Title: Expected functions and activities of academia for the advanced energy saving technologies in industries

Lecturer: Dr. Jun’ichi Sato. Advisor of IHI Corporation, President of The Japan Federation of Engineering Societies, Tsinghua Guest Professor

Time: October 14, 2014, from 16:00

Place: No. 1 Conference Room, Department of Thermal Engineering

Abstract:

The global warming becomes to be serious problem of our earth as violent weather. After the Great East Japan Earthquake, the emission level of CO2 is increasing over 10% in Japan due to no-operation of the nuclear power plants. The total amount of the renewable energies is too small to support our society. The efficient use of the fossil fuels and the energy saving are very important to overcome the energy crisis and to make our sustainable society.

The new technologies concerning the energy efficiency and energy saving will be created by the mutual co-operation between academia and industries. However, the mutual co-operation is very difficult for both sides. The academic results cannot be used efficiently by industrial person who have no understanding of them, and the academic person cannot produce results useful for industries without an understanding of the industrial products and its operation. The barrier between academia and industries is the difference of language and the lack of understanding for the discussion items. Concerning the former one, the words expressing the phenomena and theories are different in each side. For the latter one, the academic person, normally, do not explain the details of assumptions and boundary conditions of their results and theories. On the other hands, the industrial person, normally, do not explain the details of machines, mechanisms, and operational conditions of their products. But each side hopes that the other should understand these in the discussion.

In this presentation, how to achieve the good co-operation between academia and industry will be discussed by using the example of the successful project for efficient use of energy.

Resume of Dr. Sato:

Dr. Sato graduated the Doctor course of Dept. of the Aeronautics of The Univ. of Tokyo at 1976. After graduation, he joined the Research Institute, IHI Corporation, as a researcher. He was promoted as Board Member and the Executive Managing Officer, Director General of Corporate Research & Development at 2006, President of IHI Inspection & Instrumentation Co. Ltd., at 2008, and then Advisor of IHI Co. from 2012. Beside these, he served as guest professors of Univ. of Bremen in Germany at 1997-1998, Tsinghua Univ. in China from 2000, and Tohoku Univ. in Japan at 2004-2005. He also served as Presidents of The Combustion Society of Japan at 2007-2009 and The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers at 2011-2012. He is now serving as President of The Japan Federation of Engineering Societies from 2014.