Institute of Maintenance Engineering

The Institute was established for the purpose of conducting research, research and development, and education on the maintenance and management of social infrastructure structures, which is now an urgent issue; to reflect these activities in graduate school education and to return the results to society; and to contribute to rational maintenance and management of social infrastructure structures through activities such as testing and technical guidance on maintenance and management. The main activities to be carried out by the Institute are as follows. The main projects to be carried out by the institute are as follows
(1) Inspection methods for maintenance and management of steel and concrete structures:
The main activities of this institute are as follows: (1) Development and research of non-destructive inspection methods for concrete structures such as infrared ray, electromagnetic wave, sounding, X-ray fluorescence, etc. for inspection, which are important in maintenance and management, to determine the corrosion status of steel bars in concrete, estimate salt content, corrosion status of steel bars, and to determine the floating status due to corrosion of steel bars. (2) To acquire useful data for understanding the corrosion status of steel bars in concrete, estimation of salt content, corrosion status of steel bars, and floating status caused by corrosion of steel bars.
(2) Research on maintenance and management of steel and concrete structures
We will conduct research on maintenance and management of steel and concrete structures, contribute to the maintenance and management of social infrastructure structures, and accumulate knowledge on maintenance and management through these studies.
(3) Field survey of steel and concrete structures
In the research on nondestructive salt estimation using electromagnetic waves, field surveys will be conducted in various regions of Japan, and field experiments will also be conducted in other commissioned research. In addition, we will collect and evaluate the exposure tests set up in Okinawa and other places to understand the corrosion status of reinforcing bars in concrete using infrared rays.
(4) Conduct workshops and other events that contribute to the improvement of maintenance and management techniques for steel and concrete structures.
Lecturers will be dispatched to workshops and other events organized by academic societies and associations upon request.
(5) Research on repair techniques for steel and concrete structures
The repair techniques for fatigue damage of steel slabs, which is now a social problem, and measures to improve durability will be studied using fatigue tests on model specimens and finite element analysis.
(5) To conduct laboratory tests on repair materials for concrete structures to control alkaline aggregate reaction and to obtain useful data on the effectiveness of the repair materials.
(6) Research on automation of deterioration diagnosis using machine learning for steel and concrete structures
There are various methods for detecting internal defects in concrete structures without using any methods. We will research a quantitative method that is the basis of a high-level classification technique that does not depend on the skill level of the inspection engineer. Specifically, we will study a method to obtain generalized and quantitative classification performance by using machine learning techniques based on the time-frequency domain images of non-destructive concrete inspections (e.g., sound hammering, electromagnetic waves, infrared rays, etc.).