Facilities and Equipment
The Field of Mechanical Engineering
- “Various machining facilities and research equipment”
- Field of Mechanical Engineering has many machining facilities and research equipment, such as differential scanning calorimeter (DSC, Fig. 1), milling machine, tensile testing machine, GPU-based parallel computing system, environmental test chamber, etc.
The Field of Electrical, Electronics and
Information Engineering
- “Quantum Device Laboratory”
- We have a metal that exhibits a mysterious property of superconductivity at extremely low temperatures near absolute zero. At the quantum device laboratory, we are making electronic devices using niobium metal, which becomes a superconductor.
This electronic device has a sandwich structure with two pieces of "bread" being superconductors, and the "meat" part of the sandwich being a thin oxide film. When this oxide film is very thin, even if a current is passed from one superconductor to another, no voltage is present between the two superconductors. This means that a superconducting current is flowing. There is an upper limit for the current that can be passed without the appearance of voltage.
We are investigating how the maximum value of this superconducting current changes by applying magnetic fields to this sandwich structure from various directions. In addition, the magnetic field distribution around the sandwich structure device is also measured with a "magnetometer that vibrates the sample".
The Field of Industrial Engineering and Management
- “Production System Simulator”
- The production system simulator is a piece of equipment for experiments and practical training that enables users to create a virtual factory within a computer. In actual production systems, alteration and trial operation of variables such as processing speeds for various procedures, the size of buffers needed, and the number of machines requires enormous time and expense.
However, by using the production system simulator, researchers can easily change various conditions and observe the results with 3D animation. The production system simulator is used to study methods of designing and operating competitive production systems.
The Field of Applied Physics
- “Low-temperature Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance Apparatus”
- Solid materials can be classified as metals, semiconductors or insulators based on electrical conductivity or electronic band structure. At low temperatures, some metals acquire zero electrical resistance, the property known as superconductivity. In terms of magnetism, some materials display ordered magnetic properties such as ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. Nuclear quadruplole Resonance (NQR) is a powerful technique that investigates the electrical and magnetic properties of materials from a microscopic point of view. This apparatus consists of an NQR spectrometer and a cryostat with Gifford-McMahon refrigerator, and is used for NQR experiments at low temperatures down to ～10 K.
Department of Architecture
- “Structural Analysis Vibration Testing Equipment”
- The table, shaker, and its control unit reproduce ground shaking such as earthquakes in two degrees of freedom.
The photo shows two models of high-rise buildings, one with an earthquake-resistant structure (back) and one with an earthquake-isolated structure (front), mounted on the table to measure their vibration characteristics.
