The Mechanical Engineering program of the College of Mechanical and Electric Engineering in Northeast Forestry University was established in 1959, authorized to confer Master’s degrees of Forestry and Wood Machinery in 2000, and was confirmed as a key discipline of the Ministry of Forestry. In 1993, it was authorized to confer Ph.D. degrees, which was uniformly named as the mechanical design and theory doctoral program after a national readjustment of instructional programs. In 2004, a post-doctoral station of mechanical engineering was established. It was granted the right to confer a master’s degree of mechatronics engineering in 2005, and was approved as the Master's degree level subject in the same year. In 2010, mechanical engineering was approved as a Doctoral level subject.
Mechanical engineering at Northeast Forestry University contains 4 sub-disciplines of mechanical design and theory, mechatronics engineering, mechanical manufacturing and automation, and automotive engineering. After half a century of development, it has obtained a high reputation in the national mechanical engineering field, and has been developed as a key subject with prominent features, obvious advantages and stable research directions.
The Mechanical Engineering program, aiming to cultivate senior innovative professionals, and centering on the requirements of forestry woodworking machinery and Heilongjiang local development, has become the main base of cultivating industrial professionals and scientists. It is acknowledged to be the birthplace and innovation base of national forestry and woodworking machinery, and is in the leading position in the design, manufacture and controlof forestry and woodworking machinery, wood-based panel machinery, etc. nationwide. It also has prominent features in the fields of CNC technology, agroforestry robots, mechanical and electrical system control and automation. It has also obtained remarkable achievements in the advanced manufacturing of forestry machinery that is energyefficient, and using bio-based additives for manufacturing composites, and equipment development.
Mechanical engineering continually focuses on team construction, and hasa scientific research team with reasonable age structure, optimized knowledge structure and dense academic atmosphere. It has developed a strong discipline team with 9 doctoral supervisors as the core and 33 master’s supervisors as key members, in which there is one national outstanding mid-aged expert, two experts who enjoy the special allowance of the state council, 1 committee member of the state council academic degree committee, 1 cross-century talents of the ministry of forestry, and 3 university tip-top talents. There are 56 faculty including 13 professors and 29 associate professors. 32 facultyhave their doctoral degrees, and 24 teachers have received master’s degrees. There are also 3 famous experts employed as part-time doctoral supervisors and 12 outstanding researchers working as part-time professors.
Over the past five years, there have been more than 120 national and provincial scientific research projects undertaken, among which there are about 20 national Science-technology Support plan projects, national programs for science and technology development and ‘863’ projects, 10 projects supported by the national natural science foundation of China, 7 ‘948’ international cooperation projects of the state forestry bureau, and other talent projects from the Ministry of Education and Provincial projects. Research funds exceed 40 million RMB. There are 1,150 publications, 150 of which are indexed by SCI and EI. 40 monographs and textbooks have been published. The team has obtained 20 provincial level and above teaching awards and they have had 50 patents issued.
Professor GuoYanling, as the academic leader, graduated from DalianUniversity of Technologyand obtained her master’s and doctoraldegreesfromHarbin Institute of Technology. She studied in the Sam Wu advanced manufacturing technology research center in the University of Michigan. She is the senior member of Chinese mechanical engineering society, standing director of the China special processing branch, deputy director of international communication, director of the Chinese science association, and director of the institute of mechanical engineering in Heilongjiang Province. Professor Guo has implemented 2 projectsfromthe National Natural Science Foundation and other more than 20 projects including doctoral programsfromthe ministry of education, “948” projects, and provincial and municipal projects. She won the first prize once, and second prize twice at theprovincial level. She has published over 150 papers, written3 monographs and 4 books as the chief editor, obtained4 national invention patents and more than 20 utility model patents. As a supervisor, she has cultivated more than 60 postgraduates and 17 PhD students and 6 postdoctoral fellows.
During the“Twelfth five-year plan,” 20 PhD students, and 200 postgraduate students haveearnedtheir diplomas. There are currently more than 200 students studying for master’sand doctoral degrees. Approximately 70 new Ph.D. and full-time postgraduate candidates are enrolled eachyear.
The Mechanical engineering subject consists of the mechanical engineering experimental center and 18 professional laboratories, which havefully functional, advanced experimental instruments and equipment. The subject has five research institutes and the forestry and woodworking machinery engineering center which belongs tothe State Forestry Administration, a national woodworking machinery monitoring station and a provincial biomass energy technology experimental base. The subject has a wide range of cooperative relationships with domestic enterprises.
This subject possess five characteristic research areas: intelligent equipment for forestry and woodworking machinery, forestry-process residues and biomass-based materials processing equipment, Forestry engineering automation and informatization, materials and equipment of additive manufacturing, and vehicle engineering and intelligentization.
The intelligent equipment of forestry and wood-working machinesmainly explores wood working and intelligent equipment of wood-working machines. Major research and development is forestry machinery intelligent equipment including new silviculture machinery, forest administration and protection equipment, forestry robots, etc. It also includes large-scale woodworking machines, man-made board production equipment and customized furniture production lines,the laser processing of wood, and numerical control software programming.
Forestry Processing Residues and other Biomass Processing Equipment is aimedat bio-energy and bio-manufacturingindustries. Current research directions include:key technologies ofraw material collection,storage, pretreatment and separationduring the diversified recycling ofthe plantation residue, and equipment development; the recombinant industrialization technology ofthinning wood slicing of the plantation residue; development ofself-walking blueberry picking machines and intelligent biomass utilizing equipment.
Forestry Engineering Automation and Informatization tracks advanced agroforestry technologiesof developed countries. Research directions include: intelligent monitoring systems for low-carbon, high-efficiency wood-drying processing devices; intelligent online sorting and cooperative control of hardwood flooring; plants’ physical information detection technology.
Additive Manufacturing Equipment and Materials focuses on the development of biomass-based raw materials for 3D printing. The materials are made fromagroforestry residues, binders and other additives. Research focuses on the preparation of functional materials and functional gradient materials through adding carbon nanotubes, reinforcing fibers, harmful substances adsorption materials and flexible materials; development of fused deposition modeling (FDM) series 3D printing machines, laser sintering(LS) desktop machines, high-efficiency wood plastic composites 3D printing machines, functional gradient materials 3D printing machines, etc.
Vehicle Engineering and intelligentization looks to address the need to retrofit and upgrade traditional forestry vehicles to adapt to new production requirements and new vehicle manufacturing technologies. Research areas include: terra mechanic modeling and analysis, the operation of intelligent safety monitoring systems, utilization of performance detecting and intelligent diagnostic systems, electric power steering systems, andstudying the technical theory and design of wooden parts and tail emission filters for use in vehicles.
