TU Wins Four First Prizes of Tianjin Science and Technology Award

On March 30th, the Science and Technology Award Conference was held in Tianjin in praise of the scientific achievements made in 2010. TU won 20 prizes from the Natural Science Awards, Technological Invention Awards and Science and Technology Progress Awards, with 14 first unit awards for achievement, including 1 first prize from the Natural Science and Technological Invention Awards respectively, 2 first prizes from the Science and Technology Progress Award, and 10 other second and third prizes. Prof. Jiajun Li, President of TU and Chairman of Tianjin Municipal Science and Technology Commission, attended the conference and expressed his congratulations to TU awardees.

TU attaches great importance to the close combination of scientific research and national economic construction, and always focuses on national strategic demands and the frontier of world scientific and technological development in research activities. The project "Research and Application of Novel Technologies for Extra/Ultra High Voltage Power System", jointly led by the School of Electrical Engineering & Automation and Beijing Devote Power Systems Automation Co.,Ltd., won first prize from the Technological Invention Award. This project offers solutions for realizing large-capacity, long-distance power transmission from the west to the east of China, and proposes novel principles of pilot protection, distance protection, intelligence tripping strategies, adaptive reclosure and other novel technologies. The achievements of the project solve the key technical difficulties in the protection field of EHV/UHV transmission lines. Furthermore, some novel principles and technologies have been successfully applied in the first 1000kV UHV demonstration transmission line, and created significant economic and social benefits.

Two projects, led by the School of Civil Engineering in collaboration with other counterpart units, were conferred the first prizes of Science and Technology Progress Award. The research achievements of the project "Key Technologies of Construction Real-time Control for High Concrete Dam and Underground Powerhouse Engineering and Their Applications" had already been applied in 10 large-scale hydropower projects including Laxiwa, Xiangjiaba, Jinping-I, Longtan, etc. The achievements of the project "Research on Key Technology of Design and Construction of Long-span Folded Plate Cable-Stayed Space Grid Structure" were directly applied in the construction of Binhai International Convention and Exhibition Center, the main venue of 2008 Tianjin Summer Davos Forum and made the project a landmark architecture reality.

Besides applied technology research, TU attaches equal importance to fundamental research. The project "Fundamental Research on Carbon Nanophase Reinforced Metal Matrix Composites", led by the School of Materials Science and Engineering, in collaboration with the School of Chemical Engineering, was granted the first prize from the Natural Science Award catagory. This project first proposed in-situ synthesis of carbon nanophases in metal powders for carbon nanophse reinforced metal matrix composites. Research findings lay theoretical foundations for the maintenance of catalytic activity of metal nanoparticles on the metal matrix and the in-situ controllable growth of carbon nanophases and enriched the theoretical system of carbon nanophase growth. The novel approach realized the organic bond between carbon nanophases and matrix and solved the issues including inhomogeneous dispersion of CNTs within a matrix, the weak interfacial wetting between CNTs and a matrix, and the damage of perfect structure of CNTs by external force, and thus developed a novel route for fabricating carbon nanophase reinforced metal matrix composites. The related achievements can be applied for producing composites with lightweight, high strength or electrical and thermal conductivity, and can be potentially applied in the fields including aeronautics and astronautics, automobile industry and electronic devices.