Fluid Power Research Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Engineering Kanagawa University Japan


Location Yokohama, Japan
Contact Persons Prof. Eizo Urata, Prof. Eiichi Kojima,
Assoc. Prof. Yohichi Nakao
Address Department of Mechanical Engineering,Faculty of Engineering
Kanagawa University
Kanagawa-ku
Yokohama, Japan
Telephone number +81 45 481 5661, Extension-3370 (Urata)
Fax number +81 45 481 5122
Email uratae01@kanagawa-u.ac.jp
kojime01@kanagawa-u.ac.jp
nakao@cc.kanagawa-u.ac.jp
Internet Site http://www.mech.kanagawa- u.ac.jp /lab/urata_lab/

From Editor

International Journal of Fluid Power would like to introduce the fluid power research and education centres with their expertise and particular interests in this column. Jumping from continent to continent we like to offer every research centre the opportunity to present itself.


FLUID POWER RESEARCH CENTRES WORLD-WIDE


Introduction

Kanagawa University is a medium-sized private university in Japan. It comprises six faculties: law, economics, management, foreign languages, science, and engineering; in addition, it has three night schools and five institutes. There are 14,000 undergraduate students and 400 graduate students enrolled at the university.
The faculty of engineering comprises five departments: mechanical engineering, electric-electronic and information engineering, applied chemistry, industrial management, and architecture. Approximately 3,100 undergraduate students and 200 graduate students are enrolled in the faculty.
The department of mechanical engineering has about 700 undergraduate students and 70 graduate students. The department comprises 16 laboratories. A professor, associate professor or lecturer is responsible for each laboratory.
The departmental members of staff include nine professors, four associate professors, six lecturers, six research associates and six technicians; in total, 31 members of staff are responsible for educating the students.
As research units, each laboratory enjoys complete independence. Among the 16 laboratories, two of them (the Urata and Kojima laboratories) regularly conduct research into fluid power. In addition, a laboratory for manufacturing systems (the Nakao laboratory) studies the application of fluid power.

History

Kanagawa University was originally founded in 1928 as a business school; in 1929, the school became an advanced high school (Yokohama advanced high school) consisting of several departments. In 1939, the school's department of mechanical engineering was changed into the mechanical engineering department of Kanagawa University.
After World-War II, the Japanese education system changed drastically. Many advanced high schools were reorganised into universities. 'Yokohama Advanced High School' became Kanagawa University which only had undergraduate schools to begin with. By 1967, it included graduate schools of law, economy and engineering. Other faculties subsequently set up graduate schools and now one institute and all the faculties have graduate schools.
The three laboratories studying fluid power started as follows: the Kojima laboratory in 1969, the Urata laboratory in 1981, and the Nakao laboratory in 1997.

Education

At present Japan has 702 universities of which 100 are national, 76 are public and 526 are private. Most of the private universities are financed by tuition fees, although the Government also provides about ten to twenty per cent of their budgets.
The main work of most private universities, including Kanagawa University, is the education of under-graduate students. However, their academic staff also educate graduate students and conduct research work, in addition to their compulsory requirement to educate undergraduate students.
Educating undergraduate students is the main work of our department. Teaching staff give three to five lectures per week to undergraduate classes. Most of them also give one to two lectures per week to graduate students. The educational programme of our department includes lectures, exercises, practical work, experiments and tutoring of bachelor theses for undergraduate students, master and doctor theses for graduate students. Periodically, we renew the curriculum to take into account developments in new technology and to match the levels of students as they change with social circumstances.
The research areas of each laboratory are reflected by the tutoring master and doctoral theses. However, the themes of the bachelor theses are selected considering effective education; consequently, they may not coincide with the research subjects of the laboratory. The themes of bachelor theses in the three laboratories are robotics and fluid power in the Urata laboratory, oil hydraulics in the Kojima laboratory, and manufacturing systems and control in the Nakao laboratory.
The numbers of students in the three laboratories are as follows: