Event Report

The Second International Conference on Press-inEngineering 2021, Kochi“The Second International Conference on Press-in Engineering (ICPE) 2021, Kochi, Japan” was held by theICPE 2021 Organizing Committee / International Press-in Association (IPA) on 19th and 20th June 2021 online,
and it has been about three years since the first ICPE was held at Kochi University of Technology (Kochi, Japan)
in September 2018.
The IPA has encouraged global prevalence of “Press-in Engineering” which is based on the Press-in
Technology (Installation method of piles with static loads) and developed by the specialists from various
technical fields. The IPA has continued its activity such as research and publication related to the Press-inEngineering, and held the Press-in Technology seminars in Japan on yearly-basis and international seminars
in Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand after the first ICPE. As for publication, the second edition of the “Designand Construction Guideline for Press-in Piling (the Japanese version)” and the first introductory book ofPress-in technology “New Horizons in Piling” were published in 2020, and also, the second edition of the“Press-in retaining structures: a handbook” was published soon after the ICPE 2021 was held.
The ICPE 2021 was held in the commemorable year of 15th anniversary of the establishment of the IPA inorder to present the fruits of its activities and offer the opportunities for academics and technicians tointercommunicate with one another and for students and young experts to present their achievements.
Although the ICPE 2021 was held online due to the pandemic of COVID-19, the ICPE 2021 could be held withsupports obtaining from 27 groups and subsidies from 2 institutions, and the sum of 430 people from 19
countries participated in the conference.
Under the theme of “Evolution and Social Contribution of Press-in Engineering for Infrastructure
Development, and Disaster Prevention and Mitigation”, the ICPE 2021 aimed at development of thetechnologies and training of experts that support maintenance of infrastructure through the various activities
such as developing researches related to planning, investigation and design of sustainable infrastructure
maintenance, efficient machines and energy-and-labor-saving construction processes on the background ofgrowing social needs for the maintenance and renovation of obsolete infrastructure, and mitigation of thethreats of earthquakes, typhoons and other natural disasters which have brought increasingly severe
problems around the world.
The IPA invited Dr. Yozo Fujino (President, Josai University) and Dr. Mark Randolph (Professor, University ofWestern Australia) as keynote lecturers and had their presentations with the themes “Research anddevelopment for infrastructure maintenance, renovation, and management” and “Design Considerations in
the Tip Resistance of Piles Jacked or Driven into Strong Soil or Weak Rock”, respectively. As for State-of-theart Reports, the Technical Committees (TC1, TC2, TC3) delivered their latest reports regarding their research
activities. Furthermore, a total 59 of presentations were delivered in the technical sessions. In spite of theCOVID-19 pandemic, the ICPE 2021 was a fruitful conference for us because of active involvement by all theparticipants.
In opening and closing ceremony, the IPA granted several awards to those who contributed to developmentof Press-in Engineering and the presenters of each technical session of the conference who were chosen as
the most excellent presenters in each session based on votes of the audience. As the entire programs wereconducted like ordinary on-site conference, the IPA also considers the ICPE 2021 was quite meaningful for
future activities through the events like seminars and conferences with fitting the new normal. The ICPE
Organizing Committee and IPA will keep on making efforts to hold more attractive conferences withconsidering the possibilities for convening the future ICPEs outside of Japan, and also combining on-site andonline styles, for instance.

1

Photos in ICPE 2021

2

Please click here to see more details of ICPE2021: https://www.press-in.org/_upload/files/Newsletter/Vol.6%2C3.pdf

3