Socio-economics and Policy Study Group

Aiming to contribute to the solution of global environmental problems, we are advancing research to drastically improve energy utilization efficiency in the civil domestic sector, where energy consumption is growing at a dramatic rate. Targeting detached houses and apartment houses, we carry out; 1) gauging and modeling of energy consumption patterns, 2) system optimization and 3) optimization of important elementary component technology to achieve higher efficiency. Based on these results, we aim to develop small scale distributed energy systems which can flexibly supply heat and power in response to fluctuating energy demand in homes and can reduce energy consumption by 20%.

Research continues to advance in the search for higher efficiency and lower emissions in heat engines and heat engine systems. The main areas of research are as follows:

1. Research on hydrogen internal combustion. Stirling engines and combined systems of solid oxide fuel cells and Stirling engines, to achieve small distributed power source applications
2. Cycle analysis of turbine systems utilizing waste heat from factories;
3. Analysis of turbine systems utilizing steam to improve their efficiencies, and research into the steam microdroplet formation essential for realizing such systems;
4. Laser ignition technology to realize compressed ignition engines using bulk ignition. Hydrogen internal combustion stirling engine The hydrogen combustion Stirling engine utilizes internal combustion of stoichiometric H2 and O2 mixture injected into the working fluid gas as thermal input, and the cyclic operation completes with the removal of the water from the engine after the condensation at the cooler.

A wide variety of thermal energy systems, ranging from energy sources through to the utilization, including environmental problems are under investigation. Specifically, the following are ongoing:

1. Research and development on a manufacturing process for an ultra-high efficiency solar cell: development of fundamental crystal growth technology for a high quality semiconductor single crystal to realize the optimum environment in terms of heat transfer
2. Research on a pulse tube refrigerator: elucidation of the freezing mechanism inside the pulse tube refrigerator by directly measuring and visualizing the internal heat and fluid flows and constructing numerical models, etc
3. Research on large-scale CO2 sequestration: assessment of technology for separating and collecting the greenhouse gas, CO2, and sequestrating this from the atmosphere by directly feeding into the deep sea or underground
4. Research on thermal phenomena in supercritical fluids to elucidate their thermal behavior using optical techniques
5. Research on liquid volume measurement under microgravity conditions and development of the same in accordance with the Helmholtz resonance principle.

Group Leader:	Akinobu MURATA
Members:	Masahiro NISHIO, Eiichi ENDO, Mitsuho FURUSE, Yasuhiko KONDOU, Yasushi MARUYAMA

Socio-economics and Policy Study Group

AIST Tsukuba East, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8564 Japan
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