Singular stress fields in three-dimensional piezoelectric bonded joints with multi-terms of singularities are investigated. The conservative integral formulation is developed for calculating the intensity of singularity at a point located on the singular line (along a free edge). The intensities of singularities at several positions along the singular line of the interface are examined.

In this study, in order to evaluate the joining strength on dissimilar material joint, evaluation method using wedge was developed. hot rolled steel plate/ABS bonded joint was used in this study as a model joint. In the wedge test, increasing tip angle of wedge led to decreasing delamination load. From this result, it is considered that opening load applied in interface of bonded joint decreased with increasing tip angle of wedge, as a result, delamination load was decreased. Although testing equipment must be modified, it is possible that developed wedge test can evaluate the interfacial strength of dissimilar material bonded joint.

When testing bending capacity of pipes, most of the tests have been conducted without internal or external pressure applied. These tests were considered valid and conservative, because the bending capacity is believed to be dominated by the resistance of the pipe cross section against flattening, and pressure increases this resistance. However, in this paper, it is pointed out that in case of straight pipes with axially short local wall-thinning, there is a possibility of pressure as reducing bending capacity compared with the case without pressure. Though limited to cases that this wall-thinned area inside a straight pipe is subjected to tension, a guideline on wall-thinning length to consider pressure was given for generalized material assuming Hollomon's law.

Environmental and energy related problems have attracted attention of the people, spurred by the recent global issues. If the 20^th century is considered as the best era in the human history for the development of science and technology, then the global-scale environmental and energy problems can be considered as a negative inheritance from the previous century. Nowadays, various contests are being organized by the local councils and academic societies in order to raise the awareness towards such issues. In this report, we report on the events of energy contests and several activities of the regional environmental improvement and the education of energy.

Ongoing research efforts directed towards vehicles fueled by renewable sources, have spawned a new project within the Tamagawa University sustainable energy research group. This new project is called the Tamagawa Sustainable Chemistry-powered-vehicle Project (TSCP). The mission of this project is to develop vehicles that combine natural energy sources with chemical energy synthesis in a Project-Based-Learning curriculum to attain the ultimate goal of vehicles operating entirely within a sustainable energy environment.

This study presents a 5-DOF(including 3-DOF translational and 2-DOF passive rotational motions) robotic serial arm consisting of three passive joints and two active joints. A control procedure of the robotic arm is as follows. At first, rotational displacements of the three passive joints occur by a human operation, so that a deviation of a output point of the robotic arm occurs. Then the active joints conduct a position control to correct the deviation. By repeating these procedure, the robotic arm can assist a 3-DOF translational motion of human arm with human will and 2-DOF passive rotation. In this paper, first, a principle and a controlling method of the robotic arm are revealed. Then, a prototype of the robotic assist arm is fabricated. Finally, we conduct evaluation tests of the prototype which are assists of spatial lines and planes, and it is suggested that the robotic arm assists 3-DOF motion of human arm with 2-DOF passive rotation.

For a practical application of human-friendly monopropellant including hydroxylammonium nitrate (HAN) as the main component, we focused on laser ignition which has high durability under high temperature and oxidizing atmosphere. Aiming to examine influences of incident laser energy and pulse number on ignition characteristics of HAN-based monopropellant, SHP163, we performed laser ignition experiments of a SHP163 droplet at the laser energy of 20~80mJ using a pulse laser which generates SHG of Nd:YAG, 532nm. In experiments, laser irradiated the SHP163 droplet in a closed chamber, and then we measured the chamber pressure and incident laser energy. Based on the results, we elucidated the laser energy dependency of ignition characteristics, and the effect of double laser shots.

In this research, 2D shallow water equations are expanded by an intrusive polynomial chaos approach for efficient uncertainty quantification in tsunami inundation flows. An uncertain input is given on its bathymetry as a fundamental study. Obtained uncertainty quantification results are compared with (exact) Monte-Carlo simulation results to validate the developed approach.