Mechanical engineering plays a key role in resource circulation, energy efficiency, environmental issues, and resolving many other urgent challenges facing humanity today—and the future of this area of study is bright. The modern world needs equipment that performs better, with more sophisticated and intelligent functions, and developing and manufacturing this equipment requires a broad understanding of the many aspects of mechanical engineering.
In order to meet these demands, the Mechanical Engineering program offers four key areas of study: (1) Functional Materials Engineering, which covers material mechanics, materials engineering, surface engineering, micro- and nano-engineering, and industrial processing; (2) Thermofluid Engineering, which studies mechanical systems built on thermo-engineering and hydraulic engineering principles; (3) Intelligent Control Systems Engineering, which covers control engineering, systems control, and robotics engineering; and (4) Mechanical Systems Engineering, which includes machine elements, design engineering, design production systems engineering, automotive engineering, and aerospace engineering. Each course works closely with the others on collaborative topics. Student also develop their problem-solving skills through special research projects and practicum courses in each area, as it is essential that they gain both a thorough understanding of the basics of mechanical engineering and the ability to apply those principles in order to actually develop and create sophisticated equipment.

Industries are demanding higher-performance materials along with the drastic improvements in precision machining and production processing that will allow them to develop and manufacture sophisticated equipment that can help resolve the critical issues facing humanity today, and meet our growing need for minimal resource consumption, energy efficiency, and environmental solutions. Students in this area study mechanical design, stress analysis, material strength, manufacturing processes, environmental durability, functional materials, micro- and nano-technology, tribology, and more, giving them the knowledge practical skills for high-tech material development functional property evaluation, and strength design. Functional Materials Engineering courses include study and research in material mechanics, materials engineering, surface engineering, micro- and nano-engineering, and industrial processing.

Students studying thermofluid engineering

Health, safety, comfort—none of these are possible without sophisticated mechanical systems that make people’s lives easier. Japan’s economic future also now depends on its ability to build the flexible, highly precise, highly responsive systems that can handle high-mix, low-volume production. Students working in this area study and research the development and operational control of all kinds of robots—in-home robots, caregiving robots, highly mobile robots, and more—as well as creating the human behavioral models and intelligent systems that simulate human context recognition methods as well as tools that support automotive operation. Study and research is also carried out in the development of ultra-precision sensors and the intelligent environmental sensing technologies that make use of them.

Mechanical engineers have been assigned the difficult task of developing and manufacturing increasingly high-performance, sophisticated, and intelligent equipment that takes into account our energy and environmental challenges. The purpose of this area of study is to design and manufacture more precise and efficient equipment by improving and further developing the underlying technologies that form the basis of this equipment while at the same time improving and advancing the integration and systemization technologies that make it possible to achieve sophisticated performance results that are impossible using individual base technologies alone. Specifically, students study and research other machine element designs in automotive and aerospace engineering as well as elemental technologies like stress analysis, vibration analysis, noise analysis, and mechanical engineering, using CAD / CAM / CAE tools as well as optimal design strategies to integrate and systematize these elements into a more sophisticated whole.