Recently, elderly people living alone have been increased rapidly in Japan. Therefore, we have been developing an automatically tele-monitoring system for home appliance equipment's switching status. In this paper, we proposed the method of analyzing daily life status that uses the pattern recognition technique. In this technique, we assume a home appliance status as a pattern image; it can consider a correlation of home appliances usage, for example a correlation between `the usage television set' and 'the usage living light' that are in same room. As a result for four years monitoring in elderly person's home, the proposed method can distinguish the pattern of daily life from the pattern of non-daily life, effectively.

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In contemporary society, people have been exposed to various type of mental stress. Mental stress is said one of the remote causes of lifestyle diseases. Therefore, devices of measuring easily for mental stress at home are strongly desired. Evaluation of heart rate variability (HRV) is one of the representative analytical methods of mental stress. So, we have been proposed a geometric figure analytical method of HRV by reducing influence of respiration sinus arrhythmia (RSA). In this paper, we propose the mental stress evaluating method using its geometric figure applying a pattern recognition method. As a result for experiment of eight subjects (70 times experiment), the proposed method could perform almost effectively.

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Muscle activities related to catching a ball were studied based on EMG signals of physiological characteristics and the elbow joint angle. When dropping a ball with different mass and visual information to the palm we are able to clarify how a human reacts based on their visual information prior to contact. An experiment was carried out using an EMG sensor and a motion capture system simultaneously. The EMG of palmaris longus, extensor carpi radialis longus, biceps brachii and triceps brachii were recorded. The reflection markers of the motion capture system were mounted at the joint positions of the wrist, elbow and shoulder. The integrated EMG of each muscle and the difference of the elbow joint angle were calculated from the balls release to contact. As a result, it was found that a bodies movement in relation to catching a ball from a fixed height is simplified via the influence of visual information from the balls release to contact.

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Snow shoveling is generally considered to be undesirable type of exercise from the reasons of requirement of higher cardiovascular function. The upper body takes the deep flexion posture by the snow-lifting work, and load concentrates on a spinal column and the back. To overcome the posture load, a modified handle was designed. This handle has S-shape curvature to allow a person to assume an upright standing posture while snow shoveling. In this way, various techniques for labor assistance are suggested, but the evaluation is not performed very much when they use it continuously. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the relationships between change of the stamina and physical strength such as muscular strength or the power from the comparison of shovel handle shape. The physical strength of the subjects was measured before and after intervention of the 6-week daily snow-shoveling work and performed a multiple regression analysis, but the handle shape did not affect the result.

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Various researches of robotics technology and life support technology to express a sense of touch objectively have been carried out. In the 1910's, E.B.Titchener proposed "Touch Blend". It was an old-fashioned research for a sense of touch to express objectively. Then, this study was aimed to represent to a sense of touch using "Touch Blend". A simplified haptic perception device has been turned out. The device could choose up three senses among a sense of pressure, vibration, warmth, cold, and pain. The device was analyzed when senses of touch were presented on the tip of a finger. Subjects were 30 people of 20's, and answered with the list. As the results, the device was able to present a haptic sense using "Touch Blend" except to present the sense (rough, cling, texture, cold, prick and throb etc.) of touch information. Some problems and improvement points of the device were elucidated.

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This paper addresses the technical feasibility of a guidance system based on ultrasonic sensors to aid visually impaired people to cross a road easily and safely. A computer processes ultrasonic signals received by a sensor carried by the impaired people, which is emitted by three transmitters been set at back of crosswalk in a straight line with constant distance, and provides real-time information on the direction and distance to keep user on the correct track. Instead of time of flight, the system estimates user position by the order of received ultrasonic signals from multiple transmitters. Experimental results are presented to discuss feasibility of this method.

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This paper aims to assess the applicability of robot electric vehicle (REV) to vehicle platooning analysis. The REV that mainly consists of eight line sensors for lateral control and one obstacle sensor for longitudinal movement is a 1/10-scale model car driven by rear-drive and front steering. Numerical analysis tries to evaluate the longitudinal speed precision when giving relationship between motor speed and lateral obstacle sensor. Also, the stability of lateral position is assessed by measuring the frequency of how long each line sensor detects black straight line. Five trials of straight-line driving test showed that the longitudinal speed significantly varied by setting the different motor speed parameters. Also, the REV was laterally stable without departing the driving lane although the variance of the lateral position significantly increased when the REV moves faster. Key Words : Automobile, Vehicle Dynamics, Robot Electric Vehicle, Vehicle Platoon

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A vehicle receives vibration in the up-and-down direction by the unevenness and hollow of the road surface, etc. Moreover, a centrifugal force is received by running a curve at a certain speed. Furthermore, an inertia force is received in the horizontal direction by jack rabbit start, a crash halt, etc. When receiving the force and vibration, in the state where sickness-and-wound people are sitting on the seat of the vehicle usual, sickness-and-wound people do not feel not much displeasingly. However, in the state where the body has lain down, since force and vibration get across to the head directly, displeasure happens very much and, as for sickness-and-wound people, condition gets increasingly bad. So, not only the vibration of up-and-down direction but also the shake of the horizontal inertia force and centrifugal-force direction is reduced by the device, and this study aims at the development of the base-isolating device of bed for ambulances which reduces displeasure.

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The motion and vibration for multi-vehicles of a roller coaster which move on the complicated three-dimensional trajectories are investigated. A roller coaster is treated with here as a concrete example of moving body. By using differential algebraic equations (DAE), the simulation method for moving bodies on 3D trajectory is proposed in this paper. In the previous papers, the simulation method using s-u-z coordinate for a single vehicle has been shown, and a roller coaster has been modeled as a one-wheel vehicle. In this paper, it is modeled as a two-wheel vehicle. In addition, the simulation method for multi-vehicles of a roller coaster is proposed. In order to solve the instability of the simulation analysis, the stabilization method proposed by Baumgarte is adopted. When all of connecting points are taken into consideration as constraint conditions, it is found to be too severe, and some play is necessary at connecting points for practical applications to an actual roller coaster. Lastly, the validity of the proposed simulation method by comparing with the experiment and the simulation results using the one-wheel vehicle reported in the previous paper is examined.

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In order to improve interfacial properties of an adherend of the bonded composites joints, in-mold surface preparation using nanoimprint lithography is proposed. In the proposed method, microstructures are fabricated on the surface of the mold used during curing process of composites. By forming CFRP on the mold with microstructures, the shape of microstructures is transferred to the CFRP surface. In this method, since molding of CFRP and surface preparation can be conducted at once, it reduces the time required and costs involved in conventional surface preparation such as sand blasting, chemical etching etc. In this paper, micro concavo-convex structure was proposed to improve the mode I fracture toughness of CFRP/adhesive interface and fabricated on the surface of CFRP by in-mold surface preparation. According to DCB tests, it was confirmed that the fracture toughness become stronger as the aspect ratio A of microstructures increased.

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In order to reveal static recrystallization in a single crystal metal, we investigate nucleation and growth behaviors of an individual recrystallized grain in a single crystal copper by using the nano plastic forming (NPF). First, the NPF which is a direct indentation of a diamond tool is performed to a single crystal copper. Then, the thermal annealing of the formed copper specimen is conducted to generate the static recrystallization. To clarify the plastic deformation and the static recrystallization behaviors, crystal orientation and dislocation microstructure in the formed specimen are studied by the electoron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) and the high voltage transmission electron microscopy (HVTEM). The results show that dense dislocation cell and subgrain structures are generated by the NPF. And, it is found that the nucleation and growth of the recrystallized grains from the subgrain structures are occurred.

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For the stabilization of insulation performance in the resin-molded insulators, strong adhesion between the resin and metal is required. In this paper, influence of surface roughness for interfacial strength between the resin and metal was investigated. Test pieces were made by covering Cu and SUS cylinders, which have some values of surface roughness, with epoxy resin. The interfacial strength was evaluated with shearing tests of these test pieces. The effective adhesive surfaces of those cylinders were evaluated from surface observation with a laser microscope. The interfacial strength increased with surface roughness. The adhesion-strength index (p+B), which had been proposed in previous paper, were calculated with the effective adhesive surface and the interfacial strength. The adhesion-strength index gave a constant value with various surface roughness for each metal.

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The relationship between the flow around an airfoil and the geometrical shape has been important in the previous research. Therefore, very little study is currently available in the published literature on the relationship between the flow around on the airfoil and the geometrical surface pattern, the surface roughness, respectively. In this study, the geometric structure was added to the airfoil by ball-end milling. And then, the influences of surface pattern, flow velocity, and attach angle, on the flow around an airfoil were examined by using the visualization system and the Gottingen-type wind tunnels with six-component balances. From the experimental results, it is shown that the lift force and the drag force decrease when a geometric structure is added to the airfoil.

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The wetting characteristics of micro-droplets of distilled water on natural mica were observed with an atomicforce microscope(AFM)in AC non-contact mode.The obtained results show that the nano-size water droplets arevery stable in ambient air and more wettable than ordinary water droplets.The purpose of this paper is toinvestigate the influence of long-range van del Waals force and contact line tension in the wetting characteristics ofmicro-droplets.The shape of micro water droplet is thought to be changeable by the influence of the long-rangeforce.

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To develop ultra-smooth sliding pins that are suitable for pin-on-disk tests of nanometer-thick liquid lubricant films, we applied gas cluster ion beam (GCIB) treatment to BK7 glass surfaces and quantified the changes of surface roughness and surface energy. The surface roughness, particularly the height of the highest asperity was significantly reduced by the GCIB treatment. Meanwhile the change of surface energy was dependent on the treatment condition. For samples treated with Ar and N2-GCIB, the surface energy was once enhanced by the treatment, but it then decreased to its original value with elapsed time. For samples treated exclusively with Ar-GCIB and samples with deposited tough carbon films, the surface energy decreased after the treatment and remained stable with elapsed time.

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This study aims at improving the precision of measurements with a frequency modulation (FM) mode atomic force microscope (AFM). While an observation with the FM-AFM is carried out, a vibrating microcantilever probe scans over the sample surface. The measurement accuracy depends on how exactly a change in the eigen-frequency of the microcantilever is obtained. The amplitude suppression enables not only to make the oscillation frequency agree exactly with the eigen-frequency, but also to realize a non-contact observation for easily-deformable or easily-damageable specimens. However, it is difficult to cope with both keeping the microcantilever vibrating firmly and making the amplitude of its vibration as small as possible. To overcome this difficulty, a nonlinear feedback is applied to control the amplitude of the microcantilever probe used in the AFM. As a result, it is achieved that the AFM microcantilever can oscillate with a considerably reduced amplitude in the steady state. The key to the success of this nonlinear feedback control method is that the cantilever vibration can be categorized into the van der Pol-type self-excited oscillation. A prototype AFM was built to demonstrate experimentally the advantage of this amplitude control method. To date, the vibration amplitude less than one nanometer has been achieved in the steady state.

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By using a dual-axis probe with an electrostatic actuator for friction force microscopy, a new method for measuring the local properties of micro/nano textured surfaces. In this probe, the lateral and vertical forces are measured without interfering with each other, by detecting the lateral and vertical forces with the double-cantilever and torsion beams, respectively. The micromachined electrode part can provide an electrostatic actuator that drives the probe laterally. This method successfully revealed the local rheological properties of the chemically patterned lubricant film on the 10-μm scale.

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Recently, metal nano-dots array with unique electro and optical properties due to the localized surface Plasmon resonance have been used for various electromagnetic and biomedical devices. In order to improve their performance, it is essential to develop a new efficient fabrication method and to control morphology of the nano-dots array. In this study, the multi-phase-field simulation model is constructed to simulate formation of gold nano-dots array by our efficient fabrication method with the nano plastic forming (NPF) and annealing of gold thin-film. By the simulation method, we investigate effects of the grooves formed by the NPF and its pitch on the morphology of the gold nano-dots array.

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We developed a nano-patterning method for "nanostripes" that incorporates deposition of a multilayer film on a microscale slope array and mechanical polishing. This method is used to fabricate a nanostripe structure consisting of two kinds of materials to form a stripe array on a silicon substrate. We applied the nanostripes of Au-Fe and Ru-Cu to friction tests to examine the possibility of renewability during the friction. Nano grooves once disappeared by sliding with PAO (poly-a-olefin) but re-emerged during friction with PAO+2%Acid Phosphate Ester.

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This study aims to develop the manufacturing method of micro-structured parts by the metal powder injection molding (MIM) inserted micro-sacrificial plastic molds which were prepared by nano-imprint lithography (NIL) technique. In this process named NIL/p-SPiMIM, the feedstock composed of nanoscale copper powder and polyacetal-based binder was adequately prepared and molded into polymethylmethacrylate films with fine line-scan structures, and it was sintered in a reductive gas atmosphere followed by solvent debinding of the films. The filling rate of feedstock into micro-channels and transcriptional property in sintered parts was evaluated by SEM observation. It can be concluded that the manufacturing method named NIL/R-SPiMIM proposed in this study has great potential to produce precisely 3 dimensional complex metallic parts with fine micro-structures.

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In order to improve anti-adhesive properties of cutting tool surfaces in cutting of aluminum alloy, we adopted surface engineering approach, namely, a functionalization of tool surfaces by textures. In our previous research, we developed a DLC-coated cutting tool with nano/micro textured surface using femtosecond laser technology and face milling experiments on aluminum alloys shows that the DLC coated nano/micro-textured surface significantly promoted anti-adhesiveness at the tool-chip interface. In this paper, the anti-adhesiveness of the previously developed cutting tool was evaluated in detail and we designed new textures of a cutting tool surface based on a mechanism for the formation of the chip adhesion in cutting of aluminum alloy. As a result, it was found that the newly developed tool having micro stripe textured surface shows an excellent anti-adhesive property both in wet and dry cutting of aluminum alloy without any coating technologies.

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High power decompression unit of an autonomous drug release system based on chemo-mechanical energy conversion was developed. The decompression unit was fabricated by separating a cylindrical cell into a top cell (gas phase) and a bottom cell (liquid phase) by glucoseoxidase (GOD) enzyme immobilized membrane. The enzyme membrane recognizes glucose and converts chemical energy found in glucose to mechanical energy. In this study, the decompression unit increased membrane area per cell volume (0.73 ・ 3.00 cm2/m1) was fabricated in order to drive by lower glucose concentration. As a result, the improved cell connected to pressure release valve was successfully driven by 25 mM glucose solution (a conventional cell was driven by 100 mM). The possibility of autonomous drug release systems to control the patient's own blood sugar levels was suggested.

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Spherical motors rotating around multi-axes have advantageous features of making a compact system, easiness of control, and so on. A group of spherical motors that can rotate in 360 degrees is proposed by applying the working principle of planer stepping motors to spherical motors. This study develops a spherical motor that can rotate around 6 axes by arranging permanent magnets on the rotor at the apexes of a truncated octahedron and electro-magnets on the stator at either the apexes of a regular dodecahedron or the middle points of two apexes. This paper describes the structure, working principle of the spherical motor, five-phase AC power supply, and some preliminary results of rotation performance evaluation experiments.

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In this paper a new flight simulator using a planar type of tripod parallel mechanism has been proposed and designed. The parallel mechanism has three legs translating on ground. A scale model of the tripod parallel mechanism with planar actuators is designed and fabricated. The software system for the flight simulator consists of the communication program, inverse kinematics algorithm, shared memory and the virtual motion simulator. The motion simulator shows virtually the motion of the tripod parallel mechanism in the system. The workspace of the tripod parallel mechanism has been calculated to evaluate the performance of the mechanism.

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In this report, we perform the experiment analysis of the actuator using the metal type shape-memory alloy"biometal". we examine influence such as the basic characteristic of the actuator, the scale effect.we gather a fundamental properties and perform the production examination of the applied model.

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An AC Electroosmosis Micropump Using Flow Deflectors

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This paper describes design of a semi-rotary actuator of quarter-turn type for water hydraulic robotic arm that will be mounted on the deep submergence research vehicle. This actuator is vane-type, by which oscillating motion can be obtained directly. Also, the actuator is double vane-type that excessive force is not applied to bearings. Rotation angle of the actuator is 90 degrees. Metal components of the actuator is made of stainless steel. The bearings used are made of plastic. To reduce internal leakage and eliminate metal contact, plastic (UHMW-PE) plates are inserted between the sliding parts as seal material. To design the structure and dimension of the actuator, strength of the parts are analyzed by finite element method. The assembled actuator is driven by water hydraulic proportional valve. Smooth oscillating motion is obtained without any stick-slip. However, internal leakage is relatively large. Therefore, countermeasures to reduce the internal leakage are required.

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In recent years, an apoplexy is many illnesses for Japanese people. If upper extremities become paralyzed by an apoplexy, the joints of them are transformed. The rehabilitation device is important and necessary for recovering a function of upper extremities. The purpose of my work is to develop a finger rehabilitation device using pneumatic soft actuators. This paper presents the structure and basic properties of a pneumatic soft actuator. We manufactured the bellows-shape actuator and the plane-shape actuator. It is seven types in all. The manufactured soft actuator has two internal chambers. When the pressure of one internal chamber is increased, the soft actuator bends in the direction opposite to the pressure-increased chamber. We have applied this operation to the finger rehabilitation device. Basic properties of the soft actuator are evaluated experimentally on the relationship between impression pressure and angle and the relationship between impression pressure and generative force. As a result, the maximum force of soft actuator has generated 3.19 N. The maximum displacement angle was 65 deg for the supplied air at 0.15 MPa. It shows that bellows-shape actuator is superior to the plane-shape actuator.

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Electro-Conjugate Fluid, ECF can directly convert electric energy into kinetic energy of the fluid without mechanical moving parts. The ECF is used to be pumping function for the micro pump module. New shape and arrangement of electrodes have been proposed to obtain performance of high pressure. Output pressure has been measured due to the thickness of the negative electrode. Flow visualization between the electrodes and at the downstream side through the electrodes has been experimentally carried out.

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Transient behavior of a passenger's body standing within a bus with a stick at sudden stop is estimated based on finite element method. The purpose of this study is to estimate the effects of a stick on the falling behavior of a passenger's body at sudden stop. The bus model is made to represent the arrangement of a bus used for local transportation. The human body model is made to reproduce actual motion of a human body, based on the human body scantling database of AIST Japan. As the first step of simulation, gravity effects are applied to the whole model. Then, initial velocity is applied to both the bus model and the human body model. The bus model collides with the barrier model to simulate the sudden stop of the bus. The FEM code LS-DYNA is used for current simulation.

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Transient behavior of a passenger's body standing within a bus at sudden stop is estimated based on finite element method. The purpose of this study is to estimate the effects of the velocity of the bus, the grip force of the passenger, facing direction and friction between shoes and floor on the falling behavior of a passenger's body at sudden stop. The bus model is made to represent the arrangement of a bus used for local transportation. The human body model is made to represent aged woman of about 70 years old, based on the human body scantling database of AIST Japan. As the first step of simulation, gravity effects are applied to the whole model. Then, initial velocity is applied to both the bus model and the human body model. The bus model collides with the barrier model to simulate the sudden stop of the bus. The FEM code LS-DYNA is used for current simulation.

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This paper presents a method to predict occupants individual thermal comfort based on environmental information and occupants' machine operation record. We construct sensor networks with which we can obtain environmental information and operation record. A part of values are chosen from the sensor networks and are associated with the value which needs to be predicted. We utilize a dynamically changing neural network to associate the values for predicting a human's thermal comfort. We conduct an experiment in which the sensor values and the thermal sensation are associated. Our experimental results shows that sensors are chosen properly and used for predicting desired. value.

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The multi-vehicle following model controls the vehicle behavior with reference to its multiple leader vehicles. The existing models have equivalent time lag. However, the different time can be specified for each leader vehicle. In this study, the stability analysis of the multi-vehicle following model with multi time lag is performed, and the numerical examples are shown. From the results, it is found that the velocity reduction is suppressed by smaller time lag for the second nearest leader vehicle.

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Organic light emitting diode (OLED) has a feature of low heat-generation because it has high efficiency. OLED is expected to use as domestic lighting, lighting for plant production and so on. Emission layer of OLED is sandwich structure between an anode and a cathode. The emission spectrum from OLED is affected by interference effect in the layered structure. It depends on film thickness and optical properties of materials. Therefore, the emission spectrum control requires appropriate determination of these two kinds of parameters. The purpose of our study is emission spectrum control of OLED by optimization of film thickness and optical properties. A combinatorial optimization method based on genetic algorithms is used for the optimization method of two kinds of parameters. Objective function is composed of the color of emitted lights and the intensity of emission spectrum. We report some results on the multi-objective optimization in structural design of OLED for examples of plant cultivation illumination.

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In this paper, we discuss a shape design of tether in a space elevator system. The system consists of a long tether with flexibility and an elevator. The length of the tether is determined by considering a balance on centrifugal and gravitational forces. The cross-sectional area for long tethered structure is designed using the ideal area requirements for a constant stress tapered tether. The obtained shape of the tether has exponentially varying cross-section in axial direction. The cross-sectional area of tether at Earth-side end is determined by a specified allowable stress. A modal analysis is presented by using an FEM method for a uniform shape and for the obtained shape. We compared the eigen frequencies with the result of the reference literature, in which the tether is modeled by a long string which is fixed at the both end. We obtain the tether structure whose periods of the first and second modes are on the order of 20 hour and 10 hour.

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The fatigue failure of high temperature components is set off by the stress amplitude, and it is evaluated by using Goodman diagram. Currently, the criterion of Goodman diagram is decided by the human experience; however it should be decided by quantitative methods as typified by Monte-Carlo simulation which takes an immense amount of time in dynamic analysis. The paper proposes model order reduction technique (MOR) can be used as a method of reducing computational time.

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Packing problem is one of typical layout design problems. Packing problem attempts to pack items together inside a polygonal region, as densely as possible without the item overlap. This paper focuses on application of particle swarm optimization (PSO) for solving two-dimensional packing problem. The objective function is the total number of the items contained in the two-dimensional polygonal region without the item overlap. The position vectors of the item centers are taken as the design variable. The total number of items is maximized when all items are included inside a polygonal region without the item overlap. The problem is solved by original and improved PSO. Original PSO holds global and personal best positions in common each particle. The improved PSO holds global best, personal best and global second best positions in common each particle. The packing problem in two-dimensional region is considered as a numerical example in order to compare using probabilistic way of improved PSO to only using original PSO. The simulation results show that probabilistic way of improved PSO can find the better solution than the original PSO.

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This paper discusses optimum design of a stiffened composite panel: the panel is widely used for weight reduction in aerospace structures. Anisotropic thermal expansion coefficients of the composite laminates causes complicated deformation of the panel after the curing. . In previous researches of the stacking sequence optimizations, the optimizations were performed without considering thermal deformation: a response surface was used to obtain an objective function at low computational cost, and lamination parameters were sued as variables for the response surface of the objective function such as buckling load ratio. However, the thermal deformation caused by the temperature change after curing must be considered as a constraint factor for actual composite structures. In the present study, therefore, thermal deformation is dealt with as a constraint for a stacking sequence optimization problem. Three surrogate models of the thermal deformation are discussed here: a conventional method using lamination parameters; a new method using lamination parameters and thermal coefficients; a modified new method As a result, the modified new method is shown to be effective for the surrogate model.

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When development of a machine product or aseismic design of structures of civil engineering and architecture is performed, it is important that dynamic characteristics of these structures are grasped. In this study, for a target structure, firstly modal analysis in the time domain was carried out using observation records to clarify the frequency characteristics, and subsequently, through the result, the numerical model was identified, and the dynamic characteristics were investigated. And the validity of modal analysis and identification analysis used here was proved for the elucidation of the physical property such as the dynamic characteristic from the investigation results. In addition, the applicability of modal analysis for observation record including a lot of noises was confirmed by the analysis results of the earthquake records.

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In this paper, local polynominal regression is proposed as a metamodel for optimal design. The theory of local polynominal regression is extended to multivariate predictors for optimal design, and its effectiveness of approximation is verified. Application for optimal design examples and comparison between local polynominal regression and other metanodels clarified (1)LOESS that uses local quadratic regression and tricube weight function is most suitable for the approximation. (2)The metamodels based on local polynominal regression are able to use for the structural optimization and its characteristics are available for the optimization based on the gradient. (3)The accuracy of local polynominal regression is better than Kriging and radial base function interpolation both when the sample size is small and when the response has Gaussian noises.

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In this paper we investigated the optimization of the shape of the normal connecting rod for the car engine, using the growth-strain method. The analyses were done in case of compressive and tensile loads separately. The growth criterion parameters of the principal stress on the connecting rod were determined from the fatigue strength of the actual design data and the safety factor. We thought it is most compatible to use the fatigue strength which is safety side, smallest value of the material constants, because the connecting rod receives the reciprocating compressive and tensile loads. We omitted the bending stress on the column of the connecting rod, because it was negligibly small. After the analysis, we compared the volumes of the optimized configurations of the connecting rod with the original one. As the result, the reduction rate of the volume of the optimized connecting rod was approximately 22.8%.

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It is necessary to create appropriate configuration and geometry at the upstream design stage to satisfy the design specifications at the detail design stage. In our study, a simple algorithm is proposed for generating mechanisms under the design constraints on specified area. The design specifications are input torque, output torque, rotation speed, rotation direction and design space constraints. The spur gear train mechanism is generated based on the generation of random numbers with probability distribution. And then positions of the gear axis are optimized by using the conjugate gradient method. The effectiveness of the generation algorithm is reported through several examples.

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Copper electroplating is generally used to form micro wiring in LSI fabrication. In recent years, to form more complicate and finer wiring, it is necessary to ensure uniformity of plating film on LSI wafer for electroplating process. The thickness of the plating film is proportional to current density on the plated surface. Therefore controlling the current density on the plated surface is necessary to ensure fine electroplating on LSI fabrication. In this study, an electroplating cell has developed to control the current density by movable shields. The movable shields are attached horizontally to the plated surface and control the current flow by changing their locations. The shield locations have been optimized by using Boundary Element Method (BEM) and quasi-Newton's method to uniform the current density distribution. To verify the effectiveness of the developed cell, the experimental results by the cell and the simulation results by BEM were compared.

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Painless microneedle array is a less invasive apparatus for medical use such as transdermal DDS and BMI. To establish a method for robust design of microneedle array, a preliminary testing system is proposed. To consider uncertain mechanical factors in insertion such as stiffness of stratum corneum and epidermal layer, thickness of stratum corneum and variety of history-dependent loading condition, Monte Carlo method is adopted to this system. Since Monte Carlo simulation needs much cases of analysis, non-linear problem is much time consuming. To put the Monte Carlo simulation for non-linear problem into practical use, this study proposes to linearize the history-dependent non-linear problem based on the idea to simulate instantaneous state in the history as linear problem. According to this idea, the linear model with initial stress is applied. The value of maximum and minimum principal stress refers to the result of non-linear analysis and the direction of principal stress is determined in mesher program referring the result.

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When In this paper, we present results of numerical simulations for 3D reinforcement corrosion shape estimation problem based on actual observed temperature on concrete surface. The finite element method is applied to express the temperature distribution in concrete, and the adjoint variable method is employed to estimate the corrosion shape. In this study, numerical experiments are carried out by changing the time section in simulation of reinforcement corrosion shape.

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The development of mechatronic systems requires integration of knowledge of various domains, such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and software engineering, and iterations of hypothesis and verification across the domains. A model-driven development approach is needed to support its process. This paper proposes a conceptual design support system for mechatronic systems focusing on the process of deployment of hypothesis and verification. SysML is adopted as a modeling language for representing mechatronic system without depending specific domains. A framework of DRIFT is used to capture designer's operations on modeling tools of SysML and manage its process. We define design concepts and design operations which are extracted from the patterns embedded in modeling process with SysML, e.g., adding new nodes, setting relations between nodes, and setting attributes of nodes or relations, in order to incorporate the modeling tools to the framework. This paper demonstrates a prototype implementation on a block definition diagram and an internal block diagram, and its application to ball-grabbing robot with LEGO Mindstorms.

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Identify all the possible causes of faults of a product by Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) during design and development process and fixing them in advance should be an effective method to achieve reliability design. It is not, however, easy for a designer to construct a complete fault tree without any misunderstanding or oversight. A promising approach for supporting FTA is to utilize a computerized knowledge management method. The authors propose a new design knowledge management approach called quantity dimension indexing and computerized support for FTA such as the verification of consistency of a fault tree and fault tree construction advice. This method should enable us to analyze possible causes of faults of the product in short-term and to share exact knowledge and comprehension of physical phenomena and FTA in an organization.

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In the job of high-pressure food processing equipment design and manufacture by several small-and-medium-sized companies, Risk assessment using web-based knowledge management system was conducted. Descriptive analyses were done in order to retrieve management or processing problems in an assessment procedure.

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We have defined an XML schema of polishing case data and have collected the case data in XML database. This paper reports a development of a prototype system for manufacturing support based on the polishing case data. This manufacturing support system provides a suitable case data for each user's situation. It also compares processing results between user's case and the case data using graphs. The method proposed in the system was examined through case inquiries and evaluated it to be applicable effectively as a manufacturing supporting method.

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In this study, vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are anticipated as nano/micro structured reaction field for micro bio-analysis. CNTs were synthesized on Silicon substrate using chemical vapor deposition and CNTs reaction field were made of self-organization of CNTs. To evaluate and reveal the optimal CNTs structural dimension and surface characteristics for protein adsorption were evaluated by antigen-antibody reaction using fluorescence analysis. The results showed that proteins tend to adsorb to the tip of CNT and clumping structure of CNTs which has less than 5iLtm distance each other. When the widths of CNTs clumping structure gaps got 1/10, protein adsorption increased 2 times, it means decreasing of distance for diffusion and approaching, and adsorption. Also, protein adsorption increased 2 times more by introducing defects to the CNTs such as plasma irradiation for crystal reforming and HNO3 treatment. Introducing detects on the CNT's walls were let to the expansion of the adsorption site. The sensitivity of this device was 10 times higher than without CNTs and adsorption time was enough in 10 seconds.

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