International Press-in Association

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

www.press-in.org

I NSIDE T HIS I SSUE
1. Messages (P1)
Immediate Past President

Messages

From the Immediate Past President
Osamu Kusakabe

New President
Outgoing & New Secretary
GeneralIn April 2016, I succeeded the role of IPA
President from Professor Malcolm
Bolton of Cambridge University, thefounding President of IPA, and haveretired from the post in June this year.
My successor is Prof. C F Leung, who is adistinguished geotechnical engineer, aProfessor at the National University ofSingapore, as well as a long-time goodfriend of mine since 1980s. I strongly
believe that IPA continues to flourish
under his leadership in coming years.

Director
2. Special Contribution (P5)Integrated Earthquake
Simulator
3. Series Report (P9)
From USA
4. Report (P12)
From Europe Office
5. Young Member (P13)
6. Announcements (P15)
7. Event Diary (P18)
8. Corporate Members (P19)
9. Editorial Remarks (P21)

On this occasion, I would like to sincerely express my appreciation to all the membersof IPA, Board members, Steering Committee members, Standing Committee
members, Technical Committees members as well as all the members of Secretariat
for their kind support during my 4 years term of Presidency. I would like to also record
my special thanks to Dr. M Terashi, Director of IPA, who has provided me a piece of
valuable advice on all aspects of IPA activities and management, and to Mr. Y Ishii,
Secretary General, for his friendship and devoted work.
During my term, IPA has achieved various projects.

EDITORIAL BOARD
Osamu Kusakabe
Uchimura Taro
Doubrovsky Michael
Chun Fai Leung
Nor Azizi Bin Yusoff
Alexis Philip Acacio
Kitiyodom Pastsakorn
Yuki Hirose
Hongjuan He

Subscribe(1) Increase in membership: individual Membership increased from 512 to 647,
Corporate membership from 30 to 54 and a newly created category, Student
membership of 29, as of June 2020, totaling 730 memberships(2) Strengthen the power of communication: Overall revision of IPA website, to makeit more accessible, informative, and convenient for IPA members and the rest of
the world. Regular publication of quarterly IPA Newsletter, more than 2500
copies have been distributed worldwide(3) Global activation of technical dissemination: IPA Seminar on Press-in Technology,
in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Manila(4) Promotion of documentation: Publications of Press-in retaining structure: ahandbook in English and in Chinese, Case history volume, and Introductory book(under printing)(5) Vitalization of research activity: Establishment of Technical Committees
TC1 on Application of cantilever type steel tubular pile wall embedded to stiff
ground, TC2 on Estimation of Subsurface Information from Data Obtained during
Press-in Piling, TC3 on Expansion of Applicability and Assessment of Seismic
Performance of PFS Method, and TC4 on Vertical performance and construction
management of sheet piles installed by the Press-in Method and tubular piles
installed by Rotary Cutting Press-in Method(6) Successful organization of International Conference on Press-in Engineering withmore than 400 participants1Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020
(7) Improvement in effective management: Overall revision of Constitutions & bylaws, and related regulations.
Establishment of IPA regional offices in four regions
All these achievements are outcomes of collective efforts by Board members, Steering committee members, Standing
committee members, TC members as well as all members of Secretariat. More importantly supports from all the membersof IPA.
Last not the least, I would like to thank Mr. A Kitamura, the President of GIKEN LTD., for his continuous support for IPA
activities, including generous financial support. The achievements abovementioned would not have been possible without
his support.

Messages

From the New President
Chun Fai Leung
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering
National University of Singapore

It is indeed a great honor for me to take over Prof. Osamu Kusakabe, a good friend of mine forthe past 4 decades, as the incoming President of IPA. First let me begin to thank the great
contributions under the leadership of Osamu for the past 4 years. Osamu has been dynamic,
enthusiastic, and resourceful in shaping up the IPA as it is today. Under his leadership, themembership had grown significantly currently with over 600 members internationally. He
spearheaded the highly successful inaugural International Press-in Piling Conference held in
Kochi, Japan, in September 2018 which was graced by the presence of President and Secretary
General of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. The
conference was attended by a large number of overseas participants involving practicing
engineers, academics, and researchers from many corners of the world, in addition to a great
number of delegates from all over Japan. For the Board of Directors of IPA, Osamu had
strengthened the Board with new board members from the Americas, Australia, and Europe.
He is indeed energetic by expanding the IPA technical committees in terms of number of committees, committee activities
and meetings, and expansion of committee memberships globally. Last but not least, the significant contributions behindthe scene by the IPA Secretariat in the Tokyo Headquarter must be duly acknowledged and greatly appreciated.
My goals as the incoming IPA President are to further consolidate what Osamu had strongly established for IPA for the
past several years, to expand the participations of IPA activities globally, and to bring press-in technology particularly theheavy duty Gyro-pilers prominently into engineering practice in many countries worldwide. Unfortunately, many
countries in the world are now struggling with Covid-19 situation. The planned IPA Seminars to be held in Taipei andJakarta had to be postponed to a later date. In addition, the 2020 IPA Board meeting can only be held on correspondencemode, rather than face-to-face mode as in the past years. Although the Covid-19 situation should be over or minimized
soon, the world would not be the same as before with social-distancing and other measures as well as opportunities totravel could be considerably reduced at least for this year. This makes achieving my above-mentioned goals to be morechallenging and difficult. The conduct of IPA technical committees and events need to be revamped in view of thechanging operating environment globally. In particular, the Second International Conference on Press-in Piling to be heldin June 2021 may need to be revamped or modified regarding the organization and operation. I shall work closely withthe conference organizing committee to ensure the success of the second IPA conference. Despite the above concerns, I
am still confident that IPA can expand its activities and involvement worldwide, amid on a slower pace.
It is indeed fortunate that Osamu agrees to stay as an advisor for IPA. With his valuable experience and strong dedication,
I am confident that IPA can achieve the goal for its next expansion phase and to bring press-in technology to be adopted
more widely in the world for the advancement and benefits of mankind.

2Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

Messages

From outgoing Secretary General
Kazuyoshi Ishii
I have been a member of IPA since IPA was inaugurated in 2007, then my engagement to IPA has
become proactive when I was elected as Auditor in 2013. Thereafter, IPA has welcomed Dr.
Osamu Kusakabe as the second President in 2016 to succeed Prof. Malcolm Bolton, the founding
President who had contributed lots of his expertise in Press-in Engineering to the initial decadeof IPA. I am very pleased to have an opportunity to assist the both great IPA Presidents for sevenyears. I was appointed Secretary General by Dr. Kusakabe in 2017 and have dedicated to enhance
IPA activities thereafter. A lot of remarkable and epoch-making IPA activities have beenaccomplished during my assignment with Dr. Kusakabe’s strong and enthusiastic leadership.

I believe that IPA activity plan for 2020 is well deliberated and consolidated to the following five themes which wasapproved in the General Assembly last month.
1. Forming and developing the international network
2. Contribution to society by progressing researches and practices
3. Contribution to society with human resource development
4. Functional operation
5. Organizational operation
I recognize that each theme consists of many well-planned activities for 2020 and I am very confident that the IPA willaccomplish the successful progress with harmonized effort among the members and all participants to activities, although
COVID-19 pandemic has not been winding down yet. IPA is aiming for a further advanced stage to disseminate the Pressin Engineering as the beneficial technology to contribute to the society with human resource development. Even I
withdraw from Secretary General this year but would like to keep my contribution to IPA as one of members.
Lastly, I would like to express my sincere appreciation toward all IPA members, participants to activities, Directors andSecretariat staffs and those who make valuable contribution so far and from now on.

Messages

From New Secretary General
Hisanori Yaegashi
I am very honored to be appointed Secretary General of the International Press-in Association. I
will do my best to facilitate the activities of IPA.

After joining GIKEN LTD. in 2012 I was promoting piling machines overseas, inter alia in Asian
countries. It was a good memory to provide a whole set of Giken Reaction Base system to thegovernment of Myanmar as a grant project of the Japanese government. Also, it is nice to see that
there are now GIKEN customers in almost all ASEAN countries. It was a good experience toparticipate in the process of establishing the Japan Bosai Platform, an association of Japanesecompanies which are intent to provide natural disaster prevention technologies abroad. Before
joining GIKEN LTD., I spent many years overseas as a professional diplomat. Communicating with people with different
cultural and historical backgrounds is one of my strong points. I also have extensive experience of dealing with legal
matters. I would like to contribute to smooth operation and development of IPA with this knowledge and experience.
The Press-in method is being used in a wider variety of countries compared to the time when IPA was established. The
examples include the recent projects in Bangladesh, Egypt and Senegal. On the other hand, harsh natural disasters hit
everyday lives of people in different corners of the world more frequently, where the application of the Press-in method
is required for counter these disasters. I hope more and more people all over the world come to recognize the merits of
the Press-in method and enjoy its benefits through the enlightening activities of IPA.
3

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

Messages

From Director
Jun Otani

Vice President and Professor of Geotechnical Engineering
Kumamoto University
I have done a series of the research on the steel sheet-pile method since 1988, which was a countermeasure method forthe settlement of soft ground due to embankment construction. During this work, a new countermeasure method called“Partial Floating Sheet-pile (PFS) method” was developed in 2005. The sheet-pile has been constructed through the rigid
base as an end bearing piles, but there is a problem on the cost and construction period when the depth of the soft
ground is deep enough. To solve this problem, PFS method was developed which are not all bearing sheet-piles but someof them are floating types. This method is totally cost and construction effective due to the less volume of the steel sheetpiles.
Under this activity, I was selected as a chair of Technical Committee (TC)No.3 under IPA, which title is “Expansion of Applicability and Assessmentof Seismic Performance of PFS Method”. Although PFS method was
originally developed as a countermeasure for the settlement in soft
ground, it should be also applied to the issue of earthquake’s measuresand this was one of the key points on this technical committee. In fact,
this TC was started in 2017 and now we are preparing the final report.
International symposium was organized every year in Asia and thosewere held in Vietnam (2017), Malaysia (2018), and Thailand (2019) tointroduce TC activities.

TC 3 Meeting

In addition to this activity, I was the President of Japanese Geotechnical Society (JGS) until June in 2020. Under thisposition, I have taken care of all the geotechnical issues including new technical developments and natural disasterpreventions in Japan. We had very serious heavy rain in July of 2018 and JGS started a special technical committee toreduce and prevent ground disasters under heavy rains. Under this activity, JGS has published a recommendation forground disasters due to heavy rains. Japan also often has earthquake and there are a lot of ground disasters. Under theactivities of TC 3 in IPA, I hope that the results by TC3 can make the preventing and reducing the disasters possible.
I am now the Vice President of Kumamoto University and I am in charge of international affairs in our school. Most of myduties are to take care of international collaboration with other universities or institutions for both education andresearch. Under those missions, I often visit some of collaborative universities for not only in Asia but also around theworld.
Finally, I hope that sheet-pile method is used more and more for not only new technologies but also the disasterprevention.

◆ A brief CV of Prof. Jun Otani
Jun Otani is a Vice President and Professor of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering at
Kumamoto University, Japan. He is also the President of Japanese Geotechnical Society from 2018
to 2020. He obtained his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Houston, U.S.A. in 1990.
He started his career as a research fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the Universityof California, San Diego in 1987. In 2001, he was promoted to be a full professor at Kumamoto
University and he is now a Vice President of the university. He has established the worldwide
research community on the application of X-ray CT for geomaterials.

4Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

Special Contribution

Paradigm shift of disaster prevention and mitigation by city
scale simulation
Atsushi Iizuka
Research Center for Urban Safety and Security, Professor
Kobe University
Numerical simulation for a whole city and its peripheral techniques are being developed at RIKEN Advanced Institute for
Computational Science (AICS) and RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS). A whole city is constructed in a virtual
space of a computer and how the ground, individual buildings, and infra-structures constituting the city behave ispredicted when external disturbances such as earthquakes and tsunamis strike. This technique was originally developed
as the IES (Integrated Earthquake Simulator) by a group led by Professor Hori of the Earthquake Research Institute, theUniversity of Tokyo. IES aims at predicting disaster damages over a wide area with high resolution and also enables thesimulation of people’s behavior at the time of a disaster by combining an agent simulation with it. Many multi-scenario
simulations using a super computer will lead to elimination of the ‘unexpected’. Also, it is effective for grasping thedisaster chain (compound disaster) that would occur for the city. Now, the social implementation of such simulation
techniques is opening a new door for disaster prevention and mitigation.

Demonstration of IES
A trial simulation was performed at RIKEN
Advanced Institute for Computational
Science (AICS), in which not all theconstituent elements of the city of Kobe, but
at least 420,000 buildings, infra-structures
and their foundations such as piles in Kobe
were virtually reproduced. The water andsewer networks buried in the undergroundwere also taken in the simulation, in which
the ground model was constructed from10,000 boring data. Thus, the whole city of
Kobe was reproduced in a virtual space of the‘K’ computer (Fig. 1). Once the whole city was
reproduced in the computer, we can visuallyestimate what happens when various kindsof external disturbances such as the Nankai
Trough earthquake impend. At present, theIES is being evolved at RIKEN Center for
Computational Science (R-CCS), to extend its
scope not only to earthquakes and tsunamis
but also to heavy rainfall, floods, andlandslides under the direction of Professor
Oishi.

“Earthquake Tsunami Simulation for Kobe City” 2016.12.22 by Dr. Hideyuki Ohtani of AICS

Fig. 1. A whole city of Kobe virtually reproduced in the ‘K’ computerIf we input all of the 10,000 or so earthquake scenarios which are expected in the case of the Nankai Trough earthquake,we will be able to know the effect and utility of disaster prevention and mitigation measures in a concrete manner.
Furthermore, the behavior of a structure can be quantified as a probability, which may bring about a great change to theconventional seismic design method. Also, it makes it possible to clarify where, from where, and how to approach
depending on the importance of the structure from the point of strengthening urban resilience.
However, there still remains challenges in such simulations. It is the reliability of a city model reproduced in the virtual
space of a computer. An accurate reflection of the geometry, stiffness, and strength of each structure, as well as its
geotechnical properties, should be achieved in the city model. In the simulation of the entire Kobe area, a computerscanned the asset ledger and automatically composed approximately 420,000 3D structures, and adjustments was made5

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020
again automatically using the 3D map information from Zenrin. The stiffness and strength of the building are estimated,assuming compliance with the building code. In order to ensure the reliability of the city models constructed in this way,research and development in two directions are currently underway. One of them is the development of a technique toautomatically construct metadata enabling quick retrieval of various data such as asset ledgers, design CAD data andboring data, which are the backbone of city models, to provide primary information to the simulation. It is an objectoriented, data-driven system development. The other is the refinement of the ground model of the city. In the case of
the whole Kobe simulation, for example, the dynamic characteristics of the ground from the seismic base to the soft
ground near the surface, including the presence of faults, should be accurately taken into the ground model. And also, it
is not easy to determine the parameters needed in the advanced dynamic analyses such as elasto-plastic soil water
coupled FE simulations from general boring data. It is desirable to develop a method to rationally identify the parameters
required for such advanced dynamic analyses. A way to adjust the parameters needed in the advanced dynamic analysis
by using past earthquake records and ground deformation monitored at that time is expected. In the future, coupled withthe penetration of digital twins linked to monitoring, the reliability of city models and simulations will be improved. And
it will become a core technology for a smart city.

IES, From Integrated Earthquake Simulator to Integrated Engineering System
The role of the IES has been changed
significantly by the development of
automaticdata
conversion
technique that reads the primary・ map information
information from a wide variety of・ administrative database
big data and reconstructs it into themunicipal asset
・ monitoring data
ledgers, etc.
・ sensor datarequired form (Fig. 2). Such
Integration of fragmented information
Multiple Data Visualization
automaticdata
conversion
data processing platform
techniques have been generalized as
Fragmented building data
City
model
都市モデル
DPP (Data Processing Platform) inbuilding
建物
RIKEN and other institutes, and arebeing developed as universalized
water andtechniques with a wide range ofsewerage
上水道管路
地盤groundnetwork
applications. With this DPP, IES is
Automatic construction of city modeltransforming itself from a disaster
simulator to an automatic data
conversion
platformthatisresponsible for various simulations
and data supply. In other words, thesame IES has changed from
Evacuation
Tsunami disaster
Storm and fliood
Earthquake disasterIntegrated Earthquake Simulator to
Integrated Engineering System. It is
Fig. 2. Outline of IES
now a platform that can be used fora variety of large-scale, wide-area,
high-resolution, multiple-scenario simulations, not limited to earthquakes, tsunamis, ground liquefaction, and the
movement of people and objects. In conjunction with the development of the IDP (Infra-Data Platform), which is anextension of the i-con policy promoted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Japan, the IES will
become an IT infrastructure which can create a new market for the construction industry.
Converting m esh inform ation

Adm inistration data

Residential m ap

Boring data

Visualization of Multiple Inform ation

lifeline data

address
floorsland num ber
structure

CAD data (no connection inform ation)

no connection inform ation

Proposal of "Kobe model"
The whole Kobe simulation by IES was picked up by a local TV station and its contents can be seen on Youtube1). It has
become possible to perform such simulations anywhere, due to the spread of cloud computing services forsupercomputers and the high performance of GPGPUs. IES is also evolving into an automated data transformation
platform that can construct the data required for simulation from a wide variety of big data. Then, the momentum toimplement this technology in society increased, and in August 2019, the "City-Whole Simulation" Technical Research
Association was established with the headquarters at Kobe University. As of September 2019, 15 companies, mainly fromthe construction industry, have participated in this project. We are going to implement IES and its associated techniques
to these private companies within the next five years. When the companies use public data such as IDPs, they are required
to convert the data to be used as input for their applications. It would be costly for each company to develop its own data6

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020
conversion technique. Therefore, we aim to generalize the required data conversion techniques as much as possible andconstruct a data conversion system that can be used widely.
When the integrated simulations of wide-area,
high-resolution and multiple scenarios areoperated by private companies in theconstruction industry, not only the estimate ofthe direct disaster damage but also the impacts
on local communities and economies associatedwith the development of infrastructures will be
widely assessed. For example, liquefaction of theground will be evaluated as quantitative risk ateach point and will be essential information forlogistics control and land asset management.
Since almost all assets in Japan are concentrated
on soft ground such as the alluvial plain, people
will clearly understand that these assets areequally exposed to the risk of liquefaction (Fig. 3).
Therefore, it would become a common
perception that asset values will be maintained orincreasedbyimplementing
appropriateliquefaction measures, rather than worrying thatliquefaction risk will reduce asset values. The
widespread use of quantification of liquefaction
risk over a wide area is bound to encourage sucha change in perception.
In this way, the construction industry is expected
to obtain and exert the ability to quantify risk
under wide-area, high-resolution, and multiple
scenarios and open up the business of problemsolving "proposals" for clients in the financial,investment, non-life insurance, and logistics
industries, rather than passive "orders" (Fig. 4).
This will create a new market and will lead to avibrant activation of the construction industry.

1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, input wave observed at Port Island (PI-wave)

Fig. 3. An example of liquefaction risk at Kobe area2)
IES

Riken AICS
Wide area
High resolution
Many scenarios
RealitySocial implementationof IE S
i-construction
MLIT
JACIC（ data management）
Support to next
generation

Consortium
at Kobe University

New IES

Riken R-CCS

SOCIETY5.0
PRISM,SATREPS
SIP, Smart City,
etc

Social implementation
Market creation
Human development
Quantitative
Engineering
estimate ofdevelopment
risks

Venture company？

Liquefaction risk

Bank, Insurance,
Investment

Logistics

Smart City

Increase of asset value
by countermeasureagainst liquefaction

Fig. 4. Social implementation of IES

Paradigm shift of disaster prevention and mitigation
If private investment decisions are made along with the quantification of risks such as disasters, this should automaticallylead to enhanced resilience of people's living spaces. If the reduction of risks such as disasters is clearly recognized to be
the benefit of private investment, then a path can be shown that the economic activities of the private sector will lead tostrengthening the resilience of a country against risks such as disasters. We do not know how much private investment
will contribute to national resilience, but at least public burdens imposed to the national and local governments will besomewhat replaced by private investment. This should lead to an acceleration of national resilience against exogenous
risks such as disasters. In other words, disaster prevention and mitigation can create an active market that is driven by
private economic activities rather than remaining as a passive defense offered by the public sectors. The development ofsuch a market will lead to the active development of disaster prevention and mitigation, which is nothing else but aparadigm shift of disaster prevention and mitigation.
In addition, if the city-scale simulation technology, which can be implemented in wide-area, high-resolution and multiple
scenarios, is operated as a digital twin linked to monitoring and sensor technology while utilizing IDPs, it can be used as
an infrastructure diagnosis chart that can grasp (predict) the soundness and vulnerability of the urban infrastructure ateach location. This is expected to innovatively streamline the maintenance of urban infrastructures. Also, the integration
with deep learning and AI technologies, which are currently making remarkable progress, will improve the accuracy andreliability of future predictions by the city-scale simulations, and will greatly assist in determining infrastructuredevelopment policies. In other words, simulation technology for a whole city is expected to contribute to the realization7

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020of a smart city not only in urgent times of disaster but also in normal times.
Finally, we hope that such social implementation of the ‘Kobe model’ will lead to the realization of "protecting people's
lives and communities". The implementation of the ‘Kobe model’ in society has been started at Kobe University under
the support of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the Japan Construction Information Center(JACIC) in collaboration with the University of Tokyo, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology(JAMSTEC) and the RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS). It is also positioned as one of the projects in theMultidisciplinary Integration for Resilience and Innovation (MIRAI), Kobe University, which tries to draw a grand designfor the future society.

REFERENCES
1) Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXUg9NwI9Fo&t=21s (in Japanese).
2) Chen,J., O-tani,H., Takeyama.T., Oishi,S. and Hori,M.: Toward a numerical-simulation-based liquefaction hazard
assessment for urban regions using high-performance computing, Engineering Geology, Vol. 258, No.14, 2019.

Appendix
RIKEN (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Japan): a comprehensive research institution in a diverse range ofscientific disciplines, founded in 1917.
‘K’ computer: nickname of a super computer established and operated from 2012 to 2019 at the RIKEN Advanced Institutefor Computational Science (AICS) and RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS)
GPGPU (General-Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Unit): a technology that applies the computing resources of
the Graphics Processing Unit to purposes other than image processing A brief CV of Prof. Atsushi Iizuka
Atsushi Iizuka is a Professor of Research Center for Urban Safety and Security and Civil
Engineering Department, Kobe University. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in 1981, his
Master’s degree in 1983 and his Doctorate in 1988 from Kyoto University. He began his
career at the Department of Civil Engineering, Kyoto University in 1986. He moved toKanazawa University in 1988 and settled at Kobe University in 1997. His major field isGeotechnical Engineering, particularly he has interest in the theoretical approach tointerpret the mechanical behavior of soil structures. Recently, his intention in the academic
activities is turned toward applying the theoretical geomechanics to the field of disasterprevention and mitigation.

8

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

Serial Report: Reports from USA (Part 5)

Improving Florida’s Drainage Channels with Pressed-in Sheet
Piles
Takefumi Takuma
Giken LTD., c/o Giken America Corp.

Shigeru Kambe
Blue Iron Foundations and Shoring LLC

INTRODUCTION

Drainage is becoming a more pressing matter, especially in low-lying urban areas in many parts of the world due to thesteadily rising sea level. For example, major streets of the City of Jacksonville Beach, which is located on the Atlantic coastof northeastern Florida, have been inundated often enough to need a comprehensive upgrade. The agency in charge ofFlorida’s state highways (Florida Department of Transportation) is improving State Road A1A (3rd Street), which runs
through the city from north to south, and its drainage system in the northern part of the city. The entire city was originallybuilt on a large sandbar and marshes and therefore, the area’s drainage has been heavily relying on a system of drainage
channels. The State Road A1A (3rd Street) Drainage Project is to widen and to improve a part of the existing drainage
channel in the densely populated residential neighborhood of the city.
PROJECT’S SCOPE OF WORK AND SELECTION OF PRESSED-IN SHEET PILE WALLS
The channel improvement involves the following work items.
 Tree and vegetation clearing and removal
 Steel sheet pile installation
 Dewatering Excavation and removal of roots, stumps, debris, and soil
 Placement of bedding stone and rip raps Placement of concrete capping on top of the new sheet piles walls New fencing and sod placement after regrading Replacement of 5 roadway bridges
See Fig. 1 for the typical conditions of the channel prior to construction.
The project is being worked on in Phases 1 through 7 including 5A and
5B to minimize the road closures and their associated detours. The work
area is very narrow between rows of houses, limiting the size of new
structures and the space available for construction activities. Therefore,
the self-standing vertical steel sheet pile walls were selected for thedrainage improvement for the majority of the locations. The project’splan specified “Non-vibratory Press-in Method Required” for most of
the sheet pile installation because the drainage channel runs directly
behind densely built homes and a high school campus where pilingrelated noise and vibration would be minimized with press-in piling(White et al. 2002). Some sections have a sheet pile wall just on one side
while the other sections have them on both sides as Fig. 2 depicts. The
project is designed by the Jacksonville, Florida office of Parsons
Transportation Group.
SOIL CONDITIONS AND SHEET PILE LENGTHS

Fig. 1. Typical Conditions of the Drainage
Channel before Construction

The project’s typical soil conditions are predominantly fine sand with N-values varing between 3 and around 30 to 35.
There are stiffer sand layers at some locations with N-values up to 47 at the depths of 7.6 to 8.5m, which are at near thepile tip elevations. The goundwater level is about 0.9 to 1.5m below the grade. The design sheet pile lengths are between
6.1 and 13.1m. Fig. 3 shows the vertical location of the project’s longest sheet pile in the corresponding soil conditions.

9Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

Fig. 2. Typical Single and Double Sheet Pile Wall Configurations(Source: http://nflroads.com/ProjectFiles/5057/Sheet_Pile.pdf)

Fig. 3. Typical Soil
Conditions and Vertical
Location of Sheet PileSHEET PILE WALL INSTALLATION
Although the soil’s N-values were above 35 at certain locations, thepiling subcontractor (Blue Iron Foundations and Shoring LLC) wasable to complete all the piling work without use of a water jetting
or auger attachment, which would be essential for sheet pile
installation in denser granular or other types of hard soil (Roesner
et al. 2006 and Takuma et al. 2018). The press-in piling quantity wasapproximately 23,100m2 (2,458m of wall length) with NZ19, NZ26,
NZ28 sheet piles and NZ28 with plates welded on its flanges. Fig. 4
shows the section of a coupled NZ28 sheet piles with welded plates
as an example. All the surface of the sheet piles was treated with azinc primer plus a tar-epoxy coating on the exposed area on thewater’s side for corrosion protection.
Fig. 5 shows a Giken ECO1400S press-in piling machine installing apair of sheet piles in a very narrow work area. The piling contractor
utilized a movable working deck which straddled between finished10

Fig. 4. Section of NZ28 Sheet Piles with
Steel Plates(Source: Nucor Skyline)

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020
sheet pile walls on both shores for keeping the piling machine’s power unit safe and dry. Fig. 6 shows two sets of pilingmachines side by side; one extracting the old sheet pile wall with the other simultaneously installing a new wall where
the channel’s unsupported slope was kept minimal to avoid a potential collapse of residential properties behind it. The
fact that two sets of press-in piling machines could work in tight working space was also essential for the section behindthe high school, which needed the piling work finished during its summer break with two machines working
simultaneously.

Fig. 6. Extraction of Old Sheet Piles (Left) andInstallation of New Ones (Right)

Fig. 5. Press-in Piling of Sheet Piles

Once sheet piles were installed, capping concrete and fencing wereplaced on top as shown in Fig. 7. The sheet pile walls’ top elevations
were designed to meet the existing grade, therefore, the capping
concrete’s top surface also undulates over the longitudinal distanceaccording to the surrounding grade. The press-in piling work wasstarted in July 2018 and safely completed in late May 2020 with an
8-month break due to the work of the general contractor (The de
Moya Group Inc.).
CONCLUSIONS
Pressed-in sheet piles can make highly reliable and space savingdrainage channel improvements safer even in densely populatedareas with very confined working space as exemplified by the casestudy project. There appear to be more of these types of channel
and levee improvement projects in line not only in coastal Florida
but also in low-lying communities in the rest of the world; possibly
due to climate change and oncoming sea level rise.

Fig. 7. New Sheet Pile Walls with Capping
Concrete

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors appreciate the support provided by the Florida Department of Transportation as well as Masashi Nagano and
Ian Vaz, both of Giken America Corporation.
REFERENCES
Roesner, L., Sakai, T., Sjulin, B., and Takuma, T. (2016), “Deep Sheet Pile Bulkheads and Open Trench Shoring Driven by
the Press-in Pile Driving Method”, Proceedings of 2016 North American Society for Trenchless Technology Annual
Conference, North American Society for Trenchless Technology.
Takuma, T., DellAringa, C., and Nagano, M. (2018), “Retrofitting Drainage Systems with Pressed-in Sheet Piles in Very Hard
Soil In Southern California”, Proceedings of Deep Foundations Institute 2018 Annual Conference, Deep Foundations
Institute.
White, D., Finlay, T., Bolton, M., and Bearss, G. (2002), “Press-in Piling: Ground Vibration and Noise During Piling
Installation”, Proceedings of the International Deep Foundations Conference (GSP 116), American Society of Civil
Engineers.
11Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

ReportFrom IPA’s Europe Regional Office
Toshifumi Shiomi
General Manager, Giken Europe B.V.

The IPA Regional Office in Europe is in Giken Europe B.V., the subsidiary of GIKEN LTD. in Japan who is an IPA corporate
member. Giken Europe B.V. is currently in the midst of the construction of a new office and factory in order to strengthen
its abilities of promotions and total customer support. The completion is scheduled for August 2020 which will allow theactivities of the IPA regional office in the region to be boosted along with the completion. In recent years,
countermeasures such as reconstruction, reinforcement, and rehabilitation of existing infrastructure have been taken
around the world due to rise of the sea level caused by climate change. In the Netherlands, in order to protect the country
from the rise of its sea level and flooding, the National Flood Control Program (Delta Program) and bank rehabilitation
projects (countermeasures against aging) under the jurisdiction of each local government have been in progress for rivers
and canals.
In recent times, reinforcing those earth retaining dykes that are
structurally fragile have become an urgent need to prevent natural
disasters. There are various reinforcement methods inconstruction, but steel sheet pile walls are also introduced as acommon method. (See Fig. 1). However, due to the rapid
urbanization in modern times in the Netherlands, an enormous
amount of time is required for construction planning, assessmentsof various environmental impacts, and consensus forming withneighborhoods and other related procedures before the actual
construction works begin if the reinforcement works are plannedby conventional structural design and construction methods. Thisis especially for cases such as dykes that are used as traffic road on
their tops, congested areas with housing, and historical buildings.
In addition, environmental protection directives under EU law
should be considered in actual construction sequences. Various
approaches including R.F.P. (Request for Proposals) for abreakthrough solution against the current problems are being
examined.

Outside the dyke

Inside the dyke

Weak layer

AnchoringStability

Sand
Alternative locations(in the cross section)

Fig. 1. Steel Sheet Pile Wall
Source:https://www.betonvereniging.nl/medi
a/16090/eemdijkproef-arny-lengkeek.pdf

A new initiative called “Innovation Partnership” was called for tender by the Municipality of Amsterdam in 2018. The
municipality owns and manages a 400-year-old network bridges and quays which are vulnerable due to advanced age.
Erosion & scouring of wooden piles has led to a number of concerns of dyke stability in recent years and urgent repair isrequired to keep the city functioning and safe. The municipality, moving away from traditional approaches put a call out
for innovations which could shorten construction times and minimize environmental impacts while protecting thecityscape. The Gyropress™ method and GRB™System that was proposed by “G-Kracht Partners” including Giken Europe
B.V. have been won high praise and the partners officially awarded the project on 13th May 2020 with highest rating of all
the tenderers.
Reference: Giken Ltd Awarded First Place in City of Amsterdam Innovation Partnership Quay Wall Project
The aforementioned case introduced will expand the opportunities for IPA to disseminate press-in engineering, discover
new technical issues, and clarify research issues. It is necessary to grow the presence of the IPA in this region with thesupport of its directors and members and build a common understanding of press-in engineering and its superiorities in
the construction industry. In addition, it is expected that more academia and researchers will participate in the IPA which
will boost the promotion of press-in engineering, strengthen the dissemination of technical information, and expand theopportunities for research outcomes and case studies in this region.

12

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

Young Members Column

Exploring Press-in Technology through Japanese Language
Class
Syahri Fuddin bin Kamaruddin
First Year Undergraduate Student, Faculty of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM)
I am Syahri Fuddin bin Kamaruddin, a first-year student of Faculty of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering,
Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM).
Technology is one of the most interesting topics to be discussed. It is not exaggerating to say that the first thing popped
out in my mind when discussing about this ‘techno’ topic, is Japan, one of the most technologically advanced countries
in history. International language is one of the core subjects in University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), and I choseto take Japanese language more than just curiosity and passion. We have learnt a lot including the International Press-In
Association (IPA), an organization that has been one of the university’s international partners.
The fact that we have been introduced to IPA excites me more than I ever imagined. Through this exposure, we had theopportunity to learn about “Press-In Technologies”, which is one of the best eco-friendly technologies in my opinion.
More interesting facts about this technology is that it potentially provides an innovative solution against floods, pollutions
and even Tsunamis. To think that such solution can be possible is quite surprising and the introduction to this kind oftechnology piqued my interests and curiosity.
For the International Language Exhibition in the university, we have been directed to create two replicas of tidal andtsunami defense system using straws and polystyrenes. In that exhibition, we had the chance to introduce thisrevolutionary technology of ‘Silent Piling’ applications from GIKEN Limited Company to our visitors and fellow students.
It is a great experience to share a lot of things which seem impossible for our mind to handle at first, but to think that itis actually a great idea to come up with this kind of technology, makes me more than just amazed. Japanese engineers
are trying to apply this technology not just in construction applications, but also in disaster countermeasures.

Fig. 1. Photo session at our booth(the author is the second from left)

Fig. 2. Describing tsunami protection wall concept13Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020
There is a lot of things we can learn from the company and its philosophy, depending on how we put our perspectives
onto it. “仕事に銘を打て”, which is also means “To Leave One’s Mark” can put a positive impact in everyone’s life. It
encourages someone to realize his or her responsibility clearly and completely to set a task with definite goals andobjectives, directly allows them to have the capability to inscribe a signature or mark in his or her work.
This philosophy brought a positive impact in myself as well, motivates me to be more confident with everything I will door done. I still have a lot of things to learn as an engineer. I will continue to be dedicated to my study at university for myfuture work.
I would like to take this opportunity, and express my gratitude to my lecturer, Madam Hiyama Junko/Hiyama sensei forgiving us the opportunity and exposures to this technology, company and philosophy. We learnt a lot not just in class, butalso at the exhibition as well. For a student that have a huge interest in Japan and its culture, including its animation, it isa great pleasure to deeply understand the thing that we learnt throughout this semester so far.

Fig. 3. Photo with my fellow friends after Press-in concept presentation

Fig. 4. Explaining the concept of tsunami protection wall to Dr. Nor Azizi

14

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

Announcements

Ordinary General Assembly 2020

The IPA Ordinary General Assembly 2020 was held from 13 to 22 May, 2020. The total votes have achieved the quorum
and all the presented Agendas were resolved in accordance with Article 22 of Constitution.
・Period:13 May to 22 May 2020

・Meeting place:

IPA Website （On-line voting through the Members Site）

・

Agendas:https://www.press-in.org/en/page/general_assemblies

・

Number of eligible members:

708 （Individual Members:654, Corporate Members: 54）

・Quorum:355 （a majority of members）

・

Total votes：

426 ［achieved quorum］（Turnout 60%）

Votes on each Agenda：
AgendasAffirmative
votes

Dissenting
votes

Results

Agenda 1

Activity Report for FY 2019424

2

Approved

Agenda 2

Income & Expenditure Statement for FY 2019425

1

Approved

Agenda 3

Activity Plan for FY 2020

425

1

Approved

Agenda 4

Budget for FY 2020

425

1

Approved

Agenda 5

Election of Directors for the term 2020–2021

425

1

Approved

Agenda 6

Amendments to Constitution

424

2

Approved

The list blow shows the incoming and outgoing members of IPA Directors. Thanks to the outgoing directors for their great
contributions during the terms and very welcome the new directors.

Incoming Directors

Prof. Junichi Koseki
Professor
The University of Tokyo
Japan

Prof. Barry Michael Lehane
Professor
The University of Western
Australia
Australia
15

Dr. Ramin Motamed
Associate Professor
University of Nevada Reno
United States of America

Dr. Vu Anh Tuan
LectureLe Quy Don Technical
University
Viet Nam

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020
Outgoing Directors

Prof. Koichi Maekawa

Dr. Dang Dang Tung

Extended Deadline for the Submission of Abstracts to ICPE2021
With regard to the deadline of submission of abstracts to the second International Conference on Press-in Engineering
2021, Kochi (ICPE2021), the ICPE2021 Organizing Committee decided to extend its various deadlines as below, especiallyconsidering most universities and research facilities in the world are currently closed due to COVID-19 restrictions.

・Submission of abstract
・Notice of acceptance of abstracts
・Submission of full paper・Submission of revised full paper

26 Apr. 2020
31 May 2020
30 Sep. 2020
15 Jan. 2021

→
→
→
→

28 Jun. 2020
15 Jul. 2020
15 Nov. 2020
28 Feb. 2021

For more information, please visit the ICPE2021 website:
ICPE 2021 Website:：https://icpe-ipa.org/
We are keeping on praying for your safety and looking forward to meeting you in Kochi, Japan, in 2021.

Publications
1. Design and Construction Guideline for Press-in Piling 2020 (the Japanese version)“Design and Construction Guideline for Press-in Piling” (the Japanese version) was firstpublished in June 2015 (called Design and Construction Guideline 2015), and more than 4,500
copies have been sold over these five years. The guideline has been widely referred to in pilingindustry, both in design and construction in Japan. As the results, the number of construction
projects adopting press-in piling have increased.
The IPA Administration Committee, responsible for maintaining IPA guidelines/codes,
considered necessary to revise the guideline for various reasons, including (1) to be consistent
with Japanese major design codes, such as “Specifications for Highway Bridges”, and“Technical Standards and Commentaries for Port and Harbor Facilities” in Japan, which wererecently revised, (2) to be consistent with “Press-in retaining structures: a handbook publishedin 2016”, (3) to reflect the mechanical developments and research results over the last five
years, and (4) to gather recent case histories for usability of the guideline to readers byclassifying the case histories in a systematic categorization. The revised version also aimed to
add the descriptions on design methods commonly used in the field of building foundation,
which was not included in the Design and Construction Guideline 2015.
16

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020
For this purpose, the editorial committee was established in March 2019, consisting of 16 experts from institutions, which
are responsible for issuing and maintaining respective design codes/standards related to foundation and geotechnicalstructures in Japan. After one-year effort, the revised Design and Construction Guideline for Press-in Piling was publishedin two volumes in March 2020 (called Design and Construction Guideline 2020). The revised version will be also of use asa vital source of reference for designers and contractors for piling projects.
Currently, the revision process of “Press-in retaining structures: a handbook published in 2016”, is under way, to reflect
the revisions made in Design and Construction Guideline 2020 and the revised version of the handbook is planned to
publish within the fiscal year of 2020.

2. IPA Newsletters (Volume 4, Issue 1 - Volume 4, Issue 4 2019)
This is the third bind up version of IPA Newsletter which contains all the articles in Vol.4, No.1, 2, 3 and 4 issued in 2019.
It contains 8 technical reports showing cases of construction projects, as well as newchallenging techniques to improve the quality and usefulness of Press-in Technology. It ismeaningful to share such valuable information among the IPA members. 6 Special
Contributions from prominent experts on hot topics, 4 serial reports from USA, 3 event reports
as well as the young members column have been also included which are highly appreciated.
IPA Newsletter has been quarterly published 14 issues in total since September 2016 anddistributed to 2,500 readers in the world, not only our members but also all the participantsof ICPE 2018, seminars and so on. The editorial board planned the new content entitled “Young
Members Column” to increase young engineer readers since Vol.4, No. 3 and will add“Technical Committee (TC) Corner” from 2020. Please feel free to contact the editorial board
members below with email address or IPA Secretariat (tokyo@press-in.org) for yourclarification or suggestions.

New Members (April – May 2020)
Members who joined IPA from April to May as follows.



New Individual Members (5)Akitomo Wada (Japan)

Takahiro Kurokawa (Japan)

Lei Yang (China)

Vu Anh Tuan (Viet Nam)New Student Members (3)Tahir Iqbal (Japan)Naho Ohnishi (Japan)

Lua Hoang (Japan)

Numbers of members as of 31st May 2020
Individual Members: 647
Students Members: 29
Corporate Members: 54

17

Junichi Koseki (Japan)

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

Event Diary
Title■ IPA Events

Date

Venue

https://www.press-in.org/en/event

The Second International Conference on Press-in
June 19-21, 2021
Engineering, Kochi (ICPE 2021)

Kochi, Japan

International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering
http://www.issmge.org/events

GEE2020
International Conference on Geotechnical Engineering
Education

June 24-25, 2020

Athens, Greece

ICGE-Colombo-2020(3rd International Conference on GeotechnicalEngineering)

August 10-11, 2020

Colombo, Sri Lanka

4th International Symposium on Frontiers in Offshore
Geotechnics

August 16-19, 2020

Austin, USA

4th International Conference on Transportation
Geotechnics (ICTG)

August 30-September 2,

GEOAMERICA 2020

October 26-29. 2020

■ Deep Foundations Institute2020

Chicago, USA
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

http://www.dfi.org/dfievents.asp

SuperPile '20

June 18-19, 2020

45th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations

August 13-16, 2020

■ International Geosynthetics Society

Virtual Event
National Harbor, Maryland,USA

http://www.geosyntheticssociety.org/calendar/

10th Chinese National Conference on Geosynthetics

May 27-31, 2020

Chengdu, China

EuroGeo 7
7th European Geosynthetics Congress

September 6-9, 2020

Warsaw, Poland

October 15-16, 2020

Lisbon, Portugal■ Construction Machinery Events
2nd International Conference on Infrastructure andConstruction
https://www.scientificfederation.com/infrastructureconstruction-2020/18

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 202019

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 202020

Volume 5, Issue 2 June 2020

Editorial Remarks
The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is causing major economic disruption, both national and global. This situation
is causes for uncertainty, anxiety and turmoil across all sectors. Public construction has been one of the few activities
that has been maintained. In Bangkok Thailand, for example, the activity will likely continue because the lockdown
has not been total. However, works may expect to halt soon as supply chains are disrupted by a shortage of materials
and subcontractors. In addition, public agencies begin to terminate contracts to control expenses.
Therefore, it becomes our responsibility to find strategy plans as engineer, manufacturer and academic researcher.
How can we maintain the safety of own people? and how can we use technology to gain operational leverage? How
can we adjust our strategy to the new normal of much online working condition with efficient results? We could
consider the crisis as an opportunity to unite together to overcome this difficult situation.
The editorial Board is pleased to publish Volume 5, No.2 issue on schedule. This issue presents messages from theimmediate past president, Prof. Osamu Kusakabe and the messages from the incoming president, Prof. ChunFai
Leung. This issue also contains messages from IPA Directors, Prof. Otani Jun. The special contribution titled“Paradigm shift of disaster prevention and mitigation by city scale simulation” written by Prof. Atsushi Iizuka andSerial report from USA are also shown in this issue.
This issue also includes the report from IPA’s Europe regional office. In addition, Young members column, Exploring
Press-in Technology through Japanese Language Class, is also presented.
Please feel free to contact the Editorial board members below with email address or IPA Secretariat(ipa.news@press-in.org) for your clarifications and/or suggestion.

Pastsakorn Kitiyodom

Editorial Board:
Dr. Osamu Kusakabe (ipa.kusakabe@press-in.org)

Prof. Uchimura Taro (uchimurataro@mail.saitama-u.ac.jp)
Prof. Doubrovsky Michael (doubr@tm.odessa.ua)
Prof. Chun Fai Leung (ceelcf@nus.edu.sg)
Dr. Nor Azizi Bin Yusoff (azizy@uthm.edu.my)
Prof. Alexis Philip Acacio (acacioalexis@gmail.com)
Dr. Kitiyodom Pastsakorn (pastsakorn_k@gfe.co.th)
Mr. Yuki Hirose (ipa.hirose@press-in.org)

Ms. Hongjuan He (ipa.ka@press-in.org)

21