On March 28, Yuchai Group signed a cooperation agreement with Dalian Jiaotong University (DJTU) and Shandong Kangyue Technology Co., Ltd. (Shandong Kangyue) in Dalian to jointly establish the "Dalian R & D Center of State Engineering Laboratory of High-efficiency, Energy-conserving and Environmentally-friendly Internal Combustion Engines". Present at the signing ceremony were Liu Yan, vice mayor of the Dalian Municipal Government; Yan Ping, chairman of Yuchai Group; Guo Xiaowei, chairman and general manager of Shandong Kangyue; Liu Xiaoying, Party secretary of DJTU, etc.

In warm applause, Lin Zhiqiang, chief engineer of Yuchai Group; Chen Guoheng, vice president of DJTU and Wang Hang, vice general manager of Shandong Kangyue signed the Cooperation Agreement on Jointly Establishing the Dalian R & D Center of State Engineering Laboratory of High-efficiency, Energy-conserving and Environmentally-friendly Internal Combustion Engines on behalf of respective parties.

Liu briefly introduced Dalian's development in such aspects as reform and opening up, and innovation drive in recent years, extending congratulations on the joint establishment of the center. Technical R & D is the foundation for national industry development, he stressed, adding that school-enterprise cooperation will inject new vitality into the development of national equipment manufacturing as a practical move to accomplish advantage complementation and resource integration, advance technical progress through enterprise-university-research integration, enhance the development competitiveness of core engine parts and break international technical barriers.

Yan briefly reviewed the establishment of the center. Yuchai Group attaches great importance to R & D capacity building, and the center is aimed to consolidate its R & D foundation, improve its R & D capacity and remove the technical bottleneck of core engine parts so as to invigorate national equipment manufacturing, he said, believing that the industry's technical level will be improved rapidly with the joint efforts of the three parties.

The State Engineering Laboratory of High-efficiency, Energy-conserving and Environmentally-friendly Internal Combustion Engines is the only domestic national internal combustion engine research platform undertaken by Yuchai. Since its inauguration in 2011, it has constructed and improved three domestic R & D bases in Yulin, Nanning and Suzhou, thus becoming a laboratory with the largest number of test benches in the internal combustion engine industry. The Dalian R & D Center jointly established by the three parties is an innovative platform for enterprise-university-institute cooperation constructed in the new situation, via which Yuchai will assume responsibility and promote industrial development.

According to the source, the center will focus on marine engines and large engines for other purposes (e.g. railway), concurrently work on special-purpose mini engines, and develop new technologies and products such as key engine parts, turbocharging and turbochargers, and will establish an independent R & D and technical test platform.

(Song Yonggeng)