Development of a single-handed hydrofoil sailing catamaran

A new, high-speed, recreational dinghy has been developed. It is a catamaran with submerged hydrofoils, which allow the crew to control the trim and heel balances. The two hulls are allowed to rotate about a main beam. The hydrofoils, which are attached below each hull, change the angle of attack independently, and the difference between the lift forces acting on each hydrofoil makes the catamaran stable. The stability of the boat is examined by numerical calculations and one-third scale model tests. Received: September 14, 2000 / Accepted: July 3, 2001     

Anti-seismic reinforcement strategy for an urban road network

This paper provides a novel practical method for analyzing an anti-seismic reinforcement (ASR) problem involving hundreds of transportation facilities on an urban road network subject to multiple earthquake risks. The relevant properties of the present method are: (i) it evaluates the performance of an ASR strategy, taking into account traffic congestion and travelers’ trip-making or route-choice behavior; (ii) it estimates the realistic damage patterns on the road network and their occurrence probabilities on the basis of recent advances in structural and earthquake engineering; (iii) it has clear, sensible logic and includes neither a black-box nor a “lottery” in the necessary procedures. We examine the computational efficiency and whether the present method is reasonable by applying it to a test scenario of the Kobe urban and suburban area.     

Application of stochastic inverse theory to marine hydrodynamics

The objective of this article is to give an overview about the stochastic inverse method and its application to an ill-posed inverse problem in marine hydrodynamics. In stochastic inversion, it is possible to take into account inherent measurement and system uncertainties in the solution of an inverse problem in a very simple manner. The stochastic inverse method transforms the original inverse problem into the problem of a probabilistic question. Thus, the solution to an inverse problem is described by a distribution of the unknown parameters. These are some main differences with the deterministic inverse method. Stochastic inversion also provides lots of advantages over deterministic inverse methods such as quantitative parameter estimates, determination of confidence intervals, treatments of arbitrary forward maps, error estimates, or parameter estimates given noisy measurement data. In this work, the robust solution procedure from the perspective of the stochastic inverse method is discussed with two different ill-posed inverse problems in marine hydrodynamics.     

An ill-posed inverse problem of a wing with locally given velocity data and its analysis

Using locally given vertical velocity data around a wing, an inverse formulation is presented to solve a lifting problem. The inverse problem is expressed by a Fredholm integral equation of the first kind. In this paper, the kernel of the integral equation gives a Hilbert–Schmidt integral operator, and therefore the occurrence of ill-posedness in the sense of stability cannot be avoided in a normal topology. This difficulty is solved by using the regularization method for ill-posed problems. A composition mapping is introduced so that local velocity data can be available for this inverse problem. In this paper, the ill-posed inverse problem of a wing is studied using the Landweber–Friedman's regularization method within the framework of linear potential theory. A numerical example demonstrates that only with locally given velocity data is the regularization method accurate and suitable for the present physical problem of an inverse mathematical formulation. Therefore, the lifting problem can be solved by using a locally given fluid velocity instead of a wing geometry. Received: April 13, 2000 / Accepted: April 20, 2000     

Hydrodynamic forces acting on a circular cylinder oscillating in waves and a small current

A complete theory to obtain semianalytical solutions of the wave drift damping for a circular cylinder freely oscillating in waves is developed. The wave drift damping can be significantly increased by heave and pitch motions. Effects of the draft of the cylinder and effects of the water depth are shown. The effective evaluation of the free-surface integral and the corner problem are also discussed, and the computed results of the far and near field formulations are compared. These semianalytical solutions may prove to be important in providing validation of results obtained by numerical techniques such as the higher-order boundary element method.     

降低受电弓噪声

为降低新干线的噪声,必须降低对总噪声贡献极大的受电弓噪声.开发了2种低噪声受电弓,这些受电弓的降噪性能已通过风洞试验得到了证实.通过增强受电弓隔声板声音衰减效果和1列车只用1台受电弓,可进一步降低噪声.     

基于减小微气压波的车头形状的开发

基于减小列车高速运行时所产生的微气压波,介绍了日本新开发的几种车头形状.