University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy
I've been in Senday from May 05 to June 05, 2005, as an intership student of Tohoku University. During my stay here, I was working in the Institue of Fluid Science, with Professor Jinhao Qiu, an expert in vibration and noise control with piezoelectric actuators. I also met many japanese students working on this topic and I had many interesting discussions with them.
My own experiments in Senday has been focused on the realization of an alluminum
plate with some piezoelectric actuators bonded on it. Our target is to damp
structural vibration, and, at the same time, identify structural damages; for
this reason, we are going to use a Digital Signal Processor to control the piezoelectric
network, because this kind of signal processor will allow us, after it will
be programmed, to do some complex analyses of the structural eigenfrequencies
and eigenmodes, and to use this parameters to set up optimally the damping circuit.
Unfortunately my stay in Japan was very short, so I have been able only to start
my experiments, but I'm going to finish it in Rome, and after more results will
be ready, we are going to write a paper on this topic.
At the end of my intership I had also a presentation about my research in the Institute of Fluid Science.
About my life in Japan, I met many wonderful people who helped me to learn about a country completely different from mine, and from some points of view so far from western way of life.
In this month I discovered japanese cuisine, and I discovered I really like
it, I travelled every time was possible to learn as much as I was able about
this beautiful country: I've visited Kyoto, Nikko and Tokyo.
Kyoto was the ancient capital,
and from its past had some beautiful temples and shrines (Kiyomizu-dera, Nanzen-ji).
Nikko was an incredible surprise: it looks like a quite mountain town, but in
its park there are some of the most beautiful temple I've seen in Japan!
Tokyo is wonderful. During the day, it looks like many european capitals, but in the night, with all its lightning building the panorama is great, and form the top of Tokyo Tower, I was able to appreciate it better.
I thank all the people who made my intership at Tohoku University possible: Professor Toshiyuki Takagi and Professor Jinhao Qiu who gave me the possibility to be in Japan, and Ms. Nao Konohara who helped me in all the way was possible, during my stay in Japan and before in Italy to arrange my journey; I want also thank all the members of Professor Qiu's laboratory who have been extremely friendly and helped me every time I needed in this month.