Painting, casting and forging account for 60% of total CO₂ emissions by process in the automotive industry. Improving these three processes is an important issue in achieving carbon neutrality. In this paper, the conventional gas burner is replaced with an “infrared heater type sub-stalk heating device”, and the intermediate molten aluminum storage tank “sub-stalk”required to fill the mold with molten aluminum in the casting process is heated and maintained. As an example of realizing a CO₂-free low-pressure casting process, the effect of infrared heating will be explained.

All-air floor radiation heating and cooling system differs from a conventional floor radiation system in that it is superior in maintainability, initial cost, and running cost. In this paper, we introduce the possibility and potential of radiation as a technology that leads to not only energy conservation but also safety, security and health, together with four related technologies that have been continuously developed to make radiation air conditioning more effective.

A circulating-groundwater-type geothermal extraction system was developed to supply ground heat, which is a renewable energy, to an air-conditioning heat pump. The heat media was circulated through a heat exchanger pipe that was positioned inside an underground coil-type heat exchanger tank, which was installed on a shallow underground. By circulating groundwater inside the heat exchanger tank, the efficiency of heat exchange from the groundwater to heat media could be improved. The cascade type thermal extraction system that arranged the plate-type heat exchanger and the underground coil-type heat exchanger tank in series was developed. This new system can extract heat twice and reduce the required pumping discharge to 50%.

This article presents an energy-saving window coating consisting of a shielding agent against both ultraviolet and infrared based on a nano-technology of conductive metal oxide. Coated windowpanes absorb the infrared rays from the sun and keep out the heat flowing into a room. A windowpane can be turned into a transparent parasol. The coating can be applicable from either outside or inside of windowpanes simply using a specially optimized spray gun. A uniform transparent film can be made on wide varieties of glass and film including wire glass, curved glass, large glass and resin. In cold winters, the heat-absorbing windowpanes reduce the outflow of heat from a room, and prevent condensation. Additionally, this film prevent bugs, such as moths, insects, bees, and brown marmorated stink bugs that have a habit of flying towards the UV light emitted by fluorescent lights, from approaching glass. Several works done for existing or newly constructed buildings are illustrated: a work done for a national museum has achieved 17.5% of reduction in electric consumption.

The amount of heat generated is increasing with the recent improvement in the performance of semiconductor products. In addition, the heat generation density is increasing with the high-density mounting of each component. Furthermore, an increase in the amount of heat generated causes an increase in the temperature of the environment in which the Thermal Interface Materials (TIM) is used, and improvement in the heat resistance of TIM is required. In this report, thermal grease is taken up as a TIM, and its tribological features and issues are explained.

We characterized the adsorption and desorption behavior of mixed extreme-pressure (EP) agents at an iron oxide/dodecane interface. The EP agents employed in this study were mixtures of sulfur-type 10,10ʼ-trisulfanediyldistearic acid and phosphorus-type di(2-ethylhexyl)phosphate. The quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring technique revealed that the two EP agents could adsorb on the iron oxide competitively, and the phosphorus-type EP agent inhibited the adsorption of the sulfur-type EP agent. The kinetic friction coefficient was observed to be smaller for the mixed EP agent system than for the single sulfur-type EP agent or the single phosphorus-type EP agent system. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy further suggested that the phosphorus-type EP agent promoted the formation of an oxidized surface film of sulfur components on steel under sliding conditions. This also contributed to the decreased kinetic friction coefficient for the mixed EP agent system. The adsorption inhibition by the phosphorus-type EP agent suppresses consumption of the sulfur-type EP agent in a sliding environment. This leads to the sustainability of the friction reduction effect in a wide range of sliding environments in industry.

High pressure rheology of lubricants is important to know the lubricating states of metalworking and bearings/gears in Elasto-Hydrodynamic Lubrication (EHL) region. In the previous report, I have derived the van der Waals liquid state equation, and applied it to estimate high pressure density. In addition, for three material-specific constants of lubricants included in this equation, which are absolute zero volume V_t=0, liquid constant R_L, and compensation pressure P_R for pressure drop by liquid intermolecular force, the data of various lubricants were collected. In this report, a multiple linear regression analysis was performed with above three material-specific constants as the objective variables and the physical properties /chemical-structures of lubricants as explanatory variables, and then a multiple regression equation was created. As a result, it was clarified that for unknown lubricants, three material-specific constants (V_{t=0 mr-eq}, R_{L mr-eq} and P_{R mr-eq}) in the van der Waals liquid state equation and the high pressure density ρ_mr-eq can be estimated only by analyzing the physical properties and chemical structures using this multiple linear regression equation, without measuring high pressure densities by experiments using a high-pressure density measuring device. The details of the results will be reported.

In recent years, global demand for energy-saving properties in industry is increasing. Especially, bearings are essential for industry, thus its performances, ex. bearing torque, could not be ignored. Grease characteristic is one of the most important factors that determine the bearing performance and it is known that grease fluidity on the raceways particularly influences on bearing torque. However, there are few methods that could reveal microscopic behavior of greases on raceways. In this study, using particle image velocimetry (PIV), a novel observation for grease fluidity on raceways was examined. By the PIV method,differences in grease fluidity depending on the thickener type were investigated and relations between velocity distribution of grease fluidity and bearing torque were discussed. Tested greases are composed of poly-α-olefin as base oil and different types of urea-based thickeners. The results suggested that grease fluidities are significantly different depending on the thickener types and test conditions (entrainment speed). In addition, these differences are related to the torque characteristics of ball bearings.