, but reference materials on KMAS are readily available on the Internet and the Kingmesh website (http://www.kingmesh.com/kmas_en/UG.asp? or DUT/SAE). Note in particular the digital auto body coding schemes and their role in the future of the auto industry. Prof. Hu’s PowerPoint presentation was particularly striking as an example of the DUT’s contribution towards globalization of SBES activities; its polish and finish quality would be that expected of the Asia office of a marketing agency with global reach. The DUT School of Automotive Engineering website is http://sae.dlut.edu.cn/index.aspx.
  
• 
  Prof. Yuefang Wang (Simulation Based Compressor Design) presented DUT SBES research on the stress analysis of compressor components (bolts). This project is an example of the close collaboration of DUT with industry (Shenyang Blower Company).
  
• 
  Assoc. Prof. Kang Zhan (Simulation and Structural Optimization for CAE with Industrial Applications) presented DUT’s twenty-year experience with software engineering in the context of computer-assisted engineering (CAE). DUT researchers are developing JIFEX version 3.0, a finite element package for structural analysis. In the context of DUT’s prowess in creating intellectual property (IP), Dr. Zhan expressed concern about the “lack of respect” for IP in China.
  

The WTEC site visit team toured two DUT laboratories in the afternoon. First on our tour was an extremely unique full “fab” facility with relatively state-of-the-art characterization and fabrication tools: micro manipulator, AFM and SEM, plus facilities for semiconductor dopant diffusion, electroforming, photolithography, and spin coating. This facility made an excellent site for professors to pursue research topics and for students to gain both research and vocational training.

The second lab on our tour, the Key Lab for Mechanical and Structural Testing featured an impressive cold-room for the study of ice impact on vibrations of off-shore oil rig platforms, i.e., essentially a post-facto research program to manage ice on underdesigned oil platforms.

Discussion Highlights

Research Funding

The WTEC team received from the former university president an insightful overview of the history and current landscape of research funding mechanisms in China, grouped into 5 categories:

5. 
   National projects for higher education and development:
   

(l)985 projects support physical infrastructure at 38 universities

6. 
   The research budget of NSFC, which is RMB 4.5 billion³ 
   
7. 
   863 funds support projects deemed to be high-tech national priorities
   
8. 
   973 funds (RMB 2 billion total⁴) support economic development in a number of areas, including  energy, agriculture, IT, population and health, resources and the environment, materials, coupling areas, and important academic fronts (this last category includes 3 projects in computational mathematics)
   
9. 
   Funds from industry.
   

• 
  Undergrads are well prepared for using commercial software but no so well for developing new software. The strong feeling was expressed that students should develop their own software for educational reasons—just learning commercial code is not optimal.
  
• 
  The feeling was expressed that Dalian students are much better prepared than other universities on this front (using software relevant to SBES).
  
• 
  Each department at DUT provides its own solution to the software/HPC problem.
  
• 
  Students graduating from DUT get jobs in both industry and academia. An analysis was presented of who hires for simulation (CAE) expertise and why, with resulting implications for the university and the government:
  

• 
  There are changes afoot, as new self-designed products by industry have increased the demand for CAE and simulations.
  
• 
  Universities like DUT are well equipped to meet this demand.
  
• 
  More national investment is required and expected to arrive.
  
• 
  All this has led to more jobs for students in corporate R&D, although job prospects vary by discipline and specialty. For example, CFD is primarily a path to academic jobs, including post-doctoral studies in the United States.
  

• 
  Issues in and management of state-of-the-art hardware:
  

• 
  The preference is for C over Matlab; the lower-level approach gets to the state of the art.
  
• 
  Too many architectures.
  
• 
  Worry about algorithm dependence of parallelism.
  
• 
  More emphasis is needed on SBES.
  

• 
  IP issues: copyright violations are now viewed as an internal problem, spurring academics to develop new business models for software distribution and development.
  

Fudan University was founded in 1905 with the initial name “Fudan Public School”. Fudan translates into English as “heavenly light shines day after day”. Today the university consists of 17 schools that are further subdivided into 66 departments, and four independent departments (chemistry, physics, environmental science and engineering, and the department that hosted the WTEC visit, macromolecular science). The university has 25,000 full time students and 11,000 continuing education and online students. Foreign student enrollment of 1,650 ranks Fudan with the second highest such enrollment in China. The teaching faculty and research-active faculty (746 engaged in supervising doctoral candidates) numbering 2,300 include 1350 full professors and associate professors. Faculty of special distinction include 25 academicians of the CAS and CAE, 32 chaired professors and 8 lecturer professors of the Cheungkong Scholars Program and six chief scientists of Project 973. The Department of Macromolecular Science and the Institute of Macromolecular Science of Fudan University were established in May 1993. They originated from the teaching and research group of Macromolecular Science of the Department of Chemistry (1958-1982), the Institute of Macromolecules (1958-1962), and the teaching and research group of the Department of Material Science (1983-1993). They are one of the first academic and research units devoted to Macromolecular Science in China, and also one of the first State-established units that are entitled to granting degrees of Master and Ph.D. in Macromolecular Science as well as providing postdoctoral posts. 

The open laboratory of Polymer Engineering was established under the approval of the former State Education Commission in Feb. 1994, and later in 1999 renamed as the Key laboratory of the State Education Department in Polymer Engineering.

Our host Prof. Yuliang Yang was born in Hai Yan, Zhejiang Province in 1952. He received his doctorate in Science at Fudan University in 1984. His research centers on macromolecular materials. He now has more than ten research programs funded by the National Science Commission and Ministry of Education. He has published hundreds of archival papers in top international journals and has supervised numerous doctoral and masters students. He has held many positions of distinction, including vice president of Fudan University, Special Professor listed in the Cheung Kong Scholars Achievement Award, and Chief Professor of Fudan University. He is currently serving in Beijing as Vice Minister of Education for all of China; in this role he oversees graduate education throughout China.

SBE&S

Prof. Yang’s group is the leading group in computational polymer physics in China. The quality of research in the group is on par with that of the leading computational polymer physics groups in the US, UK, Germany, and elsewhere. They employ state-of-the-art methods in polymer simulation and investigate a range of problems relevant to polymer science, such as phase separation and patterning in polymer blends, block copolymers, etc. Of the 40 current group members, roughly half are experimentalists and half are simulators; a few do both. Graduates of this group go on to postdoctoral positions in the top groups in the US and Europe.

Examples of recent work in the group include the use of time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau methods and related 3D self-consistent field theoretic methods such as the real space Drolet-Fredrickson method developed at UCSB. The Yang group parallelized the Fredrickson code.

Discussion

In lieu of a formal presentation, Professor Yang shared his insights on SBE&S research activities in China, both from his perspective as a professor, as former VP of the Fudan University, and as current vice Minister of Education in Beijing.

Prof. Yang puts a great deal of emphasis on solid education and training of analytical capabilities. His students all do analytical work prior to doing computational work, to avoid producing students that view simulation software packages as merely “black boxes”. His students take computer courses offered by the computer center, and learn how to program from more senior students and postdocs within the group. In the Yang group, students all learn to program, mostly in Fortran, some in C++, to write their own codes or modify existing codes. Only a few use MPI. Professor Yang involves undergraduate students in research, but this is not common across China. There is no plan yet for teaching students to program new multicore chip architectures; this is not yet something they’re thinking about. Nearly all codes used by group are home-grown.

At Fudan, the undergraduate students are very good, better than at most Chinese universities, with excellent backgrounds in math and programming. Fewer than 10% of the graduate students at Fudan were undergraduates there. In Beijing, at the Ministry of Education, Prof. Yang now oversees the China Scholars program, which supports 2000 graduate students per year to study abroad, with no required commitment to return to China. $2.5B yen is allocated to this program for the 07-08 academic year. Many students receive their PhD in China, then do a postdoc abroad, and return. Those that return prefer academic positions in eastern China; central and western China universities recognize this and are raising salaries to increase competitiveness.

Funding

The 211 program has been very important. According to a Wikipedia article, “Project 211 is a project of 106 (as of 2007) Key universities and colleges in the 21st century initiated in 1995 by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. The project aims at cultivating high-level elite for national economic and social development strategies. The project began from the idea that, in the mid 1990s, the 30 elite universites at the time were too low by international research standards. Inclusion in the project means that universities have to meet scientific, technical and HR standards and to offer set advanced degree programs. The figure of 21 and 1 within 211 are from the abbreviation of the 21st century and approximate 100 universities respectively. China now has more than 1,700 standard institutions of higher education, and about 6 percent of them are 211 Project institutions. 211 Project schools take on the responsibility of training 4/5 of doctoral students, 2/3 of graduate students, 1/2 of students abroad and 1/3 of undergraduates. They offer 85 percent of the State's key subjects; hold 96 percent of the State's key laboratories; and utilize 70 percent of scientific research funding.[1] During the first phase of the project from 1996 to 2000, approximately US$2.2 billion was distributed.[2]” [3]

The 211 program is now run by Prof. Yang in his new role in Beijing. The 211 program has raised the level of quality of research substantially, as assessed by (1) solving problems important to China, (2) number and impact factor of papers published, and (3) quality of PhD theses (they awarded 100 PhD thesis awards). Three students from the Yang group have received the best thesis award for their SBE&S research. As vice minister of education, Prof. Yang recognizes that large research projects must include simulation to be successful, and this is a requirement for all successful grants funded by his office.

Program 985 will target lower ranked universities. According to Wikipedia, “Project 985 is a constructive project for founding world-class universities in the 21st century conducted by the government of the People's Republic of China. On May 4, 1998, President Jiang Zemin declared that "China must have a number of first-rate universities of international advanced level", so Project 985 was begun. In the initial phase, nine universities[1] were given grants in excess of CNY1,000,000,000 each, over a period of 3 years. The second phase, launched in 2004, expanded the programme until it has now reached almost 40 universities. Many participating universities receive tens of millions of yuan each year. [2] A large part of the funding goes to academic exchange, allowing Chinese academics to participate in conferences abroad, and bringing foreign lecturers to China.[3]” [4]

Being a State Key Lab, their grant requires them to interact with industry Prof. Yang’s group works on many industrially relevant problems, and he has considerable interaction with Sinopec. Two examples given that helped gain Sinopec interest and support were those of polyethylene film drawing, in which simulations were used to reduce the breakdown time of the machine, and extrusion for plastic pipe manufacturing, where simulations helped show how to balance rigidity and toughness in the material. For the former project, simulations by Yang’s group improved drawing rates from 170 cm/m to 500 m/min. For the latter project, simulations showed how to change polymer composition to avoid hot water pipes splitting. Industry is improving in its appreciation of SBE&S, but slowly. They are not yet hiring many simulators; instead, they work with academic groups to help them do simulations.

The State is improving its appreciation of SBE&S much faster than industry. All of China appears to be recognizing the need to be innovators, and not just the world’s manufacturers, and this requires increased investment in and commitment to research, collaboration, and education, and to SBE&S. There is much pressure placed by the government on intellectual property, which is viewed as critical for innovation. Yang’s group applied for three patents on work based on kinetic Monte Carlo simulations for polymerization. There they invented a new algorithm in 1993 that is now used by many researchers for branching problems in polymers.