Takashi Akasaka (1925-2010) was a Japanese engineering professor at

Chuo University , commonly referred to as or , is a private research university in Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan. The university finds its roots in a school called Igirisu Hōritsu Gakkō (English Law School), which was founded in 1885, and became a university in 1 ...

known for his work on cord-rubber composites and tires.

Education

Akasaka completed his undergraduate studies during world war II, graduating from the Applied Mathematics Section of the Engineering Department of the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

in 1946. He was first in his class in the Astronautics Department but because research in Aeronautical Engineering was prohibited in Japan after the war, the Astronautics Department was reorganized as the Applied Mathematics Department. Not finding employment, Akasaka continued at the University of Tokyo as an assistant to Tsuyoshi Hayashi, who was working on tires. Akasaka received a doctorate degree in 1962 from the University of Tokyo at the age of 37. His dissertation developed a theory of cord-rubber composites based on an assumption of inextensible cords.

Career

Akasaka joined the faculty of

in 1952 as a lecturer, teaching mathematics. In 1962 he joined the engineering department, teaching mechanics of materials. Along with Joseph Padovan, he was a founding associate editor and the longest serving associate editor of the journal Tire Science and Technology with 36 years. He delivered the 1989 invited plenary address at the

Tire Society The Tire Society is a non-profit professional body, specifically an engineering society, based in Ohio, United States, whose mission is to increase and disseminate knowledge as it pertains to the science and technology of tires. It hosts a two-day ...

conference. He retired from the university in 1995 and remained an honorary faculty member. His most cited work derived analytical equations describing the contact pressure distribution of a radial tire rolling with a camber angle.

Awards

* 2011 -

Distinguished Achievement Award The award was made posthumously, and Akasaka's son Shuichi Akasaka accepted the award at the meeting.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Akasaka, Takashi Tire industry people