In this paper, we investigate the crash robust characteristics of half cut type side member structure by optimal design method to improve average value of absorbed energy and standard deviations. We propose a robust optimal design method that needs to solve three optimal design sub-problems, the first one is to maximize the average value of absorbed energy, the second one is to minimize the standard deviation of absorbed energy, and the last is multi-objective optimal design for maximum average value and minimum standard deviation of absorbed energy. As the numerical results, taking into account of standard deviation of absorbed energy, the minimum energy absorbed by the optimal side member structure with half cut type is 1.45 times more than the maximum energy absorbed by the original rectangular cross sectional side member structure with half cut type which is generally used.

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Dia-Core is a newly devised core panel formed by gluing/welding of panel pieces. It has good cost performance and high stiffness. Therefore, it is expected to become new core panel which can compete with honeycomb panels from the total points of view. Though stiffness of new panel core is already summarized in many papers, here noise insulation is first estimated. The results suggest that air-space of Dia-core like the double-leaf wall and its high stiffness are very important for noise insulation characteristic. Especially, the noise insulation performance of Single-Core is similar to double-leaf wall.

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This paper describes a flapping robot based on a dragonfly. Flapping flight enables the robot to hover and take a sharp turn like an insect. The flapping motion was produced by a four-bar linkage and a slider-crank mechanism actuated by a DC motor. The body of the robot was fabricated from a brass plate using MEMS techniques. The brass plate was patterned by etching, and then folded out of the plane to assemble the three dimensional structure. The wing with veins was also microfabricated from an aluminum plate and a parylene film. The robot flapped at 12.4Hz and generated the lift force of 10.37 mN.

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The basic part of packaging machine is the forming collar that provides the shape over which packaging film is smoothly formed into cylindrical shape. But designing the forming collar is a difficult job. This paper presents an application of 3-dimensional cubic origami and flexible method for calculating the geometry of the collar over which the film is formed. The collar geometry is calculated such that it has the minimum deformation energy. Some examples that are designed by using this method are presented, and some verifications of this method are presented by calculating ruling lines of them.

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The living organ changes its shape from sheet-like arrangement of primitive cells to mature 3D structure through morphogenetic process. Functions of the living organ are realized by periodic changes in spatial arrangement of tissue elements of the organ. If the structure, function, and morphogenesis of the organ can be expressed by origami, it will be very useful for its academic understanding and for biomimetic applications. Here I introduce origami models of the human alveoli. Origami-made alveoli breathe, get sick, and healed again in your hands.

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Regular polyhedron can be scaled down to the Semiregular polyhedron with the methods membrane" or folding the membrane. Another method of scaling down the regular polyhedron wrapping around the central hub respectively.

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The purpose of this study is to consider speech articulation of car navigation when using piezoelectric directional speaker. We developed thin piezoelectric loudspeaker that have shell type diaphragm, and evaluate the directivity of piezoelectric loudspeaker when changing the position of the vibrator. Result shows that directivity depends on frequency, and directivity of the speech band frequency changed by changing the position of a vibrator. Therefore, it is considered that this directional speaker is adapted to use car navigation in car interior.

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The Functional modeling method is a new modeling method, which can represent the flow of energy in the block diagrams. In this paper, the 2 axis simple arm mechanism is modeled by using functional modeling method. The motion of this mechanism is calculated by the designed model, and verified by comparing with actual motion. And the energy flow in this mechanism is calculated from the designed model.

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This paper deals with the direction of non-contact transportation using ultrasonic wave levitation. Generally, the transportation goes the same direction with the wave on the beam. But, in the condition of the squeeze film is very small about 20 micro meters, we had an outcome of experiment that the transportation goes opposite direction of the wave. The goal of this paper is to analysis the mechanism of this phenomenon using CFD. First traveling wave phase control between two transducers is introduced. Next, the details of experiment we got are shown. Finally, the result of analysis using CFD is shown.

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This paper deals with the aerodynamic interference between two vehicles which are running in close proximity and are subjected to crosswind. Measurements of the aerodynamic drag, side force and yawing moment were performed at different wind angles and locations between two vehicles. Extreme proximity between the vehicles ahead and behind provides several peaks of aerodynamic drag, side force and yawing moment acting on the vehicles. Numerical results by the CFD show a good agreement with experimental ones. They reveal that the aerodynamic drag is influenced by airflow behind the other vehicle, and that the side force and the yawing moment are also influenced by complicated airflow structure due to the aerodynamic interference between two vehicles.

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In this study, theoretical and experimental studies of electrostatic separation of plastic mixtures were conducted. The separator consists of four cylindrical electrodes. The principle of the separation is based on the difference between Coulomb forces acting on plastic particles. The separation of a mixture of polystyrene (PS) and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) particles was studied. An analytical solution based on the charge distributed over particles is presented. Comparison between the experimental and analytical results shows that the approach in this study is effective for estimating the recovery of plastics.

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Removal of lunar dust adhering to mechanical equipments is of critical importance for long-term lunar exploration. We are developing an automatic cleaning system that utilizes electrostatic force. It employs an alternating electrostatic field that forms a barrier on the surface of fabrics. In this study, single-phase rectangular voltage was applied to parallel wire electrodes stitched into the insulating fabric of spacesuits. It was observed that the cleaning rate exceeded 80%. High performance will be realized by applying mechanical vibration and operating the system in vacuum. Although it was difficult to flick out small particles of less than l0-pm diameter, this system can preliminary clean mechanical equipments on the Moon.

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Rotating machinery is widely used in the industrial plant. In order to ensure safety operation of the rotating machinery, vibration condition monitoring of the machinery can play a crucial role. In the previous authors' study, the vibration energy harvester of the piezoelectric bimorph cantilever type was proposed for vibration condition monitoring applications of rotating machinery. Proposed energy harvester consists of Macro-Fiber Composite (MFC). In this study, not only the DC power generation performance but also power loss in full-bridge rectifier of the proposed vibration energy harvester is experimentally evaluated. The maximum DC output power through 287.6 Kilo-Ohm resistor which includes instruments internal resistances obtained 109.5 microwatt when subjected to vibration source input magnitude of 0.71 (mm/s rms) at the resonant frequency of the harvester. The impedance matching between MFC actuators and the electrical resistive load was also effective for maximizing the DC power transfer of the vibration energy harvester. The power loss in full-bridge rectifier reached 13.7 microwatt.

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An energy harvesting system by using smart structure system is studied in this paper. It is expected that the electric power is generated from vibration of smart structure, and the energy can be supplied to small electronic equipments. A PZT is adopted as a power generation device. The generated energy is accumulated in an electric double-layer capacitor. The vibration property of the smart structure and the accumulation of electricity are evaluated by experiment. Next, the mechanical design and assessment to maximize the electromotive force are considered.

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This study concerns a vibration energy harvester with a nonlinear oscillator. A vibrational energy harvester is an energy-harvesting device that can collect extra energy from vibrating equipments, which is ordinarily descarded as heat. A conventional vibrational generator consists of a linear oscillator and an electro-mechanical transducer that converts vibrational energy into electric energy and vice versa. This type of energy harvesters are designed so as to get large power by matching the natural frequency of the oscillator to the frequency of the input vibration to make a resonance. The problem is, however, that, if the input frequency changes even in a slight amount, the performance can become extremely worse. In this study, a vibration energy harvester using a nonlinear oscillator is proposed, which is designed to generate larger electric power for larger frequency range. This harvester consists of a nonlinear oscillator with hardening spring, a convertor, and a self-excitation circuit with a variable resistance of which value is controlled from negative to positive as a function of the amplitude of the response. This controlled resistance enables the oscillator to be entrained by the excitation in a large amplitude solution. Theoretical and numerical analysis show the large amplitude of the oscillator's response in a wide frequency range and a significant improvement in the regenerated power compared with the one without control.

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This paper proposes a structural health monitoring based on high frequency FRF (Frequency Response function) measurement with impact testing. To obtain dynamic characteristics fluctuation of FRF in high frequency range, an object bolted construction having natural frequencies within the high frequency region is selected. The relation between tightening torque of bolt and FRF fluctuation is verified. In addition, experimental modal analysis is used to demonstrate the existence of the local mode of bolt head.

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Piezoelectric shunt damping is a unique technique, which utilizes a piezoelectric element as both an actuator and a sensor. In this paper, we develop a virtual impedance circuit with a DSP. The low pass filters are necessary for anti-aliasing, however the system becomes unstable due to the filters. Therefore we conduct stability analysis with the open-loop transfer function and propose a simple method for stabilizing the system. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method for the shunt damping with the digital virtual impedance.

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Energy consumption to drive actuator is thought as a disadvantage of active vibration control. However, the actuator of the active vibration control system absorbs energy from vibrating structure to suppress the vibration. In other words, the actuator regenerates energy from the vibrating structure. The authors proposed energy regenerative active vibration control using class D amplifier and piezoelectric element. The validity of the proposing method has been shown by numerical simulations and experiments. However, the previous study is concerned with only simple collocation system and does not have generality enough. Energy regeneration seems to be also achieved in non-colocation systems from the viewpoint of energy conservation. However, a paper shows that energy regeneration is not achieved in a 2 DOF system with passive damper and skyhook control. In this paper, power consumption of actuator in collocation system and non-collocation system is considered generally and power flow in the 2 DOF system with skyhook control is analyzed and investigated. The result shows that the power from the actuator to the 2DOF system is positive but the total of the power from the actuator to the 2DOF system and the power from the passive damper to the 2DOF system is negative. The result means that energy regeneration can be achieved by replacing a part of function of passive damper with actuator with velocity feedback control.

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The head positioning accuracy of the hard disk drive should be improved to meet today's increasing performance demands. Vibration suppression of the arm in the hard disc drive is very important to enhance the servo bandwidth of the head positioning system. In this study, the smart structure is introduced into the hard disk drive to suppress the vibration. The actuator location and the control system are optimally-designed using genetic algorithm. Furthermore, experimental set-up is developed a with proof-mass actuator. Vibration control effect with the proposed vibration control mechanisms has been evaluated by simulation and experiment.

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This paper proposes mechanical and electrical techniques to improve the performance of piezoelectric elements as actuators and sensors. The bending stiffness of the target is reduced by the proposed methods at the attached range and the optimum conditions are derived based on impedance matching. Consequently, the efficiency of the piezoelectric element is significantly enhanced. The proposed mechanical technique extends the length of piezoelectric element equivalently using rigid spacers. The electric technique inserts a negative stiffness in parallel with the piezoelectric element. The optimum conditions are theoretically formulated and the effectiveness of the proposed methods was validated by the calculation and the experiment.

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This paper presents a novel transparent smart film actuator based upon a conductive polymer. Opaque electrode materials were used for conventional smart sensors and actuators. Because of opacity, their applications were restricted to a specific area. To overcome such problems, this paper introduces a conductive polymer Poly(3, 4-ethylendioxythiophen)/poly(4-styrenesulfonate) for electrode, the result that the PVDF film becomes a transparent distributed parameter actuator per se. A conductive polymer-based cantilever beam entailing the capability of modal actuating is developed, the validity of the proposed transparent smart film actuator based upon a conductive polymer being analytically as well as experimentally verified.

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Fish-like aquatic robot driven by shape memory alloy (SMA) is developed. The robot has a drive tail-fin made of a flexible polypropylene plate. Two fiber-like SMAs are pasted on the both surface of the plate. The SMA used here can contract by applying electricity. When the SMA is contracted, the fin bends to the one side. By switching the electricity, active SMA changes alternately, and the robot can move the fin. Characteristics of the fin are investigated, and it is shown that the robot represents the fish-like locomotion. Also a possibility to realize a smart fin is discussed.

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Wearing a child restraint system (CRS) greatly improves the crash-safety of children and reduces their fatal or severe injuries in traffic accidents. However, since the number of children's injuries in traffic accidents hasn't decreased, much further CRS improvement is required. In this research, we proposed to control the harness restrains a child in a CRS in frontal crashes using PID control system. Additionally, we improved CRS by optimizing its controller parameters and clarified the effect of active harness control by the numerical simulations.

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In this study, finger bone fracture simulation method due to pinching was developed. Finger finite element (FE) model was created from CT images of a Japanese male. Material properties of the model were taken from data published previously. In order to realistically represent bone fracture patterns under various loading, EWK rupture model in PAM-CRASH was utilized. The EWK rupture model parameters were determined by comparing the finger model response to reported fracture patterns at long bone under tension, compression, torsion and bending loadings. Finger pinch simulations were conducted under three different conditions including different impactor position and impact direction. Possibility of predicting finger bone fracture patterns from impact conditions using the finger FE model was shown.

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This paper describes the development of the method to visualize hazardous area in living spaces regarding child head injury in falling. The method considered factors regarding both injury severity and frequency. The injury severity database was classified as the severity level of head injury in relation to falling height, the distance to the collision surface and the surface characteristics for head protection. The database was constructed based on both falling experiment using infant dummy and large amount of falling simulations using multi-body models for children. Moreover, a probabilistic model of climbing behavior, which assumes injury frequency, was constructed based on behavior measurement. Skull fracture possibility calculated from the database and the model was mapped on a 3D CAD model of a living environment. The method helps designers to easily prefind hazardous area in living spaces

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This study examined how performance of rapid stepping task related to selected measures of balance and muscle strength. Healthy young (n=10, mean age=23 years) and elderly males (n=28, mean age=65 years) tested in their ability to take a maximal step to the front, back, and side for each foot (maximum step length (MSL)) and ability to take consecutive rapid steps in the three directions. Target step lengths during the rapid stepping were set to 80%, 70%, or 60% of MSL. Time to complete the rapid stepping and the total length of center of pressure during the test were measured. Balance and strength were studied with peak isometric knee-extension strength, the Functional Reach Test, and 1-legged stance time with eyes close. As a result, we found 1) MSL and performance of the rapid stepping significantly differed between the young and elderly groups, 2) performance of the rapid stepping at any step length did not have significant relationships with any selected measures of balance and strength for the young and elderly groups, 3) performance of the rapid stepping did not differ between elderly fallers and elderly non-fallers, and 4) MSL to the front and side had significant relationships with the knee-extension strength for the elderly group. These results indicate that MSL might be possible to predict knee-extension strength and fall risk for elderly, although performance of the rapid stepping might not.

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This study discusses the relationship between excitation methods and the parameter estimation of a human-mechanical vibration system. One-degrees-of-freedom platform on which a human stands is considered, and the human body and the platform are modeled as a linear two- degrees-of-freedom (2DOF) vibration system. The mass, the viscosity, and the stiffness parameters of human body are identified by the least squares method of the experimental frequency response. Two cases of excitations, the random and the swept sine excitations, are investigated, and the frequency responses are compared. Both cases are able to be modeled with 2DOF model with constant parameters. Furthermore, the influences of human's mental work loads are investigated experimentally, and the relationships between the loads and the variations of the identified parameters are discussed.

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This paper tried to identify the individual difference and the proficiency of human operator's behavior from time series data by using fuzzy controller and neural controller acquiring individual skill and proficiency of human operator. The operators in the experiment are skilled to some extent in stabilizing the inverted pendulum by training, and the data of ten trials per person were successively taken for an analysis, where the waveforms of pendulum angle and cart displacement were recorded. The maximum Lyapunov exponents were estimated from experimental time series data against embedding dimensions. The identified fuzzy controller and neural controller from time series data of each trial of each operator showed well the human-generated decision-making characteristics with the chaos and the large amount of disorder. The estimated degree of freedom of motion increases and the estimated amount of disorder decreases with an increase of proficiency both in the simulations with identified fuzzy or neural controllers and the experiment. It also showed that the fuzzy controller is good for identification of initial stage and the neural contoroller is good for that of proficient stage of skill up process.

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In this study, we examine the influence of each muscle of the human body in vertical jump by modeling the human body and the muscle of the leg in detail. We discuss the muscles that are necessary for vertical jump with the numerical simulation result. Results show that vasti exerts the biggest power and gluteus maximus shows the highest state of normalized muscle activity. It can be conclude that muscle necessary for vertical jump is single articular muscles.

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The motion dependent term makes significant role for generating end-point speed of linked segment systems, especially, in high-speed swing motion, such as, tennis serve, baseball pitching and batting motions. The motion dependent term is mainly caused by linear and angular velocities of the segments. These velocities are the results of joint torque and external joint force inputs into the system. We have proposed a converting algorithm of the motion dependent term into joint torque terms, external joint force term, and gravity term according to a recurrent equation with respect to the generalized velocity vector of the discrete time system. The purpose of this study was to formulate contributions of the joint torque term, external force input terms, and gravity term, in consideration of causing factor for motion dependent term, to evaluating factor of sports performances, such as, head speed and angular velocity of hitting tools with use of the algorithm. The results obtained in analyses of tennis serve motion show 1) shoulder internal torque is a great contributor to the generation of racket head speed during forward swing, and 2) the torque in the first half of the swing make significant role to generate the racket head speed at impact.

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People use stairs in daily life and it is suggested that the compression force of the knee joints during downhill walking of stairs is twice than that of level walking. Nordic Walking (NW) would have potential to reduce the load of lower limb joint in the stairs, because NW uses the poles during walking and may distribute the part of their own weight to the poles. However there are few studies focused on the lower limb joint loads for NW in the up and down stairs. The purpose of this study was to compare the load of lower limb joints (hip, knee and ankle joints) for NW to ordinary walking (OW) in the up and down stairs.

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We developed a device that calculates and displays the center of gravity point and joint moments at the same time with motion. By using this device, stability and physical burdens can be checked with movements and dynamic consideration and understanding for the burdens outbreak are obtained. In the application of this Real-Time Analyzer to analyze the daily activities such as lift up motion, push motion, and pull motion, we examined the most suitable method of motion with a few physical burdens.

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Rugby Tackle is an only method for defense to attack. It is necessary to clarify the motion during tackle to know effective tackle; however there have been few studies on motion analysis of rugby tackle. The purpose of this study is to clarify the characteristics and difference of Joint torque of inferior limbs during tackle among different competitive levels. Five high school, ten college, and two professional rugby football players volunteered to participate. Infrared reflection markers were placed on principal part on the body.

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The purposes of this study are constructing evaluative standard for "temae" in the way of tea, and clarifying the difference between expert and non-expert by using three-dimensional motion analysis. As a result, 1: Rest time in chin, shoulder and hand part of expert was longer than that of non-expert during the all process. 2: rest time in all parts of the expert body tended to be longer than that of non-expert. It was considered that to perform the procedure for making tea with keeping these results in mind will lead to early proficiency.

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A lot of stress is in our life and causes various disorders. It is necessary to estimate the stress in order to spend stress-free life. But it is difficult to estimate the stress objectively and quantitatively. The purpose of this study is to estimate the uncomfortable conditions objectively and quantitatively by biological signal processing. This paper suggests some indexes that find the effects of cold stress. I use Pulse Wave Amplitude, Return Map and Lyapunov Exponents to calculate some index.

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Recently, improving ride quality has been demanded in development of automobile. Therefore, it is important to specify the evaluation indicator for taking the discomfort-decrease measures. This paper investigated the vibratory sensibility characteristics and the human vibratory characteristics to the coupled vibration in order to identify the evaluation indicator. From these results, human vibration responses were investigated by observing the relative movements of body parts from side-view and rear-view. As a result, improving ride quality was found by decreasing lateral vibration at chest and pelvis and vibration magnitude of body parts.

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The dynamics response of a human body excited torsionally is investigated in this paper. The response of human body sitting on a round chair placed in a twisting floor is measured experimentally. It is found from experimental results the response curves have two resonance peaks. Then, human body is modelized by two-degree-of-freedom system, and the parameters of the system are identified experimentally by least-square method. Measurements of some people are carried out, and difference of dynamic property by age or BMI is considered.

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It is said that 20% people of population have several troubles of sleeping in Japan. In this study, we aimed for the development to collect the human condition including heartbeat count, breathing count and turn over in bed by use of bed mat sensor. In this study, polymer sheet sensors distributed in matrix shape are used. A basic examination was performed in this study to obtain heartbeat count and breathing count by use of small pressure sensors. We compared FFT data of normal pulse date and pulse date including wave from arrhythmia and FFT data of breath. We will improve ubiquitous degree of the sensor mat in future, it reports.

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This study aims at demonstrating the complex nerve-vessel three-dimensional relationship during the cerebellum tissue deformation due to retraction with brain spatula in the case of microvascular decompression (MVD). Authors developed a new anatomically detailed three-dimensional finite element model for surgery simulation, which includes vessels and nerves, and demonstrates the preoperative vessel-nerve relationship at the root exit zone of the facial nerve (CNVII). Surgery simulation results which will be gained by the use of the developed three-dimensional finite element model, will be used for preoperative planning after being compared with surgical findings.

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Many hemiplegias use ankle-foot orthosis to prevent foot drop when they walk. In order to support natural walking of hemiplegias, a new self-powered semi-active ankle-foot orthosis including a DC motor and step-up chopper circuit used to regeneration energy is developed. By a fundamental experiment it is shown that set-up voltage is higher than a motor voltage and a battery voltage. In addition, an average electric current changes by changing the duty ratio, so an average resistance can be controlled by changing electric current. Furthermore voltage up in the ankle-foot orthosis is confirmed by consecutive gait experiment.

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In this paper, a study which aims to achieve noninvasive evaluation of compressive load acting on intervertebral disks by using change of the vibratory response of the vertebrae is presented. Usually methods of evaluation of the load acting on intervertebral disks are invasive. In the method presented in this study, an examinee in the stooped position held different weights by its arms to create different intensity of compressive load on its spine, and its vertebrae was excited by a reaction mass shaker to obtain the driving-point accelerance as a dynamic measure. A candidate for the feature in the driving-point accelerance which may have a correlation with the load intensity was found. Three-degree-of-freedom model-based analysis, however, did not suggest so far a direct dependence of the feature on the change of the mechanical properties of the intervertebral disks.

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The traffic flow analysis by micro type traffic model depicting behavior characteristic in detail is necessary for the creating environment that dissolves and eases congestion. In this study, DEM-base traffic model is constructed using optimal velocity model. The simulation that paid attention only to the behavior characteristic in the direction of one dimension (back and forth) was done by using the model. And, the similar experiment was compared with behavior. As a result, it found that it is important for each particle to have the individual optimum velocity to the interparticle distance.

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This study evaluated the easiness to grasp the cylindrical pipe regard to the diameter and the weight of the pipe, and investigated the EMG characteristics of forearm muscles during the movement of wrist joint under the grasping pipe of the optimum diameter. The optimum diameter was 39.4mm under the constant weight of 309g. As the diameter of grasping cylindrical pipe became big, the optimum diameter of pipe became heavy. The EMG activity was lower at the grasping of the optimum diameter and weight than the hardness to grasp the diameter and weight.

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Sensory evaluation for screw fixed test has been performed using an impact hammer with tilted handle. As a result, at the under impact operation, the impact hammer with negative tilt handle shows difficulty for the operation, but is easy to have come to use it as a head could incline to the moving up direction. This tendency was approximately similar at the vertical impact operation, but it is hard to have come to the operation at the upper impact operation. It was understood that the influence of the angle inclination for impact operation appeared by difficult work more definitely. In addition, it was judged that impact hammer with a degree of leaning of around 22 degrees had best work characteristics.

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To estimate the most useful impact hammer grip to paid attention to a arch of hand, sensory evaluation test and measurement of grasping space have been performed for ten university students from 21 years old to 25 years old a subject. As a result of having examined based on these results, it is estimated that the most desirable shape of impact hammer grip is a head inclined to the front side 22 degrees the whole, and an index finger and the middle finger and the part to contact with were ovals, and each minor axis was 33mm and 38mm, and, as for the third finger and the little finger, an each diameter was an arc of 36mm and a diameter of 29mm.

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This research is universal design for electric kettle of the usability and safety. It analyze the position of the gravity and knob for electric kettle, and discover the problem in fuman engineering of a current products. The relation of product and human is chenge like same to the age change. A lot of products what shoul be the review for the relation to the most important body when the tool is used like an electric kettle exist in all place. If an appropriate relation of the thing can keep being created always, The original role of the products "It is improved the quality of the life of man" might be demonstrated enough.

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The aim of this study is the development of the neurosurgical training system with force feedback device based on finite element method. Not only visual view of the surgical scene similar to the surgical field but also tactile sensation due to intraoperative interaction between the brain tissue and the surgical instruments are successfully demonstrated. A useful function of the reaction force meter and zoom functions etc. was added to the training system. We are working to develop a new neurosurgical training system using static condensation technique. This system will have more detailed brain model and realize more high performance neurosurgical simulation.

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A high energy-saving new small urban transport system "Eco-Ride" moves under potential energy and has merits of low initial costs and high flexibility to install. To improve the comfort and accessibility of Eco-Ride, a design evaluation method of passenger rooms has been proposed by combining the comfort and accessibility evaluation models for light rail vehicles and automobiles. The results of boarding experiments at full-scale Eco-ride mockup has been applied for the quantitative comparison of design layouts for passenger rooms of Eco-ride experimental trains. No statistically significant difference in comfort evaluation values of seats was found between the full-scale mockup and the manufactured experimental train about the experimented seat arrangement.

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This paper deal with the new design approach applied the elements that extracted from the Nature to product design. Theme is the scene that water-surface reflect sunshine. We make the experiment model with water tank, illuminant and pendulum. And then make the film of reproduced scene with high-speed digital camera. Result of the image evaluation experiment show the change of reflection light in the movie give us the beautiful impression. This element make it possible to the new lighting expression.

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Shamisen is musical instrument that is difficult in tuning because of a lot of tuning patterns and noisy sounds. In this study, the tuning of shamisen has been investigated and an assist device for exclusive use of the tuning been designed. As a result of this study, a trial product of the egg type device referring to the tuning instrument, choshibue, used to tune the shamisen has been developed and the usability to the shamisen players been tested. The device has high evaluation and its products will be commercial available next year.

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