Civil Engineering

This course focuses on the basics of infrastructure as a complex system, giving priority to the interdependencies across infrastructure, and how these links result in macro infrastructure properties, such as resilience, security, and adaptability. Challenges for infrastructure including climate change are elaborated in the context of infrastructure as a system of systems. Exciting opportunities from digitalization, decentralization, democratization, decarbonization, etc. are exposed, highlighting the connectedness of nature, society, and engineered systems. It is essential for future engineering leaders to appreciate how their sectoral systems create stakeholder value and deliver critical services in the context of infrastructure as a whole, and how these values and services change over time. The course also provides an overview of transdisciplinary approaches and methods for the analysis and visualization of infrastructure, equipping students with the skills to communicate challenges, opportunities, and recommendations to improve outcomes from infrastructure throughout its lifecycle.

Mechanics of Materials utilizes models that drastically simplify the geometry of structures/components to be designed and the loading modes acting on them, while retaining their essential feature. Based on the simplified models the fundamental and necessary knowledge of their mechanical responses is derived and therefore provides the design of the structures/components. This course is intended as an introduction to mechanics of solids to engineering students. It presents the underlying theories and formulations for the description of stress/strain and deformations under various types of loading.
 

Mechanics of Materials II discusses the loading mode of bending in addition to tension/compression and torsion treated in Mechanics of Materials I. Beams subjected to bending moments are extensively analyzed. This course covers topics such as (1) Theory of beams, which allows us to calculate bending/shear stresses in beams and their deflections; (2) Energy methods such as Castigliano’s theorem, and (3) Compression-induced failure such as buckling. 

By the end of the course, students should be able to calculate the stresses and deformation and determine the condition of buckling in simple structures/components such as beams and frames. 

The Individual Research Training Senior (IRT Senior) Course is an advanced course of the Individual Research Training A (IRT A) course in the Tohoku University Junior Year Program in English (JYPE) in the fall semester. Though short-term international exchange students are not degree candidates at Tohoku University, a similar experience is offered by special arrangement. Students are required to submit: an abstract concerning the results of their IRT Senior project, a paper (A4, 20-30 pages) on their research at the end of the exchange term, and an oral presentation on the results of their IRT Senior project near the end of the term.

This graduate course offers a series of introductory lectures, taught by professors in the convergence major group, on research topics relevant to the core technologies of smart cities. Topics include smart city engineering, technology management, economics, policy analysis on the industrial economy, smart city environment and landscape architecture, city planning and design studies, data science and computer-based information systems, robotics and autonomous vehicle engineering technologies, and administrative governance and global issues.

This is research project conducted with the E3 Research Group. This project analyzes the cost and emissions benefits of using Gogoro scooter banks as vehicle-to-building resources.  The group will be formulating a linear program model and will be implementing it using Python. 
 

This course provides fundamental knowledge of dynamic atmospheric air quality in a changing world. The topics cover the effects of emission sources and pollutants, air quality assessment, atmospheric reactions of air pollutants, principles and implications of vertical mixing and transport of airborne pollutants, and air pollution control strategies and devices. This enables students to understand dynamic atmospheric processes and to identify air pollution issues associated with varied energy sources and economic development. Students also learn to assess air quality, quantify air pollutant levels, devise control strategies and recommend engineering solutions to enhance air quality.

This course provides the foundation for three key components of zero energy communities: buildings, mechanical systems, and renewable energy systems. The course covers fundamental topics in building physics such as psychrometrics, solar geometry, and heat transfer in buildings, which is the foundation for designing passive buildings. It also examines energy efficient mechanical systems and renewable energy systems, which is essential for the design of zero-energy communities. 

This course provides an introduction to geotechnics. Topics include physical indexes, soil classification, notions of sampling and surveying, tensions in the soil, resistance wraps, compressibility, and shear strength, stability analysis (slopes, embankments, and excavations), thrusts at rest, retaining structures, gravity walls, direct and deep foundations, drainage, and lowering of the water table.

This course provides research training for exchange students. Students work on a research project under the guidance of assigned faculty members. Through a full-time commitment, students improve their research skills by participating in the different phases of research, including development of research plans, proposals, data analysis, and presentation of research results. A pass/no pass grade is assigned based a progress report, self-evaluation, midterm report, presentation, and final report.