Reverse-engineering of the brain attempts to unravel how experimental facts of the brain contribute to brain-like computation. For example, so-called ‘intelligence’ is likely emerged from spontaneously active, super-complex network in the brain, which are distinct from common characteristics in conventional computers. One of the most likely mechanisms of this emergent intelligence is the Darwinian principle. In the cerebral cortex, the theory of neural Darwinism predicts that variation and selection within neural populations are crucial to adaptive computation. We demonstrated that the Darwinian principle may underlie the emergent properties in the brain in both in vitro and in vivo experiments.

The Low temperature differential Stirling engine for a craft workshop was improved. Fine adjustment during assembly is not necessary. Here, the explanation for attendees of a 5-hour-course craft workshop is shown by some pictures.

From the time of 1^st Industrial Revolution which began in the invention of the steam engine, mechanization have been proceeded in order to enrich people's life, uncountable types of products have been manufactured. Since we have concentrated in manufacturing convenience products at high volume and low cost, we have started to destroy our Earth which should have preciously treated. However, we have just now entered into 4^th Industrial Revolution, also entered into a stage where human being should cooperate each other to question ourselves what is the value of “Products” to maintain survivability of mankind while maintaining our rich living standard. I would like to introduce the type of Advanced Engineering and Technology required in order innovative manufacturing for valuable products from limited resource from Aero Engine Manufacturing point of view, which is recognized as a leading edge industry.

It is quite difficult to achieve Energy security supply, Economical efficiency and Global environmental problems at the same time. These are known as the “trilemma” of energy. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Ltd. (MHPS) provides solutions by applying next-generation coal fired thermal power technologies. In addition, flexible operational performance, plant efficiency improvement and O&M (operation and maintenance) optimization are increasingly required due to market changes such as deregulation of electric market, introduction of renewable energy and etc. Therefore, we are engaged in developing ICT platform and various kinds of applications software consisting of three service categories, such as “operation improvement”, “performance improvement” and “O&M optimization”.

The G-Vectoring Control (GVC) system using engine torque control has been developed for mass production. As the concept of G-Vectoring is well known through several researches, G-Vectoring system generates slight deceleration in response to lateral jerk to improve vehicle dynamics. While the researches so far have applied brake control or electric motor control to generate the necessary deceleration, the significance of the newly developed system is to use the high response engine to enhance vehicle dynamics performance. In this paper, the basic concept of G-Vectoring is summarized first, the configuration of the new system will be described followed by subjective and objective investigations into its control effects.

In order to prepare input data efficiently, we focused on Peridigm, a destructive analysis system published on open source, and developed an integration support tool FRAXST using open source tools and Python. By utilizing FRAXST, it was possible to automatically create data files manually, so conversion errors are eliminated and the working time can be drastically reduced, and the use of random numbers disturbs the arrangement of particles and initial irregularities It was also possible to add. Moreover, by incorporating Cython which is an expansion module of Python, we further aimed at faster data conversion. In addition to data conversion, it is possible to set material properties and boundary conditions with easy operation by linking with GUI. In order to verify the effectiveness of FRAXST, we verified by using the example of collisional fracture analysis of flat plate and confirmed the difference between crack propagation due to reproduction of fracture phenomenon of flat plate and initial irregularity.

A finite element code to analyze large-scale collapse behaviors of buildings was developed. It was achieved with a use of an ASI (Adaptively Shifted Integration)-Gauss technique, which dramatically reduces computational cost when solving large-scale problems. One of the applications of the code was a fire-induced collapse analysis of a high-rise tower, which was carried out for an investigation seeking for the true cause of the total collapse of New York World Trade Center (WTC) towers collapsed in 2001. A seismic pounding analysis of the Nuevo Leon buildings, in which two out of the three collapsed completely in the 1985 Mexican earthquake, showed that the difference of natural periods between the north and the center buildings may have triggered the collision, followed by the collapse. Other applications are also shown in the presentation.

A general-purpose three-dimensional thermohydraulics computer science simulation code SPLICE was developed at JAEA and designed to deal with gas-liquid-solid consolidated incompressible viscous flows with a phase change process in various laser applications. The results obtained from various numerical simulations using the SPLICE code are very encouraging in the sense that the SPLICE code would be used as one of the efficient front-loading tools to reduce overhead loads in laser processing.

This paper introduce a recent development of computational fluid dynamics, especially on variations of numerical simulation methods under the continuum assumption for thermal-fluid problems with turbulence, shock wave, interface physics, chemical reaction and flow-structure interaction. For targeting to apply these fluid analyses to a high-performance computing infrastructure in near future, feasibility of universal approach is discussed to figure a possible design of a future CAE by modern numerical techniques for complex fluid problems, such as large eddy simulation of turbulence, TVD approach for shock capturing schemes, level-set and phase-field approach for interface problems and immersed boundary approach for flow-structure interaction.

In computer aided engineering (CAE) of the casting process, it is necessary to simulate the flow behavior including free boundary and moving boundary, the heat transfer phenomenon, and solidification phenomena adequately. The particle-based methods are numerical analysis method of the Lagrangian algorithm, and there is an expectation that it can analyze casting processes which the numerical solution technique of Eulerian algorithms are not suitable for. Therefore, we report on the research situation of the particle-based method simulator in the casting field centering on the case studies conducted by the authors.

Structural weight reduction of transport vehicles plays an essential role in improving fuel efficiency and hence in contributing to the environmental issues. Application of composite materials has been one of the most effective solutions but still remain many problems. The objective of the present roadmap is to overcome the difficulties by integrating the multiscale simulation, design optimization and the advanced production technologies. It is expected that the R&D along this roadmap would realize the highly optimized light weight structure for future transports.

Establishment of fatigue crack healing technology for metallic materials is important to improve the safety and life of machinery and structures. Therefore, the authors developed a novel fatigue crack healing technique removing the oxide film on the crack surface by heat treatment and using plasticity induced crack closure generated during fatigue crack growth as a driving force of the healing. It was found that the resistance of the fatigue crack growth after crack healing was larger as the effect of the plasticity induced crack closure was larger.

For reducing the global energy use and carbon dioxide emission, it is very important to improve the efficiency of widely used motor vehicles. Because it is difficult for battery electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles to replace a large part of the currently used conventional vehicles in short term, to improve the efficiencies of engine powered vehicles is more practical and effective. Recovering waste heats from engine can be a effective technique for improving the vehicle efficiency. This article explains the characteristics of engine heat balance and overviews the prospect of waste heat recovering technologies in engine systems.

The available energy of exhaust gas at the exhaust turbine outlet and EGR gas at the cooler inlet has a big potential to improve brake thermal efficiency (BTE). The improvement in BTE by taking Waste Heat Recovery measure into consideration was predicted 9.6 points at full load operating condition, if available energy of exhaust gas in the high boosted diesel engine is ideally converted into effective work without any losses. However, conversion efficiency of a combined cycle is generally still low. So, the improvement in BTE by the combined cycle was estimated 1.5 points even at full load operating condition.

Steam is mostly utilized as a means for thermal energy supply in industrial fields. It is important to be aware of the steam flow rate in the view point of energy management. However, steam becomes wet in many cases in the process to be sent through steam pipes to machinery using steam. It is well known that the wetness of steam sometimes causes measurement errors of the steam flow rate, and there has scarcely been the established method for estimating the error caused by the wetness of steam flow. Accordingly, we conducted the flow rate measurement of wet steam whose wetness was between 15 % and 40 % using a vortex flow meter, to clarify the measurement error caused by the wetness of steam, following our previous paper whose wetness was less than 15 %. The experiments were conducted with the conditions in changing the flow rate, pressure and wetness. As a result, the correlation between the measurement error and the flow condition was clarified.

Currently, there is hardly another topic so intensively discussed by the public as the progressive digitalization of business process, especially in the implementation of Industry 4.0 concepts. “The vision behind Industry 4.0 is an intelligent factory. The production machines communicate with each other to inform about failures in the production process, to identify material stocks and to order materials” (source: Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany).

At Schaeffler, as well, Industry 4.0 is a central and strategic topic for the future. Components are not only expected to fulfill the mechanical requirements. The collection of data and the monitoring of the machine conditions gain in importance.

Therefore, multifunctional surfaces equipped with sensor properties would be promising technology to realize digitalization age. Schaeffler has successfully developed Sensotect^® that is an innovative sensor coating technology.

Technology of screws made steady progress in reliability of fastening and joining in response to the requirements from the industry and society. While steel screws are widely used in the current industry and their standardization was quite advanced, problems remain unsolved in a certain fastening application. They seem to be not soluble as long as using the conventional screw materials represented by steels. Therefore, we need to take a comprehensive approach to solve the problems not only by enhancing designs but also by innovating materials. Newly developed screws using three unconventional materials, magnesium alloys, metallic glasses, and extremely small-grain pure titanium, are proposed here as a solution of each problem arising recently. The manufacturing processes that play an important role in reliability of screws are presented as well as their mechanical properties in comparison with those of steel screws.

Various numerical analysis techniques have been applied to research and design of rolling bearings. The most important property of rolling bearings is continuing low friction. Stress analysis and oil film analysis are necessary to give the long-term operating life. Approximate models and numerical approaches such as multilevel methods have been developed for highly-efficient computation of the stress and film properties. In order to estimate heat generation and energy loss due to bearing operation, friction analysis is indispensable. The friction force is calculated by considering lubricant viscosity and slip motion of each bearing part. FEM stress analyses are required to improve cage strength and evaluate cage deformation. Recently, there have been attempts to calculate lubricant behavior and interaction between lubricant and bearing parts with the advanced computational fluid dynamic methods. The latest rolling bearings are based on these progressive analysis efforts.

In this paper, we explain about peristaltic movement mechanism with soft actuator, and applications. The peristaltic movement is a radially contraction and relaxation of muscles that propagates of a wave down a tube for example intestine or body of earthworm, in an anterograde direction. The movement provides efficient conveying and strong traction etc. We developed this movement as mechanical device by soft actuator. The peristaltic mixing conveyor was developed in order to mix the solid propellant continuously. The earthworm robot was developed in order to investigate into the pipeline. We explained the performance of these robots.

Based on an aging society and chronic lack of physical therapists in Japan, a rehabilitation device that can recover physical ability of elderly after injuring temporally is required. In ideal, it is better that the patient can use the rehabilitation device without special knowledge at home. In addition, the device must be produced at low-cost so that patients can buy them by themselves without financial support from the government. Therefore, the actuators used in such a home rehabilitation need to be flexible so as not to injure the human body. The compact and light-weight control devices such as a valve, an actuator and a sensor are also required. In this study, an pneumatic soft actuator is introduced. It is a novel flexible pneumatic cylinder that can be used even if the cylinder is deformed by external forces. A flexible wearable robot arm and a portable spherical actuator using flexible pneumatic cylinders for a rehabilitation device of human wrist and arm are also introduced. In addition, various low-cost built-in position sensors for soft actuator and soft mechanisum are introduced. Small-sized and low-cost control valves using vibration motor and buckled tubes for wearable driving system will alos be introduced.

Heat conduction in nano or submicron structures is quite different from macroscale conduction. Nanoscale heat conduction has ballistic process, whereas macroscale one is diffusive, and when a system is a two-phase domain, temperature discontinuities occur on the material interfaces. High-performance devices have been developed by utilizing these nanoscale unique phenomena, especially temperature jumps. However, few reports have focused on optimum design methods for nanoscale heat conduction problems except heuristic or experimental approaches. In this paper, we propose a level set-based structural optimization method for heat conduction problems in nanostructures. The level-set method is an appropriate method for our design problems, since it can precisely consider the discontinuities on material interfaces. We first formulate an optimization problem with general objective functional, then compute a shape sensitivity for the problems. Next, we expand the level set-based structural optimization method proposed by Allaire et al. to our design problem. Then, we confirm the validity of our proposed method through numerical examples. Finally, we conclude this paper with future plans.

This paper describes our approach to product architecture optimal design which aims to maximize customer values of customize based products. While modularization with various options can effectively meet customer needs, excessive options may cause reduction of customer satisfaction. Our approach aims to solve this issue by a refining method of product architecture design with consideration of not only relationships between physical functions and entity structure, but also their relationships to customer needs with three design structure matrixes (DSMs) and two domain mapping matrixes (DMMs). Product architecture is optimally modularized by applying clustering analysis to the linked DSMs and DMMs. An example of product architecture design of an industrial robot is briefly reported. Finally operational issues in applying our method and the associated future works are discussed.