Diamond cutting tools show severe wear in turning of steels. In previous paper, it was shown that carbides on ferrite phase, which were precipitated by carburization, suppressed the diamond tool wear. In this paper, detailed distribution of constituents of the carbides was analyzed by EDS (energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy). In addition, characteristics of each carbide such as occupancy, diameter, and degree of circularity were measured. Results indicate that those characteristics of the carbides influence suppression of the tool wear.

Powder jet machining is one of blasting processes conducted under room temperature and atmospheric pressure. This process brings both deposition and removal process, and in this study, it refers to powder jet deposition (PJD) and abrasive jet machining (AJM). As an application of PJD, the authors have proposed an innovative dental treatment method with the hydroxyapatite (HA) fine particle. By this method, thick HA coating can be fabricated directly in the human oral cavity. In this study, the effect of the particle impact angle was investigated as a parameter that affects the machining phenomenon. The experiments showed that the machining phenomenon transited depending on the blasting angle. In the vertical blasting condition, PJD process was just observed. On the other hand, in the more acute blasting angle such as 45 deg. or 60 deg. both coating and removal process appeared at the same time and in the most acute angle of 30 deg. only removal process was detected. The TEM observations showed that the impact surface of the HA substrate deformed and the deformation depth increased as the blasting angle get more acute. The smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method was utilized for the analysis for the fracture behavior of the HA substrate. The result indicated that the decrease of the impact angle induced the increase of the strain and the temperature of the interface between the particle and the substrate. Thus it is concluded that the shear stress, which refers to the impact angle, induces the destruction of the substrate by the deformation and the brittle fracture due to the thermal stress.

In end milling, in order to improve machining efficiency and accuracy, instantaneous rigid force model is widely used to predict cutting force and improve cutting conditions. The instantaneous rigid force model is well known as the practically simple model to predict cutting force. However this model requires the six parameters called cutting coefficients which have to be determined by the experimental milling operation. So several experimental milling operations are needed before cutting force prediction. In this study, a new instantaneous rigid force model based on oblique cutting is proposed. In this force model, the end milling process is modeled using the oblique cutting model. Therefore, cutting force prediction can be realized using only the one parameter such as shear angle instead of the six parameters such as cutting coefficients required for a conventional instantaneous rigid force model. The shear angle can be determined from tangential milling force or milling torque. And this force model is easier to apply for practical cutting force prediction, because time and effort to determine the parameter(s) before cutting force prediction. The validation of this force model compared with the conventional force model is performed. As the result, cutting forces predicted by the proposed force model has good agreement with the measured cutting forces. Also, the proposed force model has good performance in a wide range of cutting conditions compared with the conventional force model.

Agile manufacturing that can rapidly machine advanced materials or creative shapes is expected as an important key to realize mass customization of industrial products. Most of high-value-added workpieces have three dimensional and complex shapes. Thus, the workpiece shape and stiffness vary greatly according to cutting procedure during a rough machining operation. The induced displacement of workpiece strongly affects machining accuracy and tool life. However, it is difficult to automatically determine the process planning in commercial CAM system because of a large number of combinations. Therefore, the process planning has been designed by skillful experts to achieve complex parts machining. In order to realize future high efficient machining, it is necessary to obtain these tacit knowledges and to formulate the implicit machining know-how owned by skillful experts. As the first step, a method is proposed to decide workpiece shapes during a rough machining operation to ensure the workpiece stiffness based on topology optimization in this study. Topology optimization that is known as one of the highly flexible structure optimization methods enables to deal with the target configuration and shape. By introducing changeable fixed design domain and discretized characteristic function, an optimization problem can be converted to a problem of material distribution. In this study, the topology optimization is applied to decide workpiece shapes during a rough machining operation. As a purpose of minimizing their mean compliance, the optimized workpiece shape is calculated depending on applied loads at each machining step. By using the calculated workpiece shapes, a case study of complex parts machining is conducted. From the result, it is confirmed that a rough machining operation of complex parts can be achieved according to the decided workpiece shapes.

It is known that the cutting force excites the structural vibration of machine tool. In addition, cutting force acts on feed and spindle drive system as a force disturbance, and feed speed and spindle speed are changed. As the results, cutting force is also changed because the depth of cut and cutting speed are changed due to the machine vibration, feed and spindle speed changes. The purpose of this study is to analyze the coupled vibration between the machine tool behavior and the cutting force. In order to achieve the purpose, in this study, a coupled simulation method of the vibration of machine tool, the dynamic behaviors of feed and spindle drive systems and the cutting force is developed. Cutting force and machined surface geometry is simulated using the voxel simulator in which the workpieces is represented by voxels. Undeformed chip thickness can be calculated based on the relative position between the tool and workpieces, and the tool rotational angle at the each time step based on the voxel model. The cutting force is estimated based on the calculated undeformed chip thickness. The relative position between tool and workpiece at each time step is simulated by the feed drive system and machine tool structural models. The tool rotational angle is simulated by the spindle drive system model. The coupled simulation between the cutting force, structural vibration of machine tool and feed and spindle drive systems is carried out by applying the simulated cutting force and cutting torque as a disturbance to the feed and spindle drive systems and machine tool structure. Cutting tests and simulations are carried out with two kinds of radial depth of cut, 5 mm and 20 mm. It is confirmed that the machine tool dynamic behaviors due to the cutting force and torque which is also influenced by the machine tool behaviors can be simulated by the proposed method. It is also confirmed that the chatter vibration which is observed in case of the 20 mm depth of cut can be simulated by the proposed method.

The ball end mill is used as a tool for cutting the metal mold and some complicated shape lake a screw. The demand for the precise machining of the ball end milling is increasing. The ball end milling has the unavoidable problem of machining error by the elastic deformation of tool because of its low rigidity. So this report is set up the new method of the high precision machining used by the tool orientation control. The machining area at the point of the surface generation is changed depend on the tool orientation of the ball end mill. The geometric mechanism is analyzed and the relationship between the machining area and the tool orientation is clarified. And the cutting force and the machining error are measured by the machining test that the tool orientation has been varied. As the result, it is verified that the machining error becomes large at the point, which the machining area is large. And the machining error estimation index has been proposed and calculated about three dimensional surface.

Recently, the ultra-precision parts have become essential in many areas of advanced technology, including medical equipment, aircraft equipment, optical equipment and so on. These ultra-precision parts are required to have a high surface quality. Therefore, further precise machining and motion accuracy are required for the ultra-precision machine tools that machine these parts. Thus, the water-driven spindle, which is equipped with water hydrostatic bearings and a water-driven mechanism, was developed for ultra-precision machine tools. This spindle has higher stiffness than a spindle supported by aerostatic bearings. However, the heat generation due to fluid viscosity occurs at the bearings. If the temperature of each part in the spindle changes, undesirable deformation of the parts will occur. Deformation of the spindle during the machining process will then degrade the machining accuracy. In contrast, the water-driven spindle uses water as a lubricating fluid. Furthermore, water flow is supplied into the spindle in order to generate the driving power. Therefore, the water flow is an effective cooling medium for the water-driven spindle. Water cooling can be used to improve the thermal stability of the spindle because water has higher thermal conductivity and higher specific heat. In the present paper, the thermal stability of the water driven spindle is investigated experimentally. As a preliminary step, the changes in temperature of the water flow and the outer surface of the spindle are measured experimentally during spindle rotation at various rotational speeds. Furthermore, the influence of the power loss during spindle rotation on the temperature change of the water flow is investigated through calculations and experiments.

The initiation and growth of internal small fatigue cracks with around ten or several dozen μm in Ti-6Al-4V were nondestructively examined by using synchrotron radiation μCT at the large synchrotron radiation facility SPring-8. Lots of grain-sized internal cracks were observed roughly evenly in the observation volume in the specimen; in contrast, only one surface crack was detected. The initiation lives of the internal cracks were widely different for each crack and had no significant correlation with the crack initiation site nor the initial crack size. The internal cracks propagated microstructure-sensitively with several crack deflections, and the growth rates were very small, less than 10^-10 m/cycle. The crack growth rates just after facet formations showed large variability and had no apparent relationship with the crack initiation life nor the initial crack size. This variability can likely be attributed to microstructural inhomogeneities around the crack initiation facets. The estimated facet formation rate indicated that most facets formed rapidly compared with the following internal crack growth rate.

Indentation tests are used to determine the local mechanical properties of materials. Previously, the indentation strain rate was correlated with the strain rate in uniaxial tests based on the hardness, which was the obtained load divided by the cross-sectional area. However, the hardness can be influenced by pile-up of material after indentation. The purpose of this study was to relate the indentation strain rate with the uniaxial strain rate through serration behavior. The material used in this study was 5082 aluminum alloy, whose main alloying elements are aluminum and magnesium, and which is known to exhibit serration at certain temperatures and strain rates. Quasi-static uniaxial tensile tests were performed at strain rates from 10^-4 to 10^-1 s^-1 at room temperature. Micro-indentation using a Berkovich indenter was performed at constant loading rates from 0.7 to 350 mN/s. The loading curvature, which was defined as the load divided by the square of the displacement, was used instead of the hardness to avoid the pile-up effect. As a result, the serrated loading curvature in the indentation tests was obtained as the decreasing loading rate. The effective strain rate, which was defined as the derivative of the load with respect to time divided by two times the applied load, decreased with increasing displacement. The serrated loading curvature changed its behavior as the effective strain rate decreased. It behaved similarly to the serration observed in uniaxial tensile tests. It was found that the indentation strain rate is correlated with the strain rate in uniaxial tensile tests through the serration behavior.

This study is aimed at applying the performance-based maintenance (PBM) concept to determine inspection schedule. Previously, the time-based maintenance concept has been applied to determine the inspection schedule for nuclear plant components. In the PBM concept, frequency of inspection is determined by operation time before the inspection. Duration before the next inspection is extended if the component indicates no cracking for a long time. In this study, the change in structural reliability due to applying the PBM concept was investigated by probabilistic fracture mechanics analyses. In order to calculate the probability of leakage or fracture (failure probability), growth of fatigue cracks initiated at the primary coolant pipe of pressurized water reactor nuclear power plants was simulated considering variations in yield and tensile strengths, fatigue crack growth rate, initial crack shape and so on. It was demonstrated that the failure probability was reduced by performing inspections according to the time-based maintenance concept. Frequency rather than detectability of inspection had a larger impact on reducing the failure probability. It was shown that, by applying the PBM concept, the number of inspections could be reduced significantly without increasing the failure probability. It was concluded that the PBM concept could optimize the inspection schedule.

In order to investigate the fundamental process of residual stress development in thermal barrier coating during thermal spray, a model experiment was conducted using a paraffin wax. Melted paraffin wax was dropped onto a circular substrate of type 430 stainless steel, and strain and temperature were measured on the back surface of substrate. The model experiment revealed that tensile quenching strain was developed during solidification and adhesion process and it was increased with the number of droplets. Development of the quenching strain and failure of paraffin coating were significantly influenced by substrate temperature. The lower substrate temperature caused the larger quenching strain, and facilitated cracking, delamination and debonding of the coating. Findings in a series of the model experiments showed some similarities to actual phenomena during thermal spray, and will provide a helpful suggestion to optimize various process parameters in thermal spray.

Based on experimental observation of liquid dripping, a method to prevent liquid adhesion at the wall of cup was proposed in this paper. When water or sauce etc. is poured from edge of a cup or a pot, the liquid adheres to the wall of cup, which often makes a table or clothes dirty. To clarify the above annoying problem, the flow dripping from the cup, whose edge was shaped to have various thin channels, was observed by using high speed camera. We found the water adhesion on cup's wall reduced when the channels were located at the outside of edge of the cup.

The numerical analysis on the flight stability of the underwater projectiles are performed using computational fluid dynamics code which consists of gas/liquid phases analysis, 2D calculation method. The nose shape effect on the underwater flight stability is conducted. The ogival nose, the flat nose and the spike nose are used for the nose shapes. The static stability is determined by the direction of pressure on the projectile. The pressure on the flat nose makes projectile stable, although pressure on the ogival nose and the horizontal area of flat nose makes projectile unstable. The spike nose is statically unstable, however it is possible to increase the flight stability by changing the spike radius and the spike length. When the part of projectile gets out of the bubble and contacts with water, the water pressure acts as restoring force, which lead to improve the flight stability. This phenomenon is called ‘Tail slapping effect’. Tail slapping effect works most effectively when only backward of the center of gravity of the projectile contacts with water. The Effects is canceled as the angle of attack increases and the front of the projectile contacts with water. As a result, the improvement of stability due to the tail slapping effect is limited.

We have investigated a regime change in the aggregate structures of a suspension composed of magnetic cubic particles in thermodynamic equilibrium, by means of Monte Carlo simulations. In concrete, we have addressed the dependence of the regime change on a variety of factors such as the magnetic field strength and the magnetic particle-particle interaction strength. The orientational distribution function and order parameters have been focused on for quantitatively discussing these characteristics. The main results obtained here are summarized as follows. If the magnetic interaction strength is sufficiently large for cluster formation, closely-packed clusters are formed under the combination and expansion of a cluster unit composed of 8 particles. A regime change in the internal structure of aggregates appears in a narrow range of the magnetic interaction strength, which is clearly exhibited by the order parameter employed here. A closely-packed configuration can be clearly characterized by the orientational distribution function; 8 high peaks appear in the orientational space in the case of the closely-packed structure. As the magnetic field is increased, the closely-packed clusters are collapsed and transformed into wall-like clusters along the magnetic field direction. This is because the magnetic moment of each particle has a strong tendency to incline in the magnetic field direction in the situation of a strong magnetic field.

To level the fluctuations in electric power sourced from renewable energy, the transmission network can be spread over a wide area, but this is expected to dramatically increase the renewable energy rate. Therefore, this paper proposes an algorithm that analyzes the maximum amount of renewable energy in the network, and hence optimizes the type of electric power source connected to the transmission network, and the arrangement and capacity of each power source. The proposed algorithm is based on a genetic algorithm, which effectively processes many nonlinear variables concurrently. Accounting for the power interchange in the transmission network and the energy storage in electric heat pumps and heat storage tanks, the objective function plans the arrangement of the electric power sources that maximizes the economic efficiency of the system. The developed algorithm is applied to a renewable-energy network in Hokkaido, Japan. In this area, the introductory rate of renewable energy was 39.5% of the total electricity production. Moreover, the cost of a distributed power-supply network was 9.99 × 10¹⁰ USD. The proposed system is equivalent to 1.88 years of Hokkaido's energy consumption.

Entrainment process of surrounding fluid for a diesel spray is investigated based on the momentum theory and 1-D simple spray model developed by Musculus et. al. Entrained fluid distribution along the spray axis is theoretically estimated. The results show that the absolute value of entrainment velocity depends on axis location and is inversely proportional to the distance from the nozzle. Therefore, the large amount of entrained fluid comes from the upstream region near field of nozzle. 1-D simple spray model is performed for the same target and the effect of the injection rate on entraining process is clarified.

Toward the improvement of performance of the electric vehicle (EV), the design of the motor shape appropriate to heat removal is important. A typical EV motor is composed of a pair of coaxial cylinders with a fixed outer cylinder (stator) and a rotating inner cylinder (rotor). Some EV motors have axial slits on the stator wall. The present study numerically clarifies the physical mechanism of difference of Nusselt number between the case with slit and without slit. The heat transfer of the gap between the rotor and stator was obtained by the numerical calculation. A vortex structure observed by flow visualization experiment was reproduced in the numerical simulation, and velocity profiles showed good agreement with experimental data. The heat transfer rate for the case with slit in the high rotational speed was increased compared with that for the case without slit. Nusselt number was decomposed into the three terms which were the advection, turbulent transport and diffusion terms; the advection term of heat flux for the case with slit was increased compared with that for the case without slit because of the vortex structure. The Nusselt number on the slit surface was increased compared with that on the gap surface for the case with slit. It was implied that the difference of Nusselt number between the case with slit and without slit was caused by the presence of the vortex structure in the slit and the increase of heat flux for the case with slit.

This paper verifies the validity of the prediction model of clothes behavior by using random number. Outer tub of a front-loading washer-dryer is supported by the vibration isolation structure because the imbalance of clothes inside the drum causes vibration in dehydration. The imbalance beyond an acceptable level is modified by the dehydration control system to reduce the vibration. However, the modification of imbalance causes an extension of operation time. Therefore, it is important to estimate the numbers of modification in initial design stage in order to reduce vibration and operation time. In this study, dehydration simulator was proposed to estimate the numbers of modification using Monte Carlo approach. This simulator consists of three steps; the first step is to generate random numbers following the probability distribution of clothes behaviour obtained by experiment, the second step is to count the random numbers beyond threshold as the numbers of modification, and the third step is to repeat previous steps and to obtain the average number of modification. As a result, the maximum absolute difference of the average number of modification between experiment and prediction was 1.6 times. In addition, the relationship between the threshold and the average number of modification requires about 80 days to be obtained in experiment, but it is shown that the relationship was predicted within a day in proposal method. These results would provide the validity of the proposed approach.

We propose curve contour detection algorithm for road white line detection based on Helmholtz principle. White line detection is widely used in driver support systems used mainly in highway or major arterial road. As the common road will be the target of operational area for autonomous vehicle, it is thought to be necessary to develop a new detection algorithm that can deal with various types of road. This paper proposes model-less algorithm that is constructed on a new edge feature inspired by Helmholtz principle through the analysis of the limit of Hough transform. This feature is basically same as Hough defined feature of edge count on the line except two remarkable points. The one is the restriction of count area and the other is the way of count which affords to detect curve line as well as straight line. Implementation by convolutional neural network is explained and the relation between tunable parameters and the detection performance as well as the processing time are discussed. Comparison between conventional methods such as Hough transform or machine learned contour detection algorithm BEL is explained for test image and images taken by on-board camera to show the superiority of proposed algorithm. We demonstrate that proposed algorithm that can apply to diverse road environments but is hardly affected by noise can be realized.

This study proposes a movement control system based on model predictive control (MPC) with state expressed identity disturbance observer (DOB). The proposed controller removes tracking errors of control variables due to disturbance influences. The DOB estimates the motion state as well as the disturbance acted to controlled plant. This paper assumes two types of disturbances acted to control input and to control output. The input disturbance is a steady and the output disturbance is not always steady. The presented MPC system including the DOB is robust and it suppresses disturbances via the special design method. The feasibility of the MPC-based control system is conrmed in the situation under the input and output disturbances. Finally, the proposed method is evaluated via the simulation related to a cart traveling along a straight line.

When developing rehabilitation assist suits, safety consideration for patients is crucial. Computer-aided control techniques can improve their safety. However, when the computer breaks down, the assist suit may be dangerous for the user because of its unintentional motion. Therefore, assist suits with hardware-based safety devices are desired to guarantee safety even when the computers do not operate properly. In this paper, we present a new rehabilitation assist suit equipped with a velocity-based safety device and a torque limiter. The assist suit assists a patient's knee joint. The velocity-based safety device switches off the assist suit's motor if it detects an unexpected high joint angular velocity. The torque limiter cuts off the torque transmission if it detects an unexpected high joint torque. These safety devices will work even when the computer breaks down, because they consist of only passive mechanical components without actuators, controllers, or batteries. Firstly, we describe the features of the assist suit with the safety devices. Secondly, we introduce the structure of the assist suit. Thirdly, we explain the structure and mechanism of the velocity-based safety device. Fourthly, we show the prototype assist suit that we have developed. Finally, we present experimental results to verify the effectiveness of the velocity-based safety device installed on the developed assist suit.

We previously proposeda power assist robot and conductedexperiments for cervical cord injury(CCI) patients. This paper proposed a new type of robot orthosis by making of their residual function around their shoulder in order to operate the wheelchair. A lock/unlock mechanism on the elbow joint is effectively used to transmit the residual function around the shoulder to the hand. We confirmedthat three patients with CCI could use their residual functionaround their shoulderand operate a wheelchair effectively in outdoor environment like high resistance roads and roads with a slope by measuring velocity of the wheelchair and electromyography of his shoulder muscle.

This study aims at realization of passively adjustment of compensation force generated by Mechanical Gravity Canceller (MGC). If an object attached to MGC is changed, it needs to adjust spring force for accurate balance. In the previous studies, self-tuning load compensable mechanism for MGC is developed. The mechanism can compensate torque of both manipulator's weight and load by using springs. However, the mechanism has a weak point that is necessary to rehang the spring as the load changes. More energy is required to rehang the spring than to lift the object which isn't compensated. For a solution of this problem, a passive adjustment mechanism is developed. The passive adjustment mechanism has two springs. One of the springs (spring 1) compensate its weight and another spring (spring 2) compensate load. Then spring 2 weigh load by changing displacement and the displacement change the compensation force of spring 2 passively. Therefore, the passive adjusting Mechanism can compensate its weight and arbitrary load completely. Moreover, to improve safety, the mechanism applies to an up-and-down system of the arbitrary load. The testing machine realizing proposed mechanism is 19 kg and can compensate from 0 kg to19 kg arbitrary load. Relative errors of compensation power of the machine are under 10 % and relative charged energy converges 10.5 % as increasing weight of load.

An ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) actuator is an electric driven soft actuator. It is fabricated by chemically plating metal on both surface of an ion-exchange membrane. It is able to be activated by a simple driving circuit and low applied voltage (0.5-3 V). However, a precise control of the IPMC actuator is difficult because of individual difference and characteristics changes from environmental conditions. To solve this problem, we applied the stochastic ON/OFF controllers to the integrated IPMC actuator with parallel connections. The controller consists of a central controller and distributed controllers. The central controller broadcasts a control signal as an error signal to distributed controllers uniformly. The distributed controllers switch the ON/OFF states based on the broadcasted signal stochastically. The central controller dose not measure the states of each IPMC actuator, and the control signals is calculated by using the output signal of the integrated actuator and reference signal. The validity of the applied methods was investigated through numerical simulations and experiments of displacement control. The proposed method was demonstrated to be useful as in the case that some actuator elements fail.

This paper analyzes metal-mold polishing by human hands. The metal-mold polishing generally requires long experiences about polishing works. Although experienced persons have many excellent skills, it is a little difficult to evidently teach them to beginners in words because most skills are considered to depend on their physical and intuitive memories. Thus we attempt to bring out the characteristic skills about metal-mold polishing by human hands. This paper mainly discusses the difference of polishing skills between experienced persons and beginners. First, a new data acquisition tool is developed to obtain polishing data, which is designed similar to old tools used by experienced persons. The tool basically consists of a small grasping spatula, a grindstone chip, a force sensor, and a 3D motion sensor. Second, basic data acquired from the developed tool are explained, and the estimation method about some kinds of data is proposed, which are not directly obtained from the sensors attached to the tool. Third, the characteristics between experienced persons and beginners are carefully compared from the view of the tool angle, the polishing velocity, the pressing force, and the mean power of polishing. Then, we focus on the phase trajectories between the polishing position and velocity, and the resistant forces appeared in forward and backward polishing. In order to understand the interesting phenomena about the phase trajectories and resistant forces, a simple dynamical model is newly assumed, and the model evidently explains the phenomena. Finally, the main results and future works are summarized.

Wear of sliding surfaces in machinery is one of the major causes of mechanical failure. Thus, detecting wear on sliding surfaces is very important for preventing mechanical failure. Current diagnosis methods for detecting wear particles such as a spectrometry oil analysis program, particle count method and ferrography method are very useful for it. However, these methods need high cost, expertise and long time for the analysis. Moreover, the particle count method can only measure the size and the number of particles and it cannot indicate whether the lubricating oil is degraded by oxidation or solid particles. Therefore, the diagnosis method which can evaluate degradation cause and level of lubricating oil is required for effective maintenance. The authors have developed a new diagnostic method for lubricating oils by the colorimetric analysis of membrane patches. In the previous study, we reported that there is a good correlation between membrane patch color and contamination in lubricating oil. From the results of our previous study, it is possible to diagnose wear on sliding surfaces by using membrane patch color. The purpose of this study is to develop new wear monitoring method of sliding surface in machinery by using membrane patch color. First, we conducted filtration tests to investigate degradation causes of lubricating oil in actual machinery. The results showed that they are classified into solid particles and/or oxidation products. Secondly, we prepared oil samples which were artificially degraded by solid particles and/or oil oxidation products based on the filtration test, and we conducted wear tests in the degraded oils by using block-on-ring tester. The results presented that it is important to detect not only the number of particles but types of particles for the monitoring of wear on sliding surfaces. Finally, we investigated the relation between ISO cleanliness code and membrane patch color and we proposed a new parameter Ic using the ISO code. As a result, it is shown that it is possible to detect wear on sliding surfaces easily using Ic and membrane patch color.

In high speed turning, six kinds of materials, namely, Ti-6Al-4V, Inconel718, SUS304, S50C, Copper and Aluminum are machined with a ceramic cutting tool in order to investigate the influence of the cutting speed on the temperature of the cutting tool experimentally. The cutting temperature is measured by the two-color pyrometer with an optical fiber which is developed by the author. In cutting of Ti-6Al-4V and Inconel718 with Al₂O₃ ceramic tool, the cutting temperature increases with the increase of cutting speed and approaches to the melting points of the workpiece materials. The thermal conductivities of these difficult-to-cut materials are small, and Al₂O₃ ceramic has a small thermal conductivity and maintains a high strength even at the temperature of about 1000°C. In the cases of Copper and Aluminum, their thermal conductivities are much larger than those of Ti-6Al-4V and Inconel718, so that the cutting temperature increases so slowly with the increase of cutting speed that it is difficult to approach to the melting points of the workpiece materials.

Arterial endothelial function is known as a factor that correlates with progression of arteriosclerosis. This is measured by flowmediated dilatation (FMD) testing. This test is performed by measuring the brachial artery diameter with an ultrasound system or by measuring digital pulse volumes. Technical and cost-related problems have been pointed out for both methods. We came up with an idea to apply the near-infrared light-based vascular visualization to the measurement of changes in vessel diameter. So, at first, we investigated whether the FMD reaction can be detected with near-infrared transmission images. Next, we derived the estimated values that is considered to correspond to the FMD reaction from the vascular image change. We aimed to determine if these estimated values correlate with brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV), which is related to arteriosclerosis. In 50 adult males varying in age, the right upper arm was compressed with a cuff at 200 mmHg for 5 min to cause the FMD reaction after the cuff release. In a 11-min period including time points before and after the cuff compression, near-infrared (wavelength: 850 nm) transmission images near the bilateral finger joints were taken with a CCD camera. The mean brightness was calculated from the images. While no major temporal changes in mean brightness were observed before cuff release, the mean brightness of the hyperemic finger sharply decreased after cuff release. This result suggested that the FMD reaction can be detected with near-infrared transmission images. When the brightness decrease ratio (BDR1) before and after cuff release were compared among age groups, BDR1 at age 50 over years group was significantly smaller than that at age 20-29 years group (p<0.05). BDR1 showed a significant negative correlation with baPWV (R=0.34). This measurement method is considered to have a possibility of estimating FMD reaction and arterial endothelial function.

Badminton is one of the most popular sports in the world and is famous as the sport having the fastest initial velocity of a batted ball among all ball games. Initial velocity immediately after smashing may reach up to 408 km/h (113 m/s) at maximum. A badminton shuttlecock generates significant aerodynamic drag and it was confirmed that the high deceleration characteristics was related to the slots located at the leg portion of a shuttlecock in the previous study. Turnover refers to the flipping experienced by a shuttlecock when undergoing heading change from nose pointing against the flight path at the moment of impact and a shuttlecock indicates the aerodynamically stable feature for the flip movement just after impact. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of gaps on the aerodynamic stability (turnover stability) of a badminton shuttlecock during the flip phenomenon. In the present study, the flow field around the shuttlecock during impulsive change of an angle of attack (flip movement) was measured by using the smoke flow visualization and the behavior of the shuttlecock during the flip movement was evaluated in comparison with that of the conic model (with no gaps). The turnover stability of a badminton shuttlecock is affected by gaps of the shuttlecock skirt.

Falling from the bed is a common type of accident and places considerable burdens on patients and nurses. Structural and risk factors for the occurrence of falls have been identified, but fall prevention remains extremely difficult due to the patient’s physical, mental, and social factors and treatment environment. Most fall prevention measures involve ascertaining the risk of falls through the use of risk assessment score sheets and bed sensors, but there are few measures for active fall prediction. To develop a method for fall prediction, we applied area trajectory analysis and spectrum analysis to the characteristics of center-of-gravity variation in certain movements. We used these analysis methods and applied Support Vector Machine (SVM) that is one of the methods of machine learning. Experiments were performed with 5 healthy male and female. Each participant performed 3 movements, Reach out, Bed rail and Active, on a bed for 1 min each, during which time-series data on center-of-gravity variation were recorded. In the micro-average about unknown data, the Precision rate was 90.6%. To evaluate the movements respectively, Active were both higher in Precision rate and Recall rate. However in the Reach out has low Precision rate and that likely cause misinformation, in the Bed rail has low Recall rate and that likely cause overlook. The results of this study suggest the possibility of fall prediction through center-of-gravity analysis. In the next step about this study, need to explore the discriminate about static posture and improvement in accuracy by increasing the learning data.

Ball shooting machine (pitching machine) is used for practicing ball sports, and it is widely prevalent. However, there are few pitching machines that can throw a ball with a gyro spin, such as a football or rifle bullet, in which the axis of the ball spins in the same direction as the ball travels. In this study, a new ball shooting machine, which can throw in the ball in a wide range of speeds and all pitch types (no, top, down, side and gyro spin balls) was invented by introducing a launch mechanism using four rollers (two launch and two gyro rollers). The shooting machine is able to arbitrarily change the rotational speed of the four rollers and the crossing angle of both gyro rollers. Shooting tests were conducted using the prototype shooting machine to confirm the ability of its performance. From the experiment results, the prototype machine had a maximum ball speed of 42.5 m/s, a spin rate of exceeding 5000 rpm, and a ball of any pitch type could also be shot. In addition, the position accuracy (shot accuracy) at the targeted fall position in the opponent's court was high because the gyro spin and other pitch types (no, top and side spins) were less than 140 mm and 40 mm (the diameter of one table tennis ball), respectively. The prototype machine had the necessary launching performance for table tennis practice of a college student level.

This research aims to develop capability of on-site staffs that can respond to beyond ‟design basis accident (DBA)” in the sophisticated socio-technical system, in which ensuring safety has been more complicated. Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is therefore considered as the actual case of “beyond DBA”. The authors focused on the actions to prevent the accident progression undertaken by on-site staffs, which were hardly evaluated in existing accident analyses and reports. With reference to the concept of resilience engineering, “Responding” of the four cornerstones was particularly analyzed. Based on the precedent studies, causal factors of modeling “Responding” where pointed out the importance of “Attitude” that is a new lesson learned from on-site response at the accident. In addition, new lessons learned on improvement of skills indicated the limit of the concept of risk removal type safety as a safety goal that human is defined as “a safety hazard element”. This led the necessity of the success expansion type of safety as a new safety goal that human is defined as “a resource necessary for system flexibility and resilience”. Focusing on “Responding” on-site enabled to deduce core competence by extracting causal factors. Thus, new lessons learned successfully derived introduced for human resource development of the next generation to lead technologies in the society.

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 derailment coefficients for the leading outside wheel of a railway bogie running on sharp curves. Therefore, the detailed force induced mechanism which influences the value of derailment coefficients should be clarified. One of the most dominant factors affecting the value of derailment coefficients is magnitudes of the coefficient of friction (COF) between wheel and rail. Since the gauge corner of the outer rail and the top of the inner rail are lubricated at some sharp curves, COF of wheels of a bogie are different from each other and show complicated variation. In this study, the effect of lubrication for the running safety of the railway bogie is investigated while considering the detailed force induced mechanism of the derailment coefficient increase utilizing both multibody dynamics simulations and experiments. Experiments and simulations are conducted with a roller-rig test equipment under various conditions of wheel/rail lubrication. In this research, a method to identify whether the bogie is in suitably lubricated condition in terms of running safety is discussed. The proposed method making use of the longitudinal force measurement with mono-link type axle supporting device is mentioned.

The integrity of railway axles is a critical aspect for ensuring the safety of a railway system. Therefore, non-destructive inspections such as ultrasonic testing and magnetic particle testing are conducted periodically. Some railway operators conduct ultrasonic tests directly on axles mounted on the train. However, the axles have to be disassembled for conducting magnetic particle testing. In the present study, the effects of variable amplitude stress acting on cracks and axle bending stress during ultrasonic test on ultrasonic response are discussed. An ultrasonic test was conducted using a full-scale axle specimen that had fatigue cracks and no artificial notches. The ultrasonic response was evaluated for the cracks whose lengths were 10 mm, 16 mm, and 19 mm. Under an unloaded condition, the ultrasonic response for the 16-mm-long and 19-mm-long cracks was approximately 4 or 7 times higher than that for the 10-mm-long crack, although the cross-sectional area of each of these cracks was approximately 2.5 or 3.5 times larger than that of the 10-mm-long crack. The obtained results indicate that the contribution of the reflection area to the ultrasonic response under a variable amplitude stress differs from that under a constant stress condition. Moreover, the influence of axle bending stress ranging between -50 MPa to +47 MPa on the ultrasonic response was investigated. A higher bending stress led to a higher ultrasonic response. However, the decreasing rate of ultrasonic response caused under compressive stress was lower than the increasing rate under tensile stress. For example, the ultrasonic response was approximately 2 dB lower than that under the unloaded condition at a compressive stress of -30 MPa; however, the ultrasonic response showed an increment of approximately 4 dB at a tensile stress of 30 MPa. A similar trend was observed in the crack of each length. The results denote that the crack position influences the precision of crack detection in ultrasonic inspection. However, considering that the maximum static bending stress of axles used in Japan is 30 MPa, its effect on inservice axle inspection is negligible.