Reconstruction Designs of Lost Ancient Chinese Machinery

Mechanism and Machine.- Ancient Chinese Machines.- Reconstruction Design Methodology.- Zhang Heng's Seismoscope.- Su Song's Escapement Regulator.- South-pointing Chariots.- Walking Machines.

Professor Hong-Sen YAN received his BS degree from National Cheng Kung University (Tianan, Taiwan) in 1973, MS degree from the University of Kentucky (Lexington, Kentucky, USA) in 1977, and PhD degree from Purdue University (Lafayette, Indiana, USA) in 1980, all in mechanical engineering.

He previously served as a mechanical engineer at China Technical Consultants Co. Ltd. (Taipei), an Associate Professor at National Cheng Kung University (Tainan), a Sr. Research Engineer at General Motor Research Laboratories (Michigan), an Associate Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Book (New York), and the Director-general of the National Science and Technology Museum (Kaohsiung). Currently, he is a Chair Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at National Cheng Kung University (Tainan, TAIWAN) and an Associate Editor of both the International Journal of Mechanism and Machine Theory and ASME Transactions Journal of Mechanical Design.

Dr. Yan' s areas of interests are creative mechanism and machine design and ancient Chinese machinery. He has published more than 275 papers, holds 48 patents, and is the author of 3 books. Dr. Yan received many honors and academic awards inside and outside Taiwan, and he has a hobby of collecting ancient Chinese Locks.

From the reviews:"Always based on original sources, with a wealth of illustrations and translations of difficult Chinese classical texts, this outstanding book is particularly original. ... a wide extant of difficult topics belonging to the history of technology has never been covered in such a systematic way and by using a unified methodology." (J.-C. Martzloff, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1181, 2010)