Product News

Power lifting partnership provides energy generators with a model of crane safety and maintenance

As one of the powerhouses of Asia-Pacific economic growth, Thailand invests heavily in electricity generating capacity to service its burgeoning major industries, including automotive and electrical manufacturing and tourism. The country, which has the second largest economy in South-East Asia after Indonesia, plans to increase total generating capacity from about 30,000 MW in 2009 to more than 50,000MW by 2021. * (Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, EGAT) Of this total, well over a third will continue to be provided by Independent Power Producers (IPPs), private investment vehicles that work with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, EGAT, to provide the infrastructure capital needed to build new infrastructure and ensure that existing assets are operated at peak efficiency and optimum safety. The global Konecranes group has become a long-term partner in this process with the Southern Thai KEGCO subsidiary of The Electricity Generating Public Company, EGCO, which is the first independent power producer in Thailand . This public company that owns and develops generation units which cover diversified fuels such as natural gas, coal, diesel oil, hydropower and biomass, in accordance with the government’s policy on fuel diversification to ensure energy sustainability. One of EGCO’s earliest acquisitions, through KEGCO, is the 824 MW Khanom power plant, a major base load generator in the Nakhon Sri Thammarat province in Southern Thailand, where it operates a combined gas cycle turbine (674MW) and two barge-mounted thermal plants (150 MW). As the first generating station in Asia to achieve IS09002 quality certification Ð and as a winner this year of its seventh consecutive EIA environmental monitoring awards Ð Khanom has set out to be a model of safety and efficiency. It has adopted ISO 14001 and TIS 18001 OHSAS 18001: 1999 in its operating standards. KEGCO has also been awarded National Safety Awards for eight […]

Demand for motorcycles to approach 55 million units in 2014

Demand for motorcycles in China will increase 7.6 percent annually to 54.9 million units in 2014. Electric motorcycles are expected to surpass gas motorcycles to become the leading motorcycle type sold in China. These comparatively new products will account for over three-fourths of aggregate motorcycle market growth. Gas-powered internal combustion engine (ICE) motorcycles will also record solid growth, helping to strengthen China’s position as by far the world’s largest motorcycle market. ICE motorcycles and electric motorcycles, while collectively referred to as “motorcycles,” tend to appeal to different types of consumers. Different factors drive growth for each type of motorcycle. These and other trends are presented in Motorcycles in China, a new study from the Beijing office of The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industry research firm. Sales of traditional gas motorcycles will increase 3.9 percent annually to 23.3 million units in 2014. Gains will be driven by increasing economic activity and rising personal income levels in the country’s rural and semi-rural regions, which are and will remain the most important markets for these vehicles. Government rebates for purchases of ICE motorcycles by rural residents as part of the “Automobiles and Motorcycles to the Countryside” program will also stimulate demand. However, restrictions and even outright bans on ICE motorcycles in many Chinese cities will prevent sales from expanding at a faster pace. Cruisers are the most popular model type among Chinese consumers, representing 43 percent of gas motorcycle sales in 2009. However, their position in the ICE segment has been undermined in recent years by the diversification of motorcycle offerings in China. Going forward, trikes and sidecars will see demand expand at the fastest rate of any ICE motorcycle model type. The market for electric motorcycles in China is expected to grow 11.0 percent per annum through 2014 to 31.6 million […]

Icona Solutions addresses Chinese automotive industry

New partners will help Chinese automotive manufacturers increase the perceived quality of their vehicles through the use of Icona’s aesthetica software. Icona Solutions, Ltd., which develops, supplies and supports the innovative perceived quality simulation and visualisation software solution, aesthetica, has appointed its first two value-added resellers in China. Beijing-based Sili-Tech Co. Ltd. (www.sili-tech.com) and Shanghai-based Shanghai RPT Automotive Engineering Co. Ltd. (www.rpt-auto.com) will be responsible for selling and supporting aesthetica in the rapidly growing domestic Chinese automotive design and manufacturing industry. “The Chinese automotive industry is a key growth market for us,” stated Tim Illingworth, chief executive, Icona Solutions. “With 3.5 million cars sold in China in the first three months of 2010 Ð a 76% increase over the same three months last year Ð and 42% growth in 2009 over 2008 as a whole, forecasts indicate that sales of cars and light trucks will reach some 25 million annually by 2014, with an estimated total ownership of 130 million vehicles by that time.” “However,” he noted, “the domestic Chinese automotive manufacturers realise that in order for them to succeed in this rapidly growing marketplace, one of their major tasks is to increase the perceived quality of their vehicles. That’s where we see major opportunities for Icona Solutions and aesthetica.” Commenting on their appointment, Jason Li, managing director, Sili-Tech, which is a CAE consulting and systems integration specialist and Siemens PLM Software CAE solutions partner in China, with customers in the automotive, aerospace and ship building industries, said, “We are proud that Icona Solutions selected us to be their partner in China and we are excited by the opportunities that exist in the Chinese automotive industry for a unique software solution like aesthetica.” Meanwhile, Fang Ming, general manager, Shanghai RPT Automotive Engineering, which counts Chinese automotive companies including SAIC, JAC, […]

Are your products getting to their market?

By Richard Maino Despite the best efforts of an international naval police force patrolling the Gulf of Aden and nearby seas, gangs of ruthless criminals can still capture highly valuable cargo ships and hold them to ransom. Most vessels hijacked by the modern pirates in the busy shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia have to be “reclaimed” by their owners for an average of two million US dollars each. In an attempt to prevent that, an imaginative private security company in the UK has developed a new product that it believes can halt or hamper today’s pirates who use small fast boats to board the large vulnerable and slow-moving vessels. The novel defence system consists of a simple but strong net that can be draped over the stern or sides of a possible target vessel – creating a safety zone – and floated clearly on the surface for some distance to prevent the pirates getting their speed-boats close to the big ships they seek to capture. In the years of anarchy that Somalia has suffered since its government was overthrown in 1991, thousands of pirates now operate off its coast. Somalia’s 3,000-kilometre coastline – the longest in Africa – has become one of the world’s most dangerous waterways. No ship is safe. Pirates have hijacked aid shipments, kidnapped crews, and have even fired rocket-propelled grenades at cruise ships. The idea for the naval safety net came to Nick Davies, founder of the Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions company – based in Poole, south-west England – after he noted the way in which powerboat propellers can be badly fouled by fishing nets. He said: “In essence it [the anti-pirate system] is a fishing net that is deployed, then it floats on the water all around the ship and snags the propellers […]

Tribrid Modelling produces ‘Waffle’ phone first at LG

Korean manufacturing giant LG Electronics has recently introduced its first mobile phone designed with Delcam’s Tribrid Modelling software. The Waffle phone features a surface texture created in the ArtCAM artistic CADCAM program, wrapped around the body of a phone design produced with the PowerSHAPE CAD software. It is expected to be the first of a number of new models that will use the Delcam software to create the distinctive designs needed to build market share in the highly competitive and fashion-conscious mobile phone market. Tribrid Modelling is Delcam’s unique, patented approach to design that adds triangle modelling to the solid and surface modelling options that are available in hybrid modelling systems. It gives the ability to add triangle files of logos, branding, textures or other 3D decorations onto the surfaces of CAD models. This effect is rather like sliding a transfer over the surface of an object, with the added advantages that the decoration can be scaled or stretched to fit any given area, and that the result is fully three-dimensional. Tribrid Modelling also allows Boolean operations to be carried out between triangle models and either surfaces or solids. For many years, PowerSHAPE was one of very few CAD systems able to perform Boolean operations between solids and surfaces. The ability to perform similar addition, subtraction and merge operations with triangles as well makes the software even more flexible. LG Electronics has become a global leader through more that 50 years of technical innovation in consumer electronics, mobile communications and home appliances. The company, which is based in the Korean capital Seoul, employs more than 80,000 people, working in over 115 operations around the world. Last year, its global sales topped US$ 43 billion. Staff from Delcam’s Korean joint venture, Hankook Delcam, had their first contact with LG in August […]