Summary

With a surge of global environmental issues in recent years, the number of people with negative feelings towards the mechanical civilization goes on increasing. They cast critical eyes on mass consumption and environmental destruction, etc. despite the fact that they have gained benefit of dramatic improvement of social life and convenience of daily life from the mechanical civilization. The critical view seems to be taken by the fact that the improvement of regeneration technology of resources is lagging behind the consumption of resources. Furthermore, as the aging society has become a reality and social environment is deteriorating due to toxic emissions, people have concern about their future. They fear they will not be able to keep their everyday lives no longer. This research is concentrating on Development of Mechanical System Technology that offers sustainable and renewable society with a sense of security and hope. Priority researches are Development of Advanced Materials and Testing Techniques, Energy Creation from Alternative Fuels, Technical Innovation of Design and Manufacturing Technologies, and Development of Intellectual Optical Measurement Hardware Promoting Medical-Engineering Fusion.

Research topics

1. Development of Advanced Materials and Testing Techniques
   1-1　Outline

   This project aims to develop advanced substances and materials that have more excellent function than ever before. The achievement of additional functions not only improves properties of materials dramatically but also reduces impact on the global environment through weight reduction, durability enhancement and energy saving. And furthermore, considering that soundness and reliability is indispensable for every structure to create safe and secure society, this project study upgrading of advanced testing techniques.

    

   1-2　Keywords

   Ecomaterial, Green composite, Testing of micro and nano materials, Surface treatment, Inspection monitoring, Non-destructive inspection, High speed and high precision inspection

    

   1-3　Supervisors (Representative*) 

   Hitoshi Takagi*, Riichi Murakami, Tatsuya Okada, Hideo Nishino, Atsuya Oishi, Daisuke Yonekura, Antonio Norio Nakagaito, Kazuya Kusaka, Akira Mizobuchi

    

2. Energy Creation from Alternative Fuels through Clean Combustion and High Efficient Energy Conversion
   2-1　Outline

   Fossil fuels are essential energy sources to modern society; however, they have problems of air pollution and resource depletion. It is required to utilize oil-alternate fuel effectively as one of solution strategy. This project first develops combustion system to burn liquid fuels derived from biomass and waste oil, etc. The system employs thermal fluid technologies and achieves low pollutant combustion. Then, the project studies effective energy conversion from combustion energy to various kinds of energy supply, and finally develops a new energy converting mechanical system.

    

   2-2　Keywords

   Energy, Alternative fuel, Biomass, Combustion, Heat exchange, Energy conversion, Thermal and fluid engineering

    

   2-3　Supervisors

   Yoshiyuki Kidoguchi*, Junichiro Fukutomi, Yoshihiro Deguchi, Mitsuhiro Ohta, Kazuhiro Hasezaki, Masanori Kiyota, Masashi Ichimiya, Yuzuru Nada, Toru Shigemitsu, Koji Kusano

    

3. Technical Innovation of Design and Manufacturing Technologies
   3-1　Outline

   This project develops design and manufacturing technologies of mechanical system to meet quantitative requirements of society. Subjects are as follows; (1) design and manufacturing technologies and advanced machining process, which lead to energy saving with safe and secure, and to enduring high reliability with high quality; (2) mechanical systems such as manufacturing equipment, livelihood support, disaster prevention measures, automated machine and unmanned operating machine systems at backward region; (3) value-added design which provides convenience, comfort, surprise and emotion.

    

   3-2　Keywords

   Control, Dynamic design, Manufacturing simulation, Micro-robot, Special shape machining, Image recognition, Human interface, Welfare apparatus, UAV, Personal mobility

    

   3-3　Supervisors

   Junichi Hino*, Katsunobu Konishi, Shoichiro Fujisawa, Tohru Ishida, Yoshihiro Tada, Teruaki Ito, Takuo Nagamachi, Masafumi Miwa, Hiroyuki Ukida, Akira Mizobuchi, Motoyasu Sonobe

    

4. Development of Intellectual Optical Measurement Hardware Promoting Medical-Engineering Fusion
   4-1　Outline

   Optical sensing enables us to measure objects, in size from small to large, safely without touch. Moreover, it is possible to obtain information on inside characteristics of the objects as well as shape and size of them, which is difficult to see with the naked eye. This technique takes advantage of optical properties that the light has wide wavelength. In addition, precision machine engineering, electronics and data processing can be fused with this technique. Thus, optics has great potential in the field of life science. Development of new optical measuring instruments and techniques expedites medical-engineering fusion and creates new technological innovation. This project places importance on development of optical measurement hardware and technique. We positively introduce advanced technologies in the field of nano-particles, MEMS and meta-material, covering wavelength ranges in ultraviolet, visible, infrared and terahertz. The representative hardware is biomedical measuring such as bio-imaging. The project further applies these intellectual optical measurement techniques to industrial field.

    

   4-2　Keywords

   Spectroscopic analysis, Imaging, Femtosecond laser, Non-linear optical microscope, Terahertz wave, Surface Plasmon Resonance, Nano-particles, Cell, Cellular tissue, MEMS, Meta-material

    

   4-3　Supervisors

   Takeshi Yasui*, Tetsuro Iwata, Yoshihiro Deguchi, Yasuhiro Mizutani, Katsuya Sato