The meal supporting system for disabled people has been required to establish their self-living level. The system has to be designed with some requirements in order to bring safety, relief, convenience and comfortability to user. Although the system can work automatically, it is important to give disabled people the feeling as if they took a meal by themselves. We have been developed the meal supporting system which has motion limited to lower freedom degree for safety and relief of user, and has the image recognition device for the easy choice of food dishes. According to the safety evaluation test, it achieved basically four requirements, while it don't give sense of fear, anxiety and unpleasant.

Derailment coefficient is the ratio of the lateral to the normal force, and it represents the running safety of the railway vehicle in sharp curves. The value is affected by both track irregularities and the friction coefficient between wheel and rail. As the value of friction coefficient varies widely, continuous monitoring of derailment coefficients on service trains is desirable in order to ensure the safely running. Recently, the PQ monitoring bogie which can continuously collect derailment coefficients has been developed, and far amount of collected data during commercial operation has been accumulated. Therefore, efficient analysis to treat such a large scale data is required. In this research, a data analysis tool which can easily handle a large scale data while identifying the point where the derailment coefficient increases. In the tool, estimated irregularity of twist and friction characteristics between wheel and rail are estimated. This paper shows some examples of analysis while explaining the user-interface and its function to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed tool for PQ monitoring bogie.

It is important to secure running safety of railway vehicles against wheel-climb derailment accidents. The safety is often discussed according to the value of the derailment coefficient for the leading-outside wheel of a railway bogie running on a sharp curve. Therefore, the detailed mechanism which influences the value of derailment coefficient should be clarified. One of the most dominant factors which greatly affect the value of derailment coefficient is the friction coefficient between wheel and rail. Since the gauge corner of the outside rail and the top of the inside rail are lubricated at some sharp curves, values of friction coefficients fluctuate. In this study, the induced mechanism of derailment coefficient is clarified by using multibody-dynamics simulation and the roller-rig test equipment. The method to identify the lubrication condition of each wheel utilizing measurement of applied force of mono-links is also investigated.

In developing a pantograph of a high speed train, reducing aerodynamic noise of the pantograph is one of the most important subjects. For reducing this noise, stability of aerodynamic lift force has a tendency to be spoiled and compensation method of lift force is required. Although there is some method for measuring the lift force, the existing methods have some restriction in actual use. For solving this restriction, the author developed a new method, by which the aerodynamic lift force can be estimated by monitoring pantograph head trajectory and train speed. This paper describes the validation result of this method in line test.

In order to develop carbody shell equipped with diesel engine generator, numerical analysis and load test using a real carbody shell were carried out. In the result of numerical analysis and load test, safety factor was complied with EN 12663-1:2010. In addition, deformation of the carbody shell showed good agreement with that of load test, so that accuracy of numerical simulation was proven. As a result, it is concluded that the carbody shell equipped with diesel engine generator has strength reliability under load conditions specified in EN 12663-1:2010.

In recent years, a speed of high speed railways has been raised by the improvement of technology about the vehicle, truck and electric. However, the speedup of railway vehicle caused high frequency vibration and thus ride comfort is deteriorated by the resonance of the back seat. In this study, a passenger-seat model with multi-body dynamics (MBD) was constructed to propose a seat design guideline to reduce the vibration including high frequency. First, the vibration properties of the passenger and the seat were investigated by a vibration test. The vibration test was performed for three male subjects under linear sweep wave from 0.2 Hz to 40 Hz in front-back direction into the floor, and the accelerations of passenger’s head, shoulders, chest, belly, and thighs and the seat were measured. As a result of the vibration test, it was confirmed that the vibration properties were almost the same in the subjects of the same physique. The passenger model which reproduced the vibration properties of the subjects was constructed. The simulation results showed the good agreement with the experimental ones under the front-back excitation.

In this study, we examined the rail corrugation generated on the high rail of railway track, and measured acceleration of axle-box of the bogie of railway vehicle for clarification of the generation mechanism of rail corrugation. We tried to grasp the dynamic interaction between the vehicle and the track structure where the rail corrugation had been generated on the high rail by analyzing the data of the axle-box acceleration. As a result, we confirmed that the track supporting stiffness had a great influence on the generation of the high rail corrugation. Then, it is estimated that the high rail side wheel of leading axle of bogie resonated remarkably at about 60Hz with the track of which the sleeper was not elastically supported, and the high rail corrugation was caused by this vibration.

We executed the vehicle dynamic simulation due to multi body dynamics for verifying the influence of the track supporting stiffness given to the generation of the rail corrugation. As a simulation result, in the case of hardly supported track, the significant peak could be seen in the frequency band that corresponded to the wavelength of the rail corrugation in the power spectrum of axle-box acceleration. On the other hand, in the case of sleeper was softly supported, the peak could not be seen in the power spectrum. Therefore, we concluded that the track supporting stiffness relates to the generation of the rail corrugation.

The part of rail joint becomes the causes of the disadvantage points such as the ride discomfort, the undersired sound and the track maintenance, etc. For restraining those points, the long rail made by welding the standard length rails has been developed. However, the problems of the overhang or the breakage caused by bucking have been pointed out. Those phenomena are cause by the axial force (i.e. the thermal stress) that is brought out by the weather conditions or the friction heat of wheel and rail. Therefore, several evaluation techniques for managing those have been proposed. The application of non-destructive method, the quantitative evaluation, the high prediction accuracy and the decrease in work of measures, etc., are desired in that technique. In the previous study, we had presented the relationship between the increases of compression stress and the behaviors of the ultrasonic echo to that stress. Concretely, it was shown that there is high correlation between the increase of the maximum wavelet coefficient of that echo and each applied stress. Here, that coefficient is led from the wavelet transform that is the time-frequency analysis. However, it became a problem that the change ratio of that coefficient by the increase of the stress is very small. In this study, the parameter that indicates a remarkable change to the applied stress is proposed. That parameter is the change ratio of wavelet coefficient evergy (RWE). The RWE is led by the following procedure. (1) Wavelet coefficient energy (WE) which adds the value over 98 % of the maximum coefficient at each applied stress is calculated. (2) By calculating the change ratio of WE in each applied stress for WE at the initial state of which the stress is zero, the RWE at each stress is led. After that, the experimental equation for evaluating the stress from the RWE was built. Also, the ability of that equation was examined. As the result, it became clear that the stress could be estimated in the good precision by RWE.

In the analytical model of the VDS (Vehicle Dynamics Simulator) developed by RTRI, the rails just under the wheels are laterally and vertically supported by springs and dampers connected to a road bed so that they have two degrees of freedom independently of each other. While the lateral supporting stiffness is mainly corresponding to rail tilting resistance, the angle of the rail tilting has been ignored and the rails have been considered to be able to move horizontally and vertically independently. In this study, therefore, restriction condition of the rail tilting angle is adopted to the VDS. In the proposed model, the rail tilting angle is expressed as the ratio of the lateral displacement of the top of rail head to the rail height. The effects of the rail tilting angle on the results of vehicle running simulation on curved tracks have been investigated. As a result, it has been found out that by taking the rail tilting angle into consideration, lateral force tends to increase slightly. The proposed model can be used for calculation requiring high accuracy such as derivation study on a cause of a real derailment accident.

This study examines a driver assistance system to predict driving behavior considering the pre-preceding vehicle behavior. The assistance system indicates the evaluation index on road ahead virtually. Driving simulator experiments were carried out with eight participants who are required to follow a preceding vehicle and pre-preceding vehicle with and without the driving assistance system. The participants with the assistance system realize the driving behavior with the small relative velocity to the pre-preceding vehicle and the small acceleration. The proposed system makes it possible to suppress the collision risk to the preceding vehicle and to reduce fuel consumption of the following vehicle.

This paper describes the evaluation of the automated driving system and to investigate the driver's behavior when accepting the system's request for manual driving. A system to request a manual driving when you view the information on the head-up display to promote the attention of the driver, and it is possible to encourage the preparation of the driving. In this research, to consider the shape of the visual information it was to evaluate the usefulness of the system.

This study is to evaluate the effect of intersection non-stop support system on traffic flow efficiency as well as the environment. The system is designed to pre-calculate the generation and extension of the traffic jam based on shockwave theory, and to indicate an appropriate traveling speed that is supposed to cross the stop line without stopping. A driving simulator experiment showed that the proposed system encourages most drivers to pass through the intersection without stopping. The system also performs very well in increasing the fuel consumption rate and in decreasing the emission of CO, NOx and CO2.

In the preventive safety field, AEBS (Advanced Emergency Braking System) has been widely spread to the market. AEBS is composed of alert-braking and full-braking, and when AEBS works, ABS (Antilock Brake System) is often used simultaneously. In order to use braking force to the maximum, it is desirable for ABS to take into account a road friction coefficient because the tire slip ratio where the maximum force is generated is varied in accordance with the road friction coefficient. Furthermore, road friction coefficient estimator is difficult to be realized. As the control of ABS depends on only tire slip ratio, it cannot generate tire braking force sufficiently on the various road surface condition. In this paper, we propose a technique to estimate road friction coefficient during alert-braking period. In addition, we changed the target tire slip ratio required by ABS based on road friction coefficient. It was found that by using the method mentioned above, it was possible to reduce the collision speed compared with the conventional system.

For the elderly people live as long as possible healthy, it is important to live independently as much as possible. "Moving" is not only physically carry the body to the destination, also to achieve the elderly to participate in social activities as a member of society. In this study, personal mobility vehicle (PMV: Personal Mobility Vehicle) has been developed for the people with difficulty of moving. Our developed prototype of PMV is equipped with steer-by-wire system. In this paper, it is reported about preliminary experiment and results.

Tottori University is carrying out research and development of a mobile robot (rover) aimed at searching for rocks and soils on the Mars surface. The target areas for Mars exploration is mainly in mountainous zones, and the Mras surface is covered by regolith or rocks. Achieving a steady run on such irregular terrain is the big technical issue for rovers. A newly developed lightweight hybrid wheel mechanism which consists of a flexible wheel and a rigid wheel is good for driving on such irregular terrain because of its low contact force with the ground and steady grip of the rocks. This was determined considering the mass and expected payload of the rover. In this paper, testing results of prototype of Mars rover and its wheels are described and discussed.

For manned exploration mission to Mars, there is the need for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) to generate oxygen. Currently methods are being investigated to generate oxygen from Martian atmosphere, which is composed 95 % of carbon dioxide. However, dust may cause some problems. In Martian atmosphere, 2-10 μm sized dust particles are presented because of dust storms and dust devils, and cause malfunction or damages to the oxygen generation device. Thus, dust removal during the device's intake is necessary. When Martian atmosphere's characteristics, including the size of the dust particles and the air pressure (700 Pa), are taken into account, it is reasonable to use electrostatic precipitator (ESP). In this paper, the collecting efficiency of coaxial cylinder ESP in two conditions, atmospheric pressure and 700 Pa pressure, was investigated. As a result, in atmospheric pressure almost 100 % of collecting efficiency was achieved; however, in 700 Pa pressure the efficiency was 70 % at most. Also a different mechanism of removing dust between atmospheric pressure and 700 Pa pressure was found.

The city formation around a new campus of Kyushu University is in progress according to campus relocation of the university. In the Organization for Promotion Academic City by Kyushu University (OPACK), which is an organization for promoting the city formation of the new campus and surrounding area, the author is cooperating to promote the city formation by industry-academia cooperation as a university professor. This research considers the relationship between the industry-university cooperation and the contribution to society by university from the point of view of mechanical engineering in accordance with the experience and information obtained by the author's activities in this organization, and tries to find the ideal way of the industry-university cooperation. This is the third report that introduce activities of Itoshima City, which has been performed cooperating with Kyushu University, since the City established in 2010. At first the outline of Itoshima City is described, it is told that a trigger of collaboration activities with Kyushu University was campus relocation to this city. Two main projects have been performed since 2010; the former is to support a research on the subject related to the present problems of Itoshima City, the latter is to support the events stimulating friendship between the citizen and the university staff and students. Both projects became successful. After describing a problem that maintenance of such a good relationship will not continue after the campus moving completes, it is stated that it will be resolved with a reason.

The Museum of Industrial Technology of the Nippon Institute of Technology preserves at least 300 original drawings used to manufacture Machine-tools from the early Showa era. These machine tools were designed using the latest technologies at that time and manufactured by fully utilizing the most advanced industrial fabrication technologies. However, such ingenious structures and elements are difficult to observe directly in detail because they are mostly located inside the machine tools or in components difficult to access. We have developed 3D-models of five machine tools using a 3D computer-aided design (3D-CAD) system on the basis of the preserved drawings. These models have been used as exhibits at the Museum and as research materials for people studying the history of machine technology.We made a three-dimensional-model of a Tire-Bowling-Machine using the same method based on this drawing. A Railway-Vehicle-Fabrication-Method in those days was investigated.We report the methodology of the survey and summarize the results obtained to examine the history of machine technology.

We have implemented PBL program for the purpose of providing students with basic skills on how to learn fluid mechanics. This PBL consists of three sessions. Firstly, the students make a flying toy "taketombo". Secondly, a flight test is performed using the "taketombo". And finally, the students modify the "taketombo" according to the result of the flight test. It has been proven that this PBL can become an important way to understand the aerodynamic features of the "taketombo" to the students. However, it is difficult to give profound knowledge of fluid mechanics to the students due to lack of information about the fluid motion around the "taketombo". Accodingly, we attempt to add a flow visualization around the "taketombo" to the program of PBL. In this paper, we demonstrate new PBL sessions in which the students design a system for visualizing a flow field around the "taketombo" based on tracers provided by a haze maching, a sheet light device and a mechanical launching device, and implement the system using 3DCAD and 3D printer. And several visualzation experiments are carried out as the last session of the PBL.

Self-motion using surface tension gradient on fluid surface is a well-known phenomenon to convert chemical energy directly into mechanical energy directly. The purpose of this study is to investigate control methods of speed, direction and propulsion time of such self-motion. In order to achieve the purpose, we changed surface tension distribution of a surfactant water solution by changing the original surfactant into a more surface active surfactant by an electrochemical reaction. We evaluated effects of concentration, temperature and hydrogen ion concentration index of the original surfactant solution, applied voltage and distance between electrodes in the electrochemical cell on the speed of Marangoni convection caused by the surface tension gradient, and found the optimum condition. We also investigate a control method of the direction of the Marangoni convection by applying a magnetic field on the surface of the surfactant solution during the electrochemical reaction.

Ionic liquids have various physical and chemical features suitable for lubricant. Since ionic liquid consists of large organic cation and anion, it is expected that friction coefficient of the ionic liquid thin film is controlled by an electric field by changing of the orientation of the cation and the anion. In this study, we evaluated friction force of a thin film of a reactive-type ionic liquid coated on a SiO₂/Si substrate with a conductive probe. The friction force of the substrate coated with the ionic liquid was measured while applying a voltage between the probe and the substrate. In the both coated and uncoated substrates, the friction force increased with increase in the magnitude of the voltage. When positive and zero voltages were applied alternately to the substrate, the friction force charged corresponding to the voltage.

Three-dimensional (3D) photoresist structures fabricated by an optical lithography have been widely used in application fields such as microfluidics, micro total analysis systems (μ-TAS), or biosensors. To date, various 3D lithography methods have been proposed. Here we study 3D thick film photolithography technique using projection lithography system for fabricating complex microstructures used in microfluidics or bio-engineering tools. In this lithography method, prediction of 3D structure profile to be fabricated which depends on the mask pattern, exposure dose and the focus depth is difficult by the existing simulation models. So, this paper reports on the simulation method for single-step negative tone thick film projection lithography. Validity of the proposed simulation approach were confirmed quantitatively by comparing with experimental results and simulated results.

For the present study, local temperature controlled micro-fluidic channel to culture cells was fabricated and evaluated. Inverted microscope is widely used to observe adherent cells such-as time-lapse images for long time. On-chip transparent micro-electrode (ITO) as heater is promising method to observe cells with local temperature control. Thermo-sensitive gel was also employed to immobilize and to obtain positioning of cells with temperature control by fabricated fine Au sensor to prevent from excessive temperature rising. By using feedback control, it keeps steady control of applied voltage from DC power supply to prevent from damaging cells due to by sudden temperature change. In our experimental results, fine Au sensor had high reproducibility and cells are successfully immobilized with thermo-sensitive gel in this chip. This study has potential to contribute to the studies such as temperature response of cells and new cellular response and functions.

For the present study, evaluation of area of collateral damage and quantification of injected reagent was carried out for the electrically induced bubble injector (needle-free injector).We confirmed that the input power is closely related to depth of the injection area, the depth has been achieved about 100~ 500 μm for applied voltage of 900~ 1500 V. However, it is necessary to have deeper perforation performance to fulfill the ability of hypodermic. Thus we propose a focusing shockwave which is derived from cavitation phenomena. A reflector made of PDMS was fabricated to assemble to bubble injector. This method will improve bubble injector’s ability of deeper perforation with minimally-invasive performance. This study will contribute to minimally-invasive injection to skin in the bio-medical field.

We have succeeded in local and in-situ injection of reagent into a single plant cell by using the cavitation phenomena of micro-bubbles. Micro-bubbles were generated electrically by a novel device called “micro-bubble injector”. This device provides minimally invasive processing and high accessibility compared to conventional injection techniques such as electroporation, sonoporation and particle-gun methods. One of the strong point of this device is injection to the material which has wide dynamic range of hardness. Thus, it enables to applied to plant cells which have been difficult to be injected due to hard cell wall for a long time. This technology contributes to the biological and medical researches developments.

Inkjet technology is attactting technlogy in wide field of engieering, such as print images, molding to a variety of objects. We have developed inkjet device that can ejects electrically-charged droplet by using thrust force of electrically-induced bubble. For the present study characteristics of electrically-charged droplet and the directivity of the ejection were investigated. The proposed bubble-induced inkjet device is composed of directional micro-bubble generator, opposite electrode and regent supply. When a pulse voltage is applied to the device, micro-bubble is generated and the thrust force is generated as growing the bubble. Finally, the thrust force can eject the droplet out of air-liquid interface. As a result, it succeeded in droplet ejection into air by the device and the droplet was considered to be charged. Moreover, it was confirmed that the coaxiallty structure of nozzle was considered to be important for the directional ejection of droplets.

This study investigates elastic behavior attributed to flexor digitorum tendon, using ultrasonographic images. The tendon is stretched during finger extension both by muscle strength and external forces applied to the fingertip. The elastic force exerted by the stretched tendon can work as torque for flexsion of the finger. Our experimental scheme includes measuring changed MP joint angle and each corresponding exerted fingertip force and displacement of image feature on flexor digitorum in the ultrasonographic image. The measurement results of the relationship among the exerted fingertip force, flexion angle and ultrasonographic images show that extension or displacement of the tendon is proportional to the flexion angle. In addition, a hysteresis of the fingertip force in stretching and shortening cycle can be observed. The hysteresis addressed in the related studies may be caused mainly by behavior of flexor digitorum muscles.

The purpose of this study were to measure human physiological signal and vibration of ski plate from subject in simultaneous for improvement of the alpine ski racing performance. The ski board vibration and human EMG, human ECG in simultaneous were measured when ski racing. As a result, the MPF decreasing was understood in ski racing. Further, the physiological condition was over the anaerobic threshold (AT) during the ski racing. The vibration in the horizontal direction, from a comparison of the low-order of vibration in each run, the possibility of carving turn determination in the competition has been suggested. That this system is effective in performance improvement from strength elements and technical elements it has been suggested.

In this study, I evaluated development and the drive performance of the wheelchair for competitions for the wheelchair for the sporting event that had the camber angle to the wheel, it can drive straight on ahead by the one-hand drive that had joint mechanism to transmit driving force from one side wheel to other side wheel. For evaluation of performance to drive, I measured upper limb myoelectric, tractive power and energy metabolism. As a measurement result, operates the wheelchair for the competition a one-hand can drive straight on ahead, becomes necessary to train of the whole upper body such as not only the arm but also latissimus dorsi and pectoralis major and to use the whole body. Also, it is judged that the present operability of this wheelchair is suitable for not aerobic-like long drive but anoxia-like short drive.

Buckling is one of the important factors in structural design. In this work, we propose a computational method for designing frame-shell structures, whose shapes are optimized for the elastic buckling enhancement. The 1st buckling load of a frame-shell structure is maximized under a volume constraint. The shape gradient function and the optimality conditions for the shape design optimization are theoretically derived based on the Lagrange multiplier method, the adjoint variable method, and the formulae of the material derivative. Using the proposed shape optimization method, the optimal shape of an arbitrary frame-shell structure can be obtained without any shape parametrization while maintaining the smoothness. The numerical results show that the shape optimization method has the validity to determine the optimal free-forms of frame-shell structures for the elastic buckling design problem.

In this work, we propose a parameter-free shape optimization method for deformation control of a shell structure under large deformation. The squared error norm to specified displacements is minimized subject to the volume constraint. The optimal design problem is formulated as a distributed-parameter shape optimization problem under the assumptions that a shell is varied in the out-of-plane direction to the surface and the thickness is invariable. The shape gradient function of this design problem is theoretically derived by using the material derivative method and the Lagrange multiplier method. We calculate the shape gradient function through an in-house code by using the results obtained from a non-linear analysis in a commercial FEM solver. The calculated shape gradient function is applied to the H¹ gradient method for minimizing the objective functional and for shape updating, while maintaining the surface smoothness. We carry out a numerical example to verify the validity and practical utility of the proposed optimization method.

In this study, we present a shape optimization method for designing the interface shapes of damping material-inlaid plates in frequency response problem. We use the squared displacement error norm of a designated evaluation point as the objective functional and minimize it under the area constraint. In the process of interface shape design optimization, we carry out frequency response analysis of an inlay plate at first for calculating the shape gradient function, and then use the derived shape gradient function in velocity analysis to update the interface shape of the inlay plate based on the H1 gradient method. This process is repeated until the convergence condition is satisfied; we determine the optimal interface shapes of the inlay plate. The numerical results showed that the presented shape optimization method of inlay structures can significantly reduce the objective functional of an arbitrary designated evaluation point at an arbitrary specific frequency for vibration control.

The shape optimization has an effect of leveling stress distribution in the structures of many types, and the reduction of the peak stress amplitude has an influence on the improvement of its durability. The leveling effect of the shape optimization is investigated, on the stress distribution of the Michell truss under the dynamic loading with sweep excitation. The number of troughs and peaks can be divided into 2(two) groups, i.e. troughs and peaks with elastic strain only, and troughs and peaks with plastic strain accumulation, which leads us to apply the Palmgren-Miner rule directly. In this paper, the effect of leveling stress distribution in the Michall truss is reported, regarding the improvement of durability evaluation.

This paper presents a numerical solution to multi-objective shape optimization in order to achieve stiffness maximization in thermoelastic fields. Compliance evaluated by thermal deformation based on temperature distribution and mechanical deformation based on surface force or body force is used as an objective functional by using weighting method. Shape gradient of the multi-objective shape problem is derived theoretically using the Lagrange multiplier method, adjoint variable method, and the formulae of the material derivative. Reshaping is carried out by the traction method proposed as an approach to solving shape optimization problems. The validity of proposed method is confirmed by results of 2D numerical analysis.

In recent years, products consisting of multi-materials have attracted attention due to their potential for drastically increasing product performances and creating new physical characteristics. To facilitate obtaining designs based on the use of multi-materials, a systematic optimal design method especially adapted for use with multi-materials is required. To this end, this paper presents a topology optimization method for multi-materials in which two different materials are represented in the design domain, in addition to a void phase. We apply the Multi-Material Level Set (MM-LS) topology description model, which uses a total number of n level set functions to provide a representation for n materials, and the void phase. The advantage of the MM-LS model is that clear optimal configurations are obtained and the design sensitivities for multi-material structures can be easily calculated. A reaction diffusion equation is solved to update the distribution of the level set functions, which enables control of the geometric complexity of the optimal configuration. This paper is organized as follows. Following a brief introduction, the proposed level-set based multi-material topology optimization method is discussed first. Next, a stiffness maximization problem for a multi-material structure is formulated and we derive the design sensitivities based on the adjoint variable method. Finally, several numerical examples are provided to confirm the validity of the proposed method.

Plastic deformation behavior of bismuth single crystals have been investigated by tensile tests in principal axis at 298K and 423K, and influence of temperature on the plastic deformation behavior has been discussed. A combined deformation mechanism of twinning and slip was observed at 298K in most of axes tested, and elongation was given by mainly the slip inside the twin crystals. On the other hand, the slip deformation was the predominant mechanism for any axes at 423K and the twinning was not observed. {1102}<1101> slip system was operated that was not activated at 298K, since the covalent bonds including in the slip system was depressed at 423K. Thus, the plastic deformation of bismuth changes to metal like behaviour at elevated temperature and anisotropy in the plastic deformation reduces.

With the development of nanotechnology in recent years, many researchers have focused on the fabrication of nanomaterials and nanostructures. To apply these nanomaterials and nanostructures into electronic devices, there are great needs of quantitative measurement of electrical properties of them. To satisfy these demands, we have developed the measurement instrument named microwave atomic force microscopy (M-AFM). Special probes with two unique abilities which are transmitting and radiating the microwaves were used for M-AFM. To improve these abilities, the tip of the probe was changed from slit structure to coaxial one. In this paper the new process of fabrication of coaxial structured probes were described, and the results of M-AFM measurement on the Au/GaAs sample using former slit probe and developed coaxial probe were presented. M-AFM measurement using coaxial probe obtained the clearer image of microwave responses. Results of measurements indicated coaxial probes have higher resolution in electrical properties measurement.

Power devices are used for resent cars, trains, electric supply system and so on. They are one of the key technologies for saving energy and reducing carbon oxide. Power devises used to be encapsulated in soft gel. However, the encapsulation material is changing to molding resin due to the low cost and higher reliability. Because the power devices in next generation will be used under the temperature higher than 200 °C, the delamination of the molding resin due to thermal stress is the problem to solve. It is important to evaluate the reliability of the delamination between the molding resin and a print circuit substrate in power devices. We will provide the evaluation technique of the delamination reliability of the molding resin.