Civil Engineering

In contemporary building design, sustainability has emerged as a fundamental element. With the growing urgency of climate change and limited resources, the imperative to create buildings that prioritize minimal environmental impact and maximize human comfort has also intensified. Sustainable building can make a crucial contribution in this regard. But what defines a sustainable building and how can a building be designed in a sustainable way? The course provides both theoretical and practical learning materials to address this question. Participants will acquire general knowledge and skills in the fields of sustainable building and building performance simulations. They will be able to gain a deeper understanding of the interactions between various factors when designing or conducting evidence-based analyses of a building's sustainability. Key topics will include: principles of sustainable buildings, future trends, chances, and aims of sustainability by buildings, functional and aesthetical quality of buildings, systems for environment friendly energy supply, thermal comfort and indoor air quality, fundamentals of building performance simulations, and simulative analysis of buildings. The first two weeks cover the theoretical segment and the subsequent two weeks consist of collaborative work on small-scale projects with supervision from lecturers. Furthermore, there will be three excursions in Berlin, where attendees will experience real-life examples of sustainable buildings and plants.

In this research course, students chose from a range of research topics in various academic fields and receive one-on-one training from an experienced mentor who helps them refine research ideas, formulate questions, define methods of data collection, execute a plan, and present findings. Students review background information for their project, summarize its key outcomes, write a clear and concise research paper or report, and present results orally.

Mechanics of materials is a branch of applied mechanics that deals with the basic behavior of solid bodies subjected to various types of loading. The knowledge of the stress and strain set up within the bodies and resulting deflection is a prerequisite for the structural design of industrial products and infrastructures such as buildings, roads, bridges, and various equipment. In this course, the basic idea of structural design is provided based on the quantitative evaluation of mechanical stress and strain fields in various structures.

The course comprises basic parts from rigid body mechanics as well as deformable body mechanics and strength of materials. In rigid body mechanics, both static and dynamic problems are treated. In statics, the equations of equilibrium are formulated from free body diagrams, and problems with concentrated as well as distributed forces are handled. The distributed forces come from applications in hydrostatics and the computation of centroids. The dynamics part of the course is based on the laws of Newton. Particle motion is described in linear and curvilinear coordinates and the equations of motion of the particle are established. Equivalent formulations based on the principles of preservation of energy and momentum are also treated. Examples of applications are taken both from daily life experiences such as climbing ladders, moving furniture, riding a bike or a rollercoaster, and technical applications from robotics and ballistics. In deformable body mechanics, the tensorial concepts of stress and strain are first defined. The relations between stress and strain, i.e. constitutive laws, for different materials are established and applications from the dimensioning of different simple construction elements (lines, rods, beams, and trusses) are treated. Important phenomena such as fatigue and fracture are also discussed.

This course focuses on the engineering problems specific to the regions of the ocean both offshore and near the coastline. It covers practical approaches for designing offshore and coastal structures and underlying physical processes such as waves, tides, erosion, and other coastal and offshore processes. The coursework project relates to topics such as the design of coastal or offshore structures, design of offshore renewable energy facilities, and coastal defense planning.

The course is practically oriented, and students work in project groups with the different concepts/change management methods before seminars and with a major project work together with a company (or other organization) during the course. A significant part of the course is made up of literature seminars, where the students actively discuss and analyze research articles in the field.

This course provides individual research training for students in the Junior Year Engineering Program through the experience of belonging to a specific laboratory at Tohoku University. Students are assigned to a laboratory with the consent of the faculty member in charge. They participate in various group activities, including seminars, for the purposes of training in research methods and developing teamwork skills. The specific topic studied depends on the instructor in charge of the laboratory to which each student is assigned. The methods of assessment vary with the student's project and laboratory instructor. Students submit an abstract concerning the results of their individual research each semester and present the results near the end of this program.

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.