Yoichi Hattori

Education to Stimulate Students Motivation: Activity Through the Factory for Dreams and Ideas

Kanazawa Institute of Technology (hereinafter KIT) started its education reform in April 1995. The basic principle behind the reform is to develop students who can learn autonomously. The idea comes from education inadequacies up to that time, where instructors “crammed” knowledge into students. KIT established the “Factory for Dreams and Ideas” (hereinafter “Yumekobo” which is the original Japanese name of the facility), a facility open to all KIT students. There they can create things any time they like. The students can utilize “Yumekobo” freely, in the same manner as a library. In Japan, the national holidays and Sundays total sixty-five days in a year leaving three hundred days for potential use of “Yumekobo”. University classes are in session one hundred and fifty days. This means it is necessary for KIT professors and instructors to come up with good strategies to have the students spend the remaining one hundred days in a productive way that will help students to raise their academic performance. To facilitate increased performance, KIT built a library center in 1982. There, learning takes place mainly through reading books. However, we felt that another new facility to stimulate students’ interest in creating things would be an excellent way to motivate further learning for the students. Here the author will explain present state of “Yumekobo” and how it has helped students continually seek to implement their ideas, especially through team activities.Copyright

On the Strength of Composite Steel-Concrete Structure of Sandwich System (6th Report: Ultimate Toughness under Shear and Bending Model)

Offshore structures should have a high degree of structural safety even under extreme enviromental loadings. The authors have studied a composite steel-concrete structure of sandwich system for the strength members of huge offshore structures, where concrete is placed between steel plates.In the previous papers, the authors carried out both experimental and theoretical investigations into the strength of the composite structure. It was clarified that the composite structure has various excelent properties: The ultimate load-bearing capacity of the composite structure is very high and it can absorb a great deal of energy until failure under any type of loading conditions.In the present paper, the authors carried out both experimental and theoretical investigations into the dynamic toughness of the sandwich composite structures. Experiments were carried out using the two dimensional models of composite structure under high speed loading. A nonlinear analysis was developed to predict the toughness of sandwich beam under dynamic load, where the material non linearities of both concrete and steel with strain rate were taken into account. The nonlinear analysis accurately represented the behavior and toughness of the sandwich beam structure.

Residual stress and deformation of PMMA due to thermoviscoelastic behavior.

This paper is concerned with the residual stress and deformation of PMMA beam produced by rapid cooling from both sides under various temperature conditions. The theoretical value of the residual stress and deformation of this beam are calculated by using the fundamental equations based on the linear viscoelastic theory. On the other hand, the specimens were then actually subjected to rapid cooling under the same temperature conditions. After rapid cooling, the residual stress and deformation are measured. The experimental and theoretical results are then compared and discussed.