AME - Construction of the spraying system for functional paints
The Sakaue Lab is developing functional paints for fluid dynamic applications. One of them is a luminescent paint that gives spatiotemporal information in pressure/temperature over an aerodynamic surface. Currently, these paints are manually sprayed over a target surface. However, the uniformity of the paint will impact to the measurement quantity.
This project focuses on the automation of the spraying to provide a uniform paint application over a target surface. The first step of this project is to design and build a 2-D spraying system. The second step is to create a paint layer with the constructed system and characterize the uniformity of the paint. It will be performed by taking a signal image from the painted surface. The correlation between the uniformity of the paint and the spraying parameters will be studied.
We are an interdisciplinary lab combining fluid mechanics and chemistry. Students who are interested in interdisciplinary research are encouraged to apply. We have collaborations with overseas institutions, such as JAXA (Japan), SUBARU (Japan), the University of Tokyo (Japan), Sophia University (Japan), Kanagawa University (Japan), Toyota Technological Institute (Japan), Aichi Institute of Technology (Japan), National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan), German Aerospace Center (Germany), Fraunhofer (Germany), and the Arctic University of Norway (Norway). There will be a chance for you to join one of them.