Hydrodynamic Problems in an Industry-Academia Cooperation Program

In Japan it is a common practice that the student at the senior year in engineering education needs to conduct a thesis work as a part of the graduation requirement. In most cases he or she becomes a member of a specific research laboratory where the professor provides a thesis project for the student to complete within a year. Engineering Clinic Program (ECP) at the Kogakuin University (KU) is an industry-academia cooperation program where the company provides a project for the students who work together as a team of four to five. ECP replaces the traditional thesis work for the graduation requirement. All projects in ECP coming from the industry are of open-end and of most advanced technology so that the students work on the real world problems just like the engineer in the company. The technical liaison from the company together with the faculty advisor guides the students, although they never give the solution to them. They should come up with some solutions to the problem within the limited timeframe and thus the creative ability and also management capability are cultivated. The students learn how to apply the knowledge learned at class to solving a real engineering problem. The problems the industry provides to ECP are of wide variety and also multidisciplinary in the engineering field. Among them, presented herein are two fluid dynamic problems handled in ECP in the past,: 1) development of accurate droplet measurements in intravenous injection pump, and 2) study of a journal bearing for Jet Pump. How these fluid dynamic problems provided from the industry were handled by the students with the help of the liaisons and advisors are described in this paper.