JSCE Newsletter No.12, September 2003

Japan Society of Civil Engineers
International Activities Committee

NewsletterNo. 13

December 2003

“Civil Engineering” Oct. 2003 Feature Article:“The Competitive Edge of Japanese Construction Technologies and Future
Overseas Projects” (Summary)

Minami Tomise
The Overseas Construction
Association of JapanThe competitive edge of Japaneseconstruction technologies is a topic, which is often
discussed. Among the places from which Japaneseconstruction companies procure contracts every
year, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and theUnited States are at the top of the list. This factindicates that in these places, Japanese companies
are winning the price competition with overseas
companies.
Among the contracts obtained by theJapanese companies, especially prominent is thetunneling works using shield method. In fact, it
would not be an exaggeration to say that Japaneseshield technologies, especially the closed face types
such as the earth pressure balanced shield and themud shield are the most sophisticated in the world.
In overseas, design build shield works
are often tendered. Often in such cases, the innersection, the depth, and the alignment are provided,leaving the choices of shield machine or segment to
the discretion of the tenderer. This would increase
the areas, in which the prospective contractors
could demonstrate their abilities, and the relative
merit of their technologies would be an influencing
factor. Therefore, the key to winning the bid would
be to use the technologies to the fullest extent while
keeping the cost at minimum. Having aninternational competitive edge is not a simple
question of technological sophistication; it isultimately linked with the cost.
Other than shield technologies, Japan
excels in technologies for urban facilities such as
diaphragm walls and the underground facilitiessuch as stations, malls, or parking. Among bridge
technologies, long span bridges like the cablestayed bridge or the suspension bridge are ourAlso available on web: www.jsce.or.jp

specialties. Japan also excels in ground
improvement technologies.
Japanese construction companies are also
known for keeping the deadlines and for theirsuperiority in quality and safety managementcompared to other countries. Their earnest attitude
towards work also contributes to give a positive
impression on the clients. It would now benecessary to find ways to take advantage of thesetools in the international competition.
Another characteristic of Japaneseconstruction companies is that they often own
technological research centers, technologicaldevelopment divisions, or infrastructure andbuilding design headquarters in order to work on
basic researches and the development of newtechnologies. Although there is a demerit of higher
overhead costs, its advantage is the overall strengthof covering the project from its start until its
completion. I believe that it is important to make afull use of this advantage in participating in theinternational competition.

Overseas Contracts won by Japanese Corporation

1

JSCE Newsletter No.13, December 2003The JSCE Annual Meeting 2003 inTokushima
The JSCE Annual Meeting took placefrom Sep. 24th through 26th in Tokushima City,
located in the eastern Shikoku Island. The region isknown for its Awa dance and its puppet theatre,
among other things. 6,128 people participated in theAnnual Meeting and 4,011 papers from various
fields were presented by engineers and students.
The roundtable meeting, the panel discussion, andthe English common session among others were
held as the international events.

Roundtable Meeting“Promoting International Activities Issuing International Journals in AsianRegions”
On Sep. 24th, the first day of the Annual
Meeting 2003, the roundtable meeting was held atNichia Hall in Tokushima Univ. During themeeting, the delegations from Chinese Institute ofCivil and Hydraulic Engineering, Korean Society ofCivil Engineers, Mongolian Association of Civil
Engineers and JSCE discussed about thepublication of an English journal in Asian Region.
The participating societies agreed upon theneed for a high quality English journal that would
be internationally recognized and agreed toconsider this issue within their respective societies.

Attendees of the Roundtable Meeting

English Panel Discussion-“ITS Development in Asian Regions”At the 58th JSCE Annual Meeting inTokushima University, the English panel discussion
on the topic of “ITS Development in AsianRegions” was held on September 24, 2003. So far,ITS, which stands for Intelligent Transport System,has been regarded as a system for the developedcountries. From the beginning, ITS was discussed
mainly among North America, Europe, Australia
and Japan. However, looking at traffic problems
such as accidents and congestions in developing
countries, especially in Asian region, we recognizethat these countries have the same or worse
situations compared to the developed countries. Thetraffic experts are gradually turning to ITS toimprove these traffic problems. The objectives ofthe panel discussion were to discuss about the roles
2ITS could play in developing countries in Asia andthe suitable form of ITS for the situation oftransportation in Asia. For the discussion, we had
four panellists from four countries who are Dr.
Edward Chung from Malaysia, Dr. Wuhong Wang
from China, Ms. Kim JinYoung from Korea and Mr.
Tomokazu Kawabata from Sumitomo Electric Ind.,
Japan. After introduction of the panellists andagenda of the meeting by the chairperson, Dr.
Yasuhiko Kumagai from Kochi University ofTechnology Japan, each panellist introduced thelatest ITS movement in their respective country.
This was followed by discussions, during which we
focused on three subjects; the benefits of ITS, whatkinds of ITS will be suitable, and what Japan cando for the development ITS in Asia.
The Information can be viewed on JSCE
website (http://www.jsce-int.org/)
By Yasuhiko Kumagai(Kochi University of Technology)“The KSCE-JSCE Joint Seminar on
Durability of Concrete Structures
In the KSCE annual convention, the KSCE
(Korean Society of Civil Engineers)-JSCE JointSeminar was held in Daegu, Korea, on October 25,
2003, on the theme of “Durability Concern on
Concrete Structures for the Future”. The seminar
began with the opening speech by Mr. Furuki,
Executive Director of JSCE, and Professor Moon,
President of Korean Concrete Institute. 10
presentations (5 from KSCE and 5 from JSCE)
chaired by Professor Song of Yonsei University,Korea then followed. About 80 Korean engineers
attended the seminar. At the end, Professor Kim,
President of KSCE, presented a gift of appreciation
to each speaker. The seminar was publicizednationwide by several newspapers and recognized
as one of best products of the 2003 KSCE annual
convention by President Kim of KSCE and theorganizing committee members.
The seminar is the second of its kind, aneffort that JSCE International Activities Committee
makes to promote the cooperation with thesocieties/institutes having a cooperative agreementwith JSCE.

Gift from KSCE (Left: Prof. Takewaka, Kagoshima
Univ.; Right: Prof. Kim, President of KSCE)By Eiki Yamaguchi(Kyushu Institute of Technology)

Also available on web: www.jsce.or.jp

JSCE Newsletter No.13, December 2003

Reconnaissance of the damage
caused by the May 1, 2003, Bingöl
Earthquake in Turkey

Location of Bingöl Province

An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 (Mw)occurred on May 1, 2003 in Bingöl province
located in the East Anatolian Region of Turkey.
This earthquake was officially called Bingöl
Earthquake and was felt at neighbouring cities.
This province was also hit by an earthquake, which
occurred in 1971 and caused heavy damages andloss of life particularly in Bingöl. The Kandilli
Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute(KOERI, 2003) of Bogaziçi University estimatedthat the earthquake was centred at 39.01 N and
40.49 E, which places its epicentre about 15 km
NW of Bingöl city.
According to official estimates theearthquake caused the loss of 176 lives and injured
about 520 people. About 200 buildings collapsed
and was subjected to heavy damage, and 5,000
buildings were moderately - to - lightly damaged in
Bingöl city centre. The number of collapsedbuildings in the whole earthquake affected region isannounced as 570 and a total of 6,000 were
subjected to damage in different degrees.
Landslides and a large lateral spreading
triggered by the earthquake also occurred.
Landslides were mainly in the mode of earth flows
in highly weathered volcanics and rock falls fromsteep slopes, which were observed in rural areas.
Focal plane solutions from several institutes
indicate two possible strike-slip faults striking NWSE and NE-SW. On the contrary to those observedin the devastating 1999 Kocaeli and Düzce
earthquakes of Turkey, evident surface rupture
could not be traced on the land in this earthquake.
However, very short and thin cracks observed at alocation in the epicentral area are considered to be
associated with the possible causative fault.

Most of the buildings in Bingöl are typicallymulti-storeys commercial/residential reinforced
concrete structures. A large percentage of collapsed
and/or severely damaged buildings were generally
in 3 to 6 story range. The damage seems to haveresulted mainly from poor quality construction andinappropriate construction materials. The minaretsof mosques exhibited a very good performance,
except a few in Bingöl city and Karakoçan town.
Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE)
decided that it would dispatch an investigation teamto Turkey. Though JSCE covers quite a vast areaof interest, the reconnaissance consisting of twomembers from Japan (Dr. O. Aydan, Professor ofTokai University and author) and one investigatorfrom Turkey (Dr. R. Ulusay, Professor of Hacettepe
University) conducted a field investigation in their
special fields of civil engineering for five days fromMay 30 to June 3, 2003. During the field
investigation, team members visited strong motion
observation station located in Bingöl city centre,
carried out some observations and took somemeasurements on the collapsed and damaged
structures and lifelines. In addition, local site
conditions were also assessed with the aid of datafrom recently drilled geotechnical boreholes andtrial pits at some collapsed and heavily damagedbuildings in Bingöl. The preliminary strategy of
the JSCE team was to discuss with Turkish
specialists about possible future collaborations that
could be beneficial for both Turkish and Japanesesides.
Turkish National Earthquake Committee
and Turkish Earthquake Foundation, in particularProf. Dr. Rifat Yarar, kindly encouraged andsupported the team’s reconnaissance activity.
Research assistants Zeynal Abiddin Erguler, Nilsun
Okan and Ergun Tuncay, and laboratory technician
Ahmet Bay from the Geological Engineering
Department of Hacettepe University, andGeological Engineer Elif Avsar are acknowledged
for their kind help in editing some parts of thereport,
dataassessment,andlaboratoryclassification tests.
The report of JSCE team is now available
at the following URL: http://www.jsce-int.org/.
By Masakatsu Miyajima(Kanazawa University)

Large lateral spread induced by soil liquefaction at Hanocayiri
Also available on web: www.jsce.or.jp

3

JSCE Newsletter No.13, December 2003

Foreign Engineer Trying to Fit into
the Japanese Society

Shengchuan Zhao
December 26, 1988 and Nagasaki. An
unforgettable day and memorable place. My
fifteen-year life in Japan started here.
I thought that I would return back to China
after a two-year technical training at a softwaredeveloper in Yokohama. However, the course ofmy life completely changed since I met my advisor,
Dr. Katsutoshi Ohta, a professor at the Universityof Tokyo. I represented my strong desire to pursue
my PhD degree in urban transportation planningand became his first Chinese student in 1993.
After graduating with a thesis on travel
behavior and information, I was lucky enough toobtain a JSPS Research Fellowship for Young
Scientists and had an opportunity to conduct further
research at the University of Texas at Austin in1997. After returning back to Japan, I was offered aposition to work with The Institute of Behavioral
Sciences, an urban planning consulting firm basedin Tokyo.
Since then, I have been working at IBS asa transportation planner. I have been involved in a
number of projects from modelling works toplanning practices. I worked with Japanese central
and local governments, academia and private
sectors. I have worked in many Japanese cities suchas Tokyo, Utsunomiya, Hitachi, Takasaki, Sendai,Sapporo, Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, Okayama,Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Miyazaki, Kumamoto,Kagoshima, Kitakyushu and Naha as well as South
Africa. I have coordinated Japan-China government
conferences in the field of urban and transport
planning. I have organized a number of technicaland academic delegates to China. I have attended at
9th World Conference on Transport Research inSeoul in 2001, 24th PIARC conferences in Durbanand 3rd North American Chinese Overseas
Transportation Association Conference in Beijing
in 2003, and have co-organized the International
Conferences on Traffic and Transportation Studies
since 1998.
I met my wife and got married in Japanand we are now living with our lovely four-year oldson in Yokohama. During our stay in Japan, we
have made lots of Japanese friends from young toold, women to men and in Tokyo to local towns.
All of these experiences deepened myunderstanding of the country, as well as the culture,4society, tradition and practices. This beautiful andattractive country has deeply influenced me andinspired me to make ahead in fulfilling my goals.
As I cultivated my friendships with Japanese, I
learned about and became familiar with theJapanese lifestyle and their worldviews. I respect
the Japanese team spirit and their hard-working
spirit. I love Japanese cuisine very much: tempura,sukiyaki, miso soup, etc.
I might return back to China someday inthe near future. I appreciated that I could expand
my views, thoughts and essence of myself. I
enjoyed my life here very much. These experiences
form one of the most wonderful times in my life.
Thanks to all. I will always remember thewhole experiences and the friends I have made. I
will be playing a role in bridging China and Japanand do my best to contribute to our society as muchas possible in the years to come.
Shengchuan Zhao
(The Institute of Behavioral Sciences)

Publications
ARTICLES (From September to November 2003)
List of Faculty Members in Universities, Institutesand Colleges (2003), JSCE, September 2003, Page
219, JPY2,100.-, ISBN4-8106- 0446-2
Coastal Engineering Journal Vol. 45, No.3, JSCE,
September 2003, Pages 189, Please inquire theprice as below.
ISSN0578-5634
Structural Engineering Earthquake Engineering Vol.
20 No.2, JSCE, October 2003, Pages 88, Price:
JPY2,039.-, ISSN 0289-8063
Journal of Global Environment Engineering Vol. 9,JSCE, October 2003, Pages 149, Price: JPY6,000.-,
ISSN1341-1268
Recommendation for Design and Construction ofConcrete
Structures
Using
Epoxy-Coated
Reinforcing Steel Bar (in Japanese), November
2003, Pages 216, JPY3,570.-, ISBN4-8106-0411-X
For all orders, contact:
MARUZEN Co. Ltd., Export Department
P.O. Box 5050 Tokyo 100-3199 Japan
Fax: +81-3-3278-9256
E-mail: t_kaneko@maruzen.co.jp
Send your comments, suggestions and contributions
to: iad@jsce.or.jp
JSCE Website: http://www.jsce.or.jp
Editorial Board:
Public Relations Subcommittee,
International Activities Committee, JSCE

Also available on web: www.jsce.or.jp