Tokyo, Japan Project Center - MQP
This project center is centered around Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT), an engineering-focused university with a campus in the heart of downtown Tokyo. SIT is a very urban campus in a single large 14-story building housing teaching and research facilities. The location is beautiful, in an artificial archipelago a short bridge-walk from the heart of downtown Tokyo. It is slightly larger than WPI (~6000 undergrads 2000 grad students), and has ten full-time staff focused on international programs. SIT hosts about 1000 visiting students per year from all over the world. The building is engineered to resist damage during earthquakes: during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, not a single book fell from the library shelves. It also includes a "Tech Plaza" comparable to the Innovation Studio labs, this one with optical and electron microscopes, X-ray diffraction and tomography, and other equipment, all of which are available for use by appropriately trained students. Students have completed MQPs since 2019.
Projects are hosted by the research groups of Prof. Naoki Ono, the primary site host, and Prof. Hiroyasu Saito. Naoki Ono’s group works on novel thermo-fluid devices in many areas, from heat pipes to Marangoni devices to capillarity effects. The group has considerable experience at the interface of experimentation and validated mathematical modeling (mainly Finite Element Analysis) in order to understand fundamental behavior and devise novel innovations. Hiroyasu Saito’s group works on combustion science including spray atomization dynamics.
Project topics are determined by Prof. Ono and Prof. Saito at SIT. In 2019, the one MQP project was on characterization of fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of a new class of fibrous porous metal materials, likely to be used for enhanced heat transfer to fluids or boiling or electrochemical reactions. There may be additional opportunities across SIT for interested students. For example, in 2020, a student did a virtual MQP with Prof. Yasmin Bhattacharya on resilient urban systems.