Functional Materials Engineering [Doctoral_Course]

2. Functional Materials Engineering

It goes without saying that we always need better industrial materials in order to realize higher standard of living in modern society. While developments of entirely new materials are generally praised, we wish to throw a different light to the materials engineering. There have been a few notable deadlocks that need to be brought to the end. Let us start with a few examples. The slow improvement in the thermal efficiencies of heat engines arises mainly from the lack of materials which maintain high strengths at high temperatures. The fact that the transplantation of internal organs is now being more and more frequently practiced in the hospitals tells us that the artificial organs of non-biological origin supplied at present still lack enough bio-compatibility.
If we regard the pharmaceutical medicines as one form of the highly functionalized industrial materials, then it must be admitted that most of the currently available medicines produce undesirable side effects, hence the technology of pharmaceutical industry cannot be considered as perfect. As the above examples illustrate, a number of crucial problems in the modern materials technology have been overlooked due to the lack of breakthrough and remain unsolved.
Education and research systems in this Department are organized on the basis of the above reflection. They are designed to introduce unconventional techniques to develop the most sophisticated functional materials. Purposes of Functional Material Engineering are to create and improve new and existing branches of technology in order to realize the highest standard in the materials science and engineering.
Our previous Materials System Department emphasized the manufacture, structural analysis, properties evaluation and application of those known metallic, organic and inorganic materials that have occupied major positions in industry. In addition to these traditional materials, we believe it necessary to expand our targets, for example to medicines and other functional materials such as artificial organs, in order to contribute to the development of futuristic materials. State-of- the-art structural materials with highly functional characteristics would also be such possible targets. For these reasons, faculty staffs of our Department are gathered from the Material Engineering Group of the Production System Engineering Department, all groups of the Materials Science Department, the Molecular Information Engineering and Molecular Design Groups of the Knowledge-based Information Engineering Department.
With this new organization, we wish to provide a well-integrated education and achieve outstanding research on the future-oriented materials, which would have been impossible in the previous organization.

Contents of Lectures [Functional Materials Engineering]

Field	Advanced Courses	Contents
Materials Design Engineering	Production Engineering of Metallic Materials	Any choice of (1)Corrosion engineering, (2)Physical chemistry of metal oxide system, (3)Kinetic theory of pyro-metallurgical processes, depending on the student's major field.
	Physical Chemistry of Metals	Chemical phenomena involved in the manufacture and use of metallic materials will be analyzed using thermodynamics, reaction kinetics and transfer phenomenology. Emphasis will be given to understanding reaction mechanisms and changes in physico-chemical properties. Role of chemistry in the design of metallic materials will also be mentioned.
	Synthetic Chemistry of Molecular Materials	New methods of organic synthesis utilizing organometallic agents and their complexes will be mentioned using ample examples. Recent topics on the organic and organometallic molecules which are potentially capable of creating new functions will be touched upon.
	Molecular Design Engineering	In the first half, basic principles of computational chemistry will be taught in some detail. Thereupon methodologies to faithfully simulate chemical phenomena using theoretical models will be mentioned. Relation between structure and properties of chemical substances will also be explained to assist in the art of molecular design.
	Quantum Molecular Engineering	Methods used in theoretical chemistry such as ab initio molecular orbital methods including electron correlation approximations (perturbation, CI, MCSCF, and coupled cluster), density functional theory, semi-empirical quantum chemical methods will be introduced. The lecture will include discussion on the potential energy hypersurface, and classical as well as quantum chemical trajectory search techniques.
Materials Analysis Engineering	Analysis of Metallic Materials	The applications of analytical techniques based on the materials engineering and the fracture mechanics to the mechanical properties of various structural materials will be explained, especially stressing on microstructure/properties relationship. State-of-the-art analytical techniques, such as 3-D visualization techniques will be also mentioned.
	Material Evaluation and Analysis Engineering	Basic theories of analytical techniques used in the analysis and evaluation of Industrial materials and their applications will be mentioned. Special emphasis will be placed on the separation and detection techniques. Applications of these techniques to biochemistry, medicine, and pharmaceutical will be mentioned.
	Analysis of Inorganic Materials	The following topics of inorganic materials analysis will be given: (1) phenomenological and atomistic interpretation at elasticity, plasticity and viscoelasticity, (2) mechanical characteristics of single crystals, (3) classical mechanics and atomistic interpretation of brittle fracture, and (4) the basics of destruction mechanics and physics.
	Surface Analysis of Materials	Role of surface in the functional characteristics and physical properties of materials will be mentioned. Principles of scientific as well as technical methods of evaluating surface activities will be studied and discussed using examples.
Materials Application Engineering	Processing Engineering of Metallic Materials	Various processes used in the manufacture of metallic materials will be explained. Emphasis will be given on the method of controlling mechanical and functional characteristics of materials during the manufacturing process.
	Application Engineering of Organic Materials	Basic theory of polymer design and recent developments in the applications of high polymers will be explained. Topics include distribution of polymerization degree, end groups, block and graft copolymers, microparticles of polymers. thermostable polymers, decomposable polymers, and organic synthesis using polymer supports
	Biomolecular Engineering	Basic aspects of structures, functions, and properties of biomolecules including proteins and nucleic acids will be discussed. Recent examples of their industrial applications will be illustrated. Special emphasis will be placed on importance of three-dimensional structures of biomolecules in atomic details for our understanding of their functions.
	Applied Engineering of Inorganic Materials	Applications of inorganic materials will be mentioned from engineering viewpoint, including synthesis, structure, specific applications with reference to industrial plants.
	Molecular Information Engineering	Graph-based algorithms for molecular information analysis, knowledge discovery and data prediction will be discussed. Computational approach for bioinformatics will also be mentioned.