Phosphorous (P) ion implantation was performed on a steel substrate to investigate the effect of the P implantation on the friction characteristics of steel lubricated with oil. To determine the characteristics of the P-implanted layer, several kinds of surface analyses were carried out, resulting in a correlation between the M'S depth profile and the thickness from spectroscopic ellipsometer. A 3 balls-on-disk tribometer was employed with sliding speeds ranging from 3 mm/s to 40 cm/s. The friction coefficient of the P-implanted steel was relatively lower at speeds below 10-1 m/s, compared with the unimplanted steel. This implied that the P implantation was effective in reducing friction.

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We have developed an adsorption heat pump that can utilize low qualitative heat with lower than 100 degree Celsius to convert to cold heat. To meet a market of a small scale equipment of the heat pump with several kW, we decided to reduce its volume to 10L/kW. In this report, we developed a test device with the volume of 30L/2kW to evaluate its performance. New adsorption cores coated with zeolite adsorbate and reed type valves are adopted to reduce the volume. The heat pump produced 1.4kW/30kW of 12 degree Celsius chilled heat with 80 degree Celsius of heat source.

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Reliability is required of the control function of an industrial machine. A design procedure is proposed from the pursuit of the contents of a design to the required. There is biorhythm in development of an international standard, it assumes that the peak is greeted about a control facility, and the design procedure considered to be needed from now on is reported. This proposal proposes STEP 1-3 as a design procedure. - STEP1 : Essential design (adoption of a safety margin) - STEP 2 : Protection design (TYPE Coordination of IEC 60947-4-1) - STEP 3 : Reliability engineering (a parallel redundancy system and an in-series system)

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[in Japanese]

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In Japan about 400 farmers are killed while farming. Especially due to aging population of farmers accidents caused by senior farmers are increasing. Our institution Bio-oriented Technology Research Advancement Institution (BRAIN) has conducting safety tests on agricultural machinery. Though the tests are based on adult physical performances and not seniors. So we have conducted a survey on senior farmers and female farmers, who are physically weak, to determine if the standards of the safety test can cover the physically weak. The survey focused on popular agricultural machinery as walking tractors and normal tractors. We measured walking speed by walking with a wagon which simulates a walking tractor. And measured handling force and dimension of drivers seat of a normal tractor.

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[in Japanese]

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The basic concept of safety of machinery in a dangerous situation, which consists out of hazard and human was to separate both factors in housdorff-space and shut down energy to stop the machine. In case of Human-Machine-Interaction, people live together with hazards and therefore it means paradigm shift on safety. It is therefore necessary to set up certain condition for safety in case of Human-Machine-Interaction. In this case it is not avoidable to take consideration on four factors of safety,namely ethics, technology, economics and social system.

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As the request to the electric-equipments to achieve for safety of machinery IEC60204-1:Safety of machinery-Electrical equipment of machines is delivering to the world as global standard. The WTO/TBT agreement member country introduces it as the national standards as the rule of the international standards and is operating and it is JIS B9960 in Japan. And the basis is built to can coexistence with the international's society .This time explains the meaning and the contents of this standard to defend a person and fortune against such as being electric-shock and electric-fire.

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TUV Rheinland Japan Ltd. have been operating TUV Appointed Engineer Program (TAE Program) since 2003 in order to train and appoint machinery safety engineers. This program also has provided the training course and examination to Safety Assessor program, which is operated by Nippon Electric Control Equipment Industries Association (NECA) from 2005. TAE Program has two steps for safety engineer qualification: the first step is TUV Appointed Engineer in Training (TAEIT) and the second step is TUV Appointed Engineer (TAE). In order to become a TAEIT, candidates need to attend 3 days training course and take examination. This paper describes the outline of TAE Program and analyzes necessary competencies required for machinery safety engineers based on the examination results.

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Relational Information System for Chemical Accidents Database (RISCAD) has been developed by AIST and JST. Some of the accident data contain progress flowcharts and lessons learned information. The accident progress flowcharts have been created to assist database users to have more clear understanding of what happened in the accident. As for the procedures to make the flowcharts, first, one of the analyzing team members from the RISCAD staff investigated some accident reports and made a draft progress flowchart to discuss with other members together. Then, we tried to figure out, for example, the root causes, which had not been clear yet since the accident occurred. Finally, the progress flowchart can then be updated on the website. You can also see their lessons learned information that can be helpful to prevent future accidents. In this paper, the outline and the functions of RISCAD are introduced. Also, a case study related to mechanical equipments is presented following the progress flowchart.

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[in Japanese]

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