I C U SNewsletter
Volume 15

Number

4

Jan. to Mar. 2016

International Center for Urban Safety Engineering
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

Activities of ICUS and n-ICUS since Their Establishment
Introduction
The International Center for
Urban Safety Engineering (ICUS)
was originally established in April
2001 at the Institute of Industrial
Science (IIS), The University ofTokyo (UTokyo) with 10-year
period. The objective of ICUS
was to carry out researches fromglobal viewpoint on urban safetyengineering including structuralsafety, maintenance and managementof safe use of urban infrastructure.
The ICUS was a successor research
center of International Center for
Disaster-Mitigation
Engineering(INCEDE) which was establishedto support United Nation’s IDNDR(International Decade for Natural
Disaster Reduction) from theviewpoint of university academia
in April 1991. When the INECDE
completed its 10-year period,
based on the review of INCEDE’s
activities, ICUS was built expanding

INCEDE’s research fields.
At the time of its establishment,
the number of official members was
10 in total, including two Professors,
Associate Professors, Research
Associates, and Visiting Professors,
respectively, and one foreign Visiting
Professor, with an additional support
staff member employed under
the Center's budget. Later, whencompetitive external funds wereacquired, the composition of staff
in 2015 became three Professors,
Associate Professors, and Lecturer,
two Research Associates, reserchers,
Visiting Professors, and supporting
staff members, respectively.
Prof. Taketo Uomoto was the
Director of ICUS from the time ofits establishment in 2001 to 2006;
subsequently, Prof. Kimiro Meguro
has been serving as the Director of
ICUS.
ICUS was reborn
The original ICUS completed its

10-year period in March 2011. Basedon the evaluation of its activities by theexternal evaluation team composedof the experts in relevant fields fromJapan and overseas countries, ICUS
was reborn in April 2011.
Figure in the next page below shows
three major research divisions of a
new ICUS (n-ICUS). They are “Urban
Safety and Disaster Mitigation,”“Environment Informatics,” and“Social Infrastructure Management”,
and the activities in these fields areintended to fulfill the n-ICUS’s
objective by the “promotion ofadvanced researches,” “constructionof networks,” and “informationcollection and dissemination.”
About the promotion of advanced
researches, besides research topics
in three divisions, topics locatedbetween divisions are considered
important by n-ICUS. Publication of
ICUS Newsletter and Report, ICUS
Open Lectures, and International
Symposium for Urban Safety ofMega Cities in Asia (USMCA) are
the major activities of construction of
networks, and information collection
and dissemination.
Results of ICUS and n-ICUS

ICUS members in the year of 2015

Aggregating the results of research
since 2001 to 2015, the break-up
for all three divisions were: peerreviewed papers -721, books -103,
papers for international conferences-858, conference papers presented

-1,298, investigation reports -55,
and other journals -868. About
graduate school education, 135
PhD and 143 master students could
get doctor and master degrees,
respectively, under supervision of
ICUS faculty members. ICUS staff
members have visited overseas 1,071
times. Including graduate students
supervised by ICUS faculty, ICUS
has won 111 awards for its excellencein research.
Research Activities for Urban
Safety and Disaster Mitigation
Division
The urban safety and disastermitigation division carries out
developmentofmanagement
technologies to ensure structuralsafety of urban infrastructure fromearthquakes, floods and so on, andthe safe use of the infrastructureduring a disaster. In the division,
there are four research groups;
Urban earthquake disaster mitigationengineeringandinternational
strategy for implementation ofdisaster resilience society (Megurolab.), Crisis management (Ito lab.),Planning and engineering for social
safety system engineering and urban
engineering (Kato lab.), Disastermanagement process engineering(Numada lab.).
Research activities forEnvironment Informatics
Divisionand Forest Products ResearchInstitute in Tsukuba.
Prof. Mikio Koshihara createda new framework to apply antiseismic reinforcement for memorial
town houses to meet the conflicting
needs for safety and conservation of
traditional landscapes. Dr. Hiromi
Sato also contributed to test andanalyze the behavior of traditionaltimber buildings against seismic
motions, and proposed the bettermethod to reinforce and conserve
traditional structures. Dr. Yosuke
Nakaso analyzed the fallouts ofceilings due to seismic motions, andassessed the impacts to the head partof human body.
Dr. Miho Iryo just became an
Associate Professor, and has beenworking on the monitoring the
movement of individual objects,
such as pedestrians and mobile cars,
analyzing the behavior of the objects,
and evaluating the efficiency of
spatial patterns of the pathways. Dr.
Shinji Tanaka also contributed for
ICUS activities from perspectivesof traffic engineering, and proposedand validated various methodologies
to control car traffics. Dr. Yudai
Honma
appliedoperational
research framework to analyze andoptimize routing flow in a general
sense, which can be applied either
for human movement and pathselection of automobile cars underdisaster conditions, or more efficient

The environmental informatics has
been one of the three pillars of ICUS,
and consisted of diverse disciplines
to develop resiliency in urban built
environment by producing andproviding proper information tosocieties.
Prof. Haruo Sawada utilized remotesensing technology, and developed asemi-automatic recognition of thedamages in Tsunami suffered regions
after the 2011 Great East Japan
Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster,for example. He also promoted forest
monitoring system which can detectnatural and artificial changes on alarge scale. Environmental remotesensing was promoted also by Dr.
Takahiro Endo. Prof. Sawada now
serves as the President of Forestry

Page 2

ICUS Newsletter Vol. 15, No.4

routing of the packets on the Internet.
He also developed a model to simulate
urban development considering thecapacity of buildings in addition to
the costs of commuting, business
transferring, and uncomfortablenessdue to congestion, identified theequilibrium and optimum solution,and validated against observed data.
Global hydrology and world
water resources group, led by Prof.
Taikan Oki, contributed for assessing
the potential impacts and possible
adaptation for climate change, andestimating the mortality risks ofthe exposure for radiation throughdrinking water and food intakes
caused by the accident at Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant of Tokyo
Electric Power Company associatedwith the Tsunami due to the 2011
off the Pacific coast of Tohoku(Great East-Japan) Earthquake. The
Chao Phraya River in the central
part of Thailand experienced ahistorical gigantic flood in 2011, as
well. More than 800 factories in 7
industrial parks were submerged,
and due to the destruction of supply
chain, particularly the parts of automobile cars and hard disk drives, theeconomic impacts propagated to all
over the world. The group carried out
immediate survey during the flood,
analyzing the situation and informing
policy makers in Thailand on thepossible alternatives to be taken.
We are proud of ourselves that we

Major research fields of newborn ICUS

could somehow contributed for realsociety when there were adverseand difficult situations, throughpromotion of academic researches
by enduring efforts and dedicationsin harness.
However, it is too early to feelrelieved. In September 2015, there
was a historical flood in Kinuriver, a tributary of Tone-river, thebiggest river basin in Japan. Even
though extremely heavy rainfall
was observed more than a day andserious situation was supposed byresponsible agencies and experts.
Mass media reported serious
situation in real time, however, local
municipal governments delayed or
could not issue evacuation directives.
People were watching the serious
situation but did not evacuate
beforehand. Unfortunately, there
were several segments where flood
overflew the river dyke and a break
down occurred at a point. As a result,approximately 4,300 people were
rescued by boats and helicopters.
Approximately 6,500 houses weredamaged and 10,000 people required
evacuations.
Since INCEDE era, started in
1991, we have been trying to design,
propose, and implement disastermitigation systems consisting ofboth infrastructure and early warning
systems. Looking at the case of Kinuriver flood, not a small portion ofpeople still underestimate the risk ofnatural disaster and are overconfidentof their security. The behavior may
be called as "reverse gambling".
Yes, the probability could be low
enough to neglect, and most of thepeople continue wining the gamble
for their lives, however, there arealways certain number of people who
hit the jackpot, under this context,
which means they suffer and become
unfortunates. How can we improve
the situation even a little? We believethat we will also be able to contributeto answer this question through ICUS
activities in coming another decade.
Research activities for Social
Infrastructure Management
DivisionThe
socialinfrastructure
management is one of three main

themes in ICUS. Importanceand significance of the proper
infrastructure management has beenlong recognized for the safe, resilientand comfortable urban life.
Associate Professor Nagai and
Lecturer Matsumoto have developed
advanced and detailed methodologies
that of analysis of concrete structure,utilizing it to aim at efficient andeconomical construction method,
to examine the current performanceof existing structure and to propose
suitable reinforcement technique.
Visiting Professor Yokota is oneof prominent researchers in theinfrastructure management in Japan.
Based on his abundant practicalexperience, he has carried out researchon the life cycle management of steel
and concrete structures. The lifecycle
management is a series of actions toassess the grade of deterioration andstructural performance degradation
by inspection, to predict the future
progress of performance degradation,and to propose the appropriate
remedial action based on lifecycle
cost minimization or performancemaximization under budget capping.
Visiting Professor Dobashi isan expert engineer in tunneling,working at Metropolitan Expressway
Co. Ltd. He has been trying todevelop the rational design methods
for constructing large undergroundspace, and the maintenance andmanagement system for Metropolitan
Expressway, considering various
aspects including environmental
protection, disaster mitigation,
structural aging and so on.
Professor Kuwano is a researcher ofgeotechnical engineering, investigating
long-term behavior of earth andburied structures, including roadembankment, river levee, cut slope andburied lifeline systems in urban cities.
In general, evaluation of theperformance of an existing structure
is far more difficult compared to thedesign of a new structure. A proposalof appropriate reinforcement and/or
renewal of an old degraded structureis also a tough challenge. Aging ofurban cities in Japan have alreadyprogressed and various practicalproblems have actually revealed.
Currently the practical problem

advanced the research and we aretrying to catch up with the problems.
Other Asian countries will face to thesimilar situation to Japan sooner orlater if no preparation is made. We
hope that international collaborative
activities such as SATREPS and SIP
contribute to Asian cities.
Although the main concern for themembers is constructing long-termsustainable infrastructure system, werealize that this issue is closely related
to the natural disaster mitigation.
The deteriorated infrastructure due
to aging might fail catastrophicallyby or in case of earthquake orflooding, which may be the source ofadditional human casualties. Various
issues are inter-connected and strong
cooperation and communication isrequired to tackle these problems.
We hope that our continuous efforts
through ICUS activities as evercontribute to the safety of urban
cities in Asia.
ICUS will be born again
to continue its activities
On April 1, 2016, ICUS will be
reborn again. As the n-ICUS wasestablished in April, 2011 with 5-year
period, its period will be finished at
the end of March, 2016.
According to the current IIS
regulation, extension of period of
research center is exceptionallyaccepted only once. But external
review
committee
strongly
recommended us to continue n-ICUS
to carry out on-going several big
research projects, to keep good
relation between n-ICUS and many
international and domestic research
institutes, and not to stop great
contribution for urban safety of theworld and for international academic
society. Responding the committee’ssuch advice, we have decided tocontinue n-ICUS for another five
years by our competitively obtained
project money.
The n-ICUS will continue its
activities aggressively henceforth too
with the assistance and understandingof a large number of organizations
and friends with whom it has worked
jointly until now in various activities.
We hope to receive their guidance
and assistance as before.

ICUS Newsletter Jan. to Mar. 2016

Page 3

Kick-off meeting of Disaster Management Group
M. Numada, H. Gokon, T. Matsushita, K. Meguro
U Ko Ko Gyi (MES), U San Kung (RRD), Dr. Toe Aung (YCDC), Prof. Khin Than Yu (YTU)

Disaster Management Group(DMG) of the SATREPS project
started its activity startingfrom April 2016. Prof. Meguro,
Dr. Numada, Dr. Gokon, and
Ms. Matsushita visited Yangon
Technological University (YTU)
to have a kick-off meeting together
with leaders of all six groups of
SATREPS project from YTU as well
as strategic partners in Myanmar.
Kick-off meeting
At the kick-off meeting held on the
12th of March, 2016, participantsfrom Myanmar and Japan haveshared the objectives of the projectand its research approaches. Prof.
Meguro gave a general introductionof the project and explained about
the idea of disaster management
system that will be developed bythis project.
As for the schedule of the activities
of DMG in 2016, the team willconduct workshops and interviewsin order to get information on theroles and responsibilities during thedisaster of various stakeholders at

township, national and international
levels during the disaster.
In 2017, DMG will define thesystem design to build the Disaster
Management
System(DMS)
according to the job descriptions ofeach stakeholder acquired throughthe activities in 2016.
Based on the system design
developed in 2017, DMG willdevelop a prototype of DMS in
2018. In 2019, a prototype of DMS
will expand its application to be
used by the Research Center which
will be established in YTU.
DMG will conduct interviews
monthly or bi-monthly by visiting
the ministries in Naypyidaw as wellas townships in Central BusinessDistrict (CBD) to find out the roles,
responsibilities, and job descriptionsof concerning organizations.
Lecture by Prof. Meguro at YTU

Photo of Disaster Management
Group members

Prior to the kick-off meeting,
Prof. Meguro gave two lectureson the Disaster Management toapproximately 30 students andfaculties from YTU on 12th ofMarch, 2016.
The lecture provided a basic
idea of a comprehensive disastermanagement cycle. The importanceof how to manage mitigation andreduction of disaster risk was clearly
explained with discussing total
disaster management.
The disaster management matrix

Kick-off meeting of Disaster
Management Group

Lecture by Prof. Meguro

Page 4

ICUS Newsletter Vol. 15, No.4

was shown to compare the current
conditions and ideal structures.
Ideas about disaster management
manual,disasterimagination
capacity, disaster response flows
and information management wereintroduced and these ideas will
support the discussion for promoting
ideal or future disaster management
system in Myanmar.
1st Workshop held on 5th of April,2016
DMG will conduct its firstworkshopwithstakeholders
from city level (Yangon City
Development Committee (YCDC)),national level (Ministries), andinternational level (UN/ NGO). The
workshop will consist of two parts– seminar and group discussion.
The seminar will include lecturesby representative stakeholders toshare information and understandthe general condition of the current
disaster management system in
Myanmar. There will be a lecture
by Japanese side to share the lessons
learned from its experiences in Japan
with international perspective. The
group discussion will be made by
all participants concerning disastermanagement to discuss several
themes related to the roles andresponsibilities as well as the current
issues of disaster management toshare among all stakeholders.
Over 20 ministries concerning
disaster management will be invited
to join this workshop. DMG will
analyze the basic roles of theministries as well as all concerningorganizations in the disastermanagement in Myanmar as a final
output of the activities in 2016.

Recent Activities of Water-related Disaster Group
R.A. Acierto, A. Kodaka, T. Shimozono, Y. Tajima, A. Kawasaki,
D. Komori (Tohoku University), N. Kohtake (Keio University), Win Win Zin (YTU)

The Water-related Disaster Group(WDG) has been actively carryingout a lot activities from last end of the
fiscal year October 2015 to March2016. Main activities include several
workshops with stakeholders, tidal
effect field surveys, and installationof observation system at the Zaung
Tu Weir.

among the group in designing thewater-related disaster management
component of the SATREPS project.
In addition, this frequent workshops
facilitate continuous and active
involvement among stakeholders
and SATREPS project members.
Tidal Effect Field Surveys

Various workshops have been
facilitated by the WDG with thevarious stakeholders and experts
on water-related disaster research.
These workshops include “Waterrelated disaster management in
the Bago River Basin” at Yangon
Technological University (YTU) on
23rd of November 2015, “Workshop
on Flood Disaster Reduction in
Myanmar” at University of Tokyo
on 29th of February 2016, and“Disaster Management System
Design Workshop” at YTU on 7/8thof March 2016. These consecutive
workshops were aimed to facilitate
collaborative
communication
between stakeholders and experts
in dealing with different aspectsof the water-related disasters
focused in the Bago River Basinthrough focused discussions on
project implementation issues,and constant research progress
updates. This creates a participatory
and collaborative environment

The lower reach of the Bago
River Basin is affected by the tidal
fluctuations. The objective of the
field surveys were to determine
the impact of tidal fluctuations
through field observations near
the confluence of the Bago Riverand the Yangon River. The fieldmeasurements were also aimed
for the development of tidal
model. This is an initial step in theseamless model development for
the Bago River Basin incorporatinghydrologic
modeling,
flood
inundation, and tidal effects. There
were two field surveys conducted
on 27th to 30th of October 2015,
and 20th to 25th of February 2016.
During the two field surveys,
brief introduction and hands-on
demonstration regarding the tidal
effect observations were also given
and led by Prof. Tajima and Dr.
Shimozono to YTU representatives
as a part of capacity building.
These field surveys facilitate bothprocurement of in-situ observations
necessary for model development

Workshop at YTU

Observation at Thilawa PortWorkshops with Stakeholders

and capacity building activity.
Zaung Tu Weir AWS
WDG’s primary goal is tocontribute in designing a disastermanagement system for waterrelated disasters in Myanmar,
particularly for the Bago River
Basin. To achieve this goal, partof this system includes installationof automatic observation andtelemetry system at the Bago River
Basin. The group plans to install a
total of 5 weather stations and 2 to
3 water level gauging stations from2016 to 2017. First installation of
automatic weather station at Zaung
Tu Weir was done on 22nd February
2016. The installation was led
by Mr. Akira Kodaka with great
support from Dr. Komori of Tohoku
University. Before installation,lecture was given to stakeholders
to introduce and discuss thecomponents of the weather stationand telemetry system. After the
installation discussion on future
installations for the telemetry
system, data management issues
were also facilitated.
WDG is currently procuring
the equipment and in active
collaboration with stakeholders to
finalize implementation plans for
future installation on other selectedsites.

Installation with Stakeholders

ICUS Newsletter Jan. to Mar. 2016

Page 5

Lectures and field study trip of geo-informatics groupin Yangon, Myanmar
Wataru Takeuchi, Tanakorn Sritarapipat
Sao Hone Pha (YTU), Tin Tin Aye (YTU) and Tu Aung (YCDC)

We are the group of Remote
Sensing (RS) to do research about
disaster risk in Yangon, Myanmar(the largest city and former capitalof Myanmar). During 7-11 March
2016, we had an opportunity tovisit Yangon, Myanmar as thefield study trip. The objectives ofthis trip are to provide on-the-job
training, to introduce our research,and to obtain the validating data.
On 7th March 2016, we gave
lectures to students in Department
of Civil and Architecture at
Yangon Technological University(YTU), the premier engineering
university of Myanmar, withcooperation with Dr. Sao Hone
Pha. Dr. Takeuchi gave a lecture on
the fundamental Photogrammetry
and RS. Mr. Tanakorn introduced
the example application of RS
about Assessment of Land valueand Disaster Risk in Urban Area in
Yangon, Myanmar.
Taking group photo at YTU
On 8th March 2016, we also gave
lectures to students in Department
of Civil and Architecture at YTU.
Dr. Takeuchi gave a lecture about
how to measure the heights of
the objects, such as a tree and abuilding, etc. by using smartphone
applications.
Mr.
TanakornGroup photo with students andprofessors at YTUPage 6

introduced how to visualize theheights of the buildings in the 3Dmodel by using QGIS.
Giving a lecture by Prof. Takeuchi
at YTU
On 9th March 2016, we visited
YangonCity
Development
Committee (YCDC), which is theadministrative body of Yangon
and discussed with Dr. Toe Aung.
We introduced our research ofAssessment of Land value andDisaster Risk in Urban Area in
Yangon, Myanmar. We asked
about the local information that isnecessary to validate our research.

Lecture about how to measure theheight by Prof. Takeuchi

Visiting YCDC in Downtown
areas Yangon
On 10th March 2016, Mr.
Tanakorn attended the workshop for
Water Management in the Bango
River. The previous activities toevaluate water management in the
Bango River were present. The
current and ideal situations of water
management in the Bango River
were introduced also the steps to
succeed in water management was
discussed.
On 11th March 2016, Mr.
Tanakorn attended the workshop
for Disaster Risk Management

ICUS Newsletter Vol. 15, No.4

in Myanmar. The fundamentalof Disaster Risk Management
was introduced. The actions andplans to reach the goals of disastermanagement was present.
For obtaining data for our
research, for land value, theinformation of land price in
Myanmar language was obtained.
For flood risk, the historical flood
events in urban areas were notprovided. For earthquake risk, theheritage buildings in Yangon wereobtained. The slope problem wasrecommended that the urban areasin Yangon do not have the slope
problem. The seismic sensors todetect the earthquake were notprovided.
In the study trip in Yangon,
Myanmar, we can transfer someknowledge and experiences in the
study field of RS to the students
of YTU who are interested in RS.
Then, we can share and learn eachother about the research of RS
among some professors in YTU
and some staffs in YCDC. Also,
we can get valuable data to validate
our research results. Moreover, wehave a chance to learn other aspectsof the study fields relating to
Myanmar from the other activitiesof the other groups.

YCDC in Downtown areas Yangon

Annual report of infrastructure group in FY2015
By K. Matsumoto

The main activities of infrastructuregroup of the SATREPS Project in
the fisical year 2015 were as follows.
Development of bridge database
Ministry of Construction (MOC)
kindly gave us their bridge data
sheets. We have translated themto English. From now on, lacking
information, such as construction
year, bridge location (lat/long),
photos, etc. will be added and linked
to the visualized map.
Investigation of deteriorated
bridges
The investigation of deteriorated
bridges was conducted on May
and September in 2015, including
Yangon area and Rakhine state.

Some bridges in Rakhine state
have severe damage due to steel
corrosion (Fig. 1), while damage tothe bridges in Yangon region is oftencaused by the soft ground condition.
It is reported that the movement ofanchorages of Twantay bridge affects
the tensioning of main cables andthe main towers of the suspension
bridge are inclined toward the mid
span (Fig. 2(a)).
Bridge monitoring
We selected Twantay bridgefor one of the targets of bridge
monitaring. On 18th February, 2016,
we set up an inclinometer on the main
tower to measure the inclination (Fig.
2(b)). Continued monitoring of theinclination of the tower will be done

for coming one year at least.
Investigation of ruptured bolts
In Yadanarbon bridge (Mandaly)(Fig. 3(a)), after this bridge wasconstructed in 2008, over 6,000 hightension bolts have been ruptured asshow in Fig. 3 (b) (as of Feb 2016).
We tranferred the ruptured bolts
to Japan and analyzed them (Fig.
3(c)). As a result, it was noticed
that material characteristics of thebolts are not so bad, indicating thatthe environment of the bridge is themain factor of the bolt rupture. Form
now on, we are aiming to propose
an optimum maintenance scenarioof this bridge by conducting futherinvestigations such as redundancy
analyses.

(b) Setting of inclinometer(a) Inclined main tower
Fig. 1: Severe bridge damages (Rakhine)(c) 3D model for measuring inclination

Fig. 2: Investigation and monitoring of the Twantay bridge(a) Yadanarbon bridge(b) Ruptured bolt(c) SEM image of fracture surface

Fig. 3: Investigation on rupture of high-tensioning bolts in Yadanarbon bridge

ICUS Newsletter Jan. to Mar. 2016

Page 7

Annual report of transportation group in FY2015
By Y. Sekimoto

The
main
activities
oftransportation group of the
SATREPS Project in the fisicalyear 2015 were as follows.
Implementation of Real-time
public bus trajectory datacollection by GPS
By collaboration with Matatha(YangonCitytransportationcommittee),weinstalled
smartphones on public buses andcollect bus locations, speeds,
directions, etc. from remote server
in real-time basics. A bus GPS
data collection team in Yangon has
been installating smart phone toindividual bus (Figure a). 35 smart
phones were already installed and
400 are planning to be installed
within a year. We proposed a system

for geospatial data collection,
analyzing, and development of end
user applications to Myanmar.
Acquisition of MPT CDR datafor human mobility studies
We received Call Detail Record(CDR) data from Myanmar Post
and Telecommunication (MPT)
and reconstructed into origin anddestionation (OD) data of indivitual
person movement in order tounderstand human mobility patterns
in Yangon City (Figure b)
Meetings wirth YTU and MPT
members
Discussions were made with
Yangon Technology University(YTU) and MPT members for further
data acquisition, data policy, effective

utilization, project collaborationand other research issues (Figurec). Students from YTU were alsopresented their destertations during
the meeting (Figure d).
Technical training and research
tour for YTU members
We provided technical training
and research tour (May 9-28, 2016)
in Japan for four YTU members tohandle geo Big Data (Person trip, bus
GPS and MPT CDR) preprocessing
and discussed disertation progress of
two master students. The team also
visited to traffic control center of
NEXCO (Nippon Express Company
Ltd.) and obserbed real-time trafficmonitoring system and traffic
accidents management in Japan(Figure e).

Figure: Transport group activities(a) Smartphone installations and functional investigations; (b) Visualization of humanmobility form MPT CDR data; (c) Discussion with YTU members; (d) YTU students present
their dissertations; (e) Technical visit to traffic control center of NEXCO in Japan

Page 8ICUS Newsletter Vol. 15, No.4

Annual report of Earthquake-related Disaster Groupin FY2015
By T. Matsushita

In the fiscal year 2015, theEarthquake-related Disaster Group(EDG) has conducted activities,
such as seminars, workshops,
building surveys and inspection
tours of heritage buildings andold infrastructure facilities fromthe colonial period. Participants
included researchers, students andpractitioners from Japan as well
as YTU faculties and students,
engineers, architects from Yangon
City Development Committee(YCDC), Myanmar Engineering
Society (MES), Association of
Myanmar Architects (AMA) andYangon Heritage Trust (YHT).

Seminar conducted at YTU
in December 2015

In order to achieve the objectivesof the EDG which is to construct a
database and to make an earthquake
vulnerability map of Yangon City
by developing fragility curves,
we started by investigating theavailability of building and grounddata, whether information, suchas structural type, construction
year, the number of stories, usageof buildings as well as soil type,
exist and in what format they
are if they are available. After

discussing with counterpart andstragetic partners, we found out it
is not easy to get such data mainly
because they are not organized in a
way that can be used readily or due
to some restriction regarding thesharing of data. However, there aresome useful data that are available,
such as the report from JICA’s
project for the Strategic Urban
Development Plan of the Greater
Yangon conducted in 2013 and ongoing analysis of building heightby Dr. Takeuchi of the Remotesensing and GIS Group.
Two seminars & workshops wereconducted to share knowledge
and deepen an understanding of
the project objectives in order topromote active participation andinformation sharing, and also to
discuss issues that may arise. The
seminars were organized withlectures by both Japanese andMyanmar faculty members andthey were followed by workshops
to discuss earthquake disaster risk
and urban planning issues withmembers from YTU, YCDC, MES
and UN-Habitat.

Typical streetscape of Yangon’s CBDwith RC + brick buildings

Field surveys were conducted toinvestigate the building types in theCentral Business District (CBD)and Yangon City. In December
2015, EDG team conducted an
occular survey of approximately
100 buildings to find out the
distribution of building types.
According to the survey findings,
the majority of the buildings in thesurveyed area were RC + ramp withbrick nfill masonry wall structure
and that majority of such structures
and those more than 7-story werebuilt after 1981.
A trial survey using microtremor
equipment was conducted tomeasure the dymawic properties of
YTU campus buldings, commercial
and residential buildings as well assome ground points.

Measuring microtremor
at a development site in Yangon

Based on the activities anddiscussions with the couterpart,
EDG members are now working
in mainly three sections; 1)
development of fragility curves,
2) urban planning and 3) heritage
conservation and reuse withrespective
counterpart
andinvolving students from YTU andrelated organizations.

ICUS Newsletter Jan. to Mar. 2016

Page 9Annual report on activities of SIP project (FY2015)
By K. Matsumoto

SIP (Cross-ministerial Strategic
Innovation Promotion Program) is
a program steered by the Cabinet
Office of Japanese Government.
ICUS takes charge of international
activities
of“Infrastructure
maintenance,
renewal,andmanagement.” In this report, as theactivities in the fisial year 2015,
which is the second year of the
project, following three activities are
introduced.

To ahiceve an implematationof technologies of infrastructure
management, which is the main
purpose of the SIP project, notonly elementary technologies but
also rules and human resources are
essential. Especially, demand of
educational system in Vietnam isvery high because of the significant
increase of population as well as the

rapid construction of infrastructure.
As the first step of the developmentof educational programs in Vietnam,
we invited specialists of Vietnam
and university professors to Japanand conduct a site visit tour ofeducational programs of engineers forinfrastructure maintenance from 22nd
to 24th June in 2015. Places of the site
visit tour were Center for Advanced
Engineering Structural Assessment
and Research (CAESAR) in Public
Works Research Institute (PWRI),
N2U-Bridge in Nagoya University,
E-MAC in Central Nippon
Expressway and ME (MaintenanceExperts) Trainning Program in Gifu
University. After the participantsfrom
Vietnamvisitedandexperienced each facility (Fig. 1),
they well realized the significanceof the educational program for
infrastructure maintenance.
In the next stage, we are going toconduct activities for developing
educational programs of engineersin Vietnam such that lectures of(a) CAESAR(b) N2U-Bridge(a) Presentation by Prof. Iwaki of Nihon
University(c) E-Mac(d) ME(b) Question from audience

Development of educational
programs of engineers forinfrastructure maintenance inVietnamFig. 1: Site visit tour of educational programs of engineers
for infrastructure maintenance

Page 10ICUS Newsletter Vol. 15, No.4

infrastructure maintenance will
be installed to the curriculum ofVietnamese universities.
SIP Special Session held in
EASEC-14
On 7th January in 2016, with an
aim to exchange information on
infrastructure management between
Japan and other countries, weorganized SIP special sessions in the
14th East Asia-Pacific Conferenceon Structural Engineering andConstruction (EASEC-14) in Ho
Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Table 1 shows a list of thepresentations given in the special
sessions. A total of 13 presentations
were given from the SIP project“Infrastructure
maintenance,
renewal, and management.” Latest
technologies
oninspections,
life elongation, life prediction,
management, etc. were explainedand diligent discussions were madeby the audiences from each country(Fig. 2).

Fig. 2: SIP Special Session
in EASEC-14

Table 1: Presentations in SIP Special Session
Title
In-situ none-destructive evaluation system for PC structures using X-ray and neutron sources
Development of remote monitoring system for concrete structure with high-sensitive near-infrared spectroscopy
Corrosion resistant steel in concrete under high chloride environment
Deformation measurement and damage detection of structural material by Moire method using digital camera
A method of response-based road profile estimation using multiple observables
Development of technologies on a wide variety of data: processing, storage, analysis and applications to achieveadvanced infrastructure management
Hammering-test system for bridge/tunnel inspection using flying robot
Development of a bridge inspection support robot system that uses a two-wheeled quad-rotor helicopter
Experimental study on fatigue durability of RC road bridge decks subjected to chloride induced deterioration or ASR
The alkali-silica reactivity of volcanic aggregates and its preventive measure using fine fly ash
Scenario designs from preemptive maintenance to preventive maintenance for aging concrete bridges with chloride
attackTunnel inspection technology using rapidly scannable non-contact radar
Practical application of precast concrete member with super-high durability concrete(a) Presentation from MPWT(b) Presentation from ITC

Presenter
Y. Oshima (PWRI)
K. Tsuno (TME)
T. Nishimura (NIMS)
S. Kishimoto (NIMS)
B.Y. Zhao (UTokyo)
T. Matsuzaka (NEXCO East)
T. Wojtara (ACSL)M. Nakao (Fujitsu)
I. Iwaki (Nihon Univ.)
K. Torii (Kanazawa Univ.)
S. Miyazato (Kanazawa Instituteof Technology)
R. Yasuda (Pacific Consult.)
T. Ayano (Okayama Univ.)(c) Fully occupied seats by audiences

Fig. 3: Presentations in the 3rd SIP International Seminar(a) Rebar inspection

The 3rd SIP Interntional Seminarin Phnom Penh, Cambodia
We organized and held the 3rd
SIP International Seminar on
Infrastructure Asset Managementon 1st and 2nd March in 2016 inPhnom Penh, Cambodia. The
seminar composed of presentations
conducted in Institute of Technology
of Cambodia (ITC) on the firstday and demonstration tour ofinspections at real bridges on thesecond day. On the first day,presentations from Ministry of
Public Works and Transportation(MPWT) in Cambodia and ITC were
given as well as the presentations
by Dr. Nagai (ICUS), Prof. Yokota(b) Inspection by using fiberscope
Fig. 4: Demonstration tour of bridge inspection(c) Inspection by using droneof Hokkaido Univ. (former ICUS
member) and Mr. Narisawa ofTokyo Metropolitan Expressway(TME) (Fig. 3). Total number ofaudiences in this seminar exceeded
200 persons. We noticed the highmotivations of people in Cambodia
for infrastructure maintenance.
On the second day, over 30 people
participated in the demonstration
tour. Basic equipment for bridge
inspection in Japan, rebar inspection
by using electromagnetic radar (Fig.
4(a), visual inspection of narrow
space by using fiberscope (Fig.
4(b)), high-place inspection by using
pole camera, and remote inspection
by using drone (multicopter) (Fig.
4(c)) were demonstrated. The

participants were highly interested.
Continued questions were madefrom the participants during thedemonstrations.
Thus, we could successfully holdthe 3rd SIP seminar. Especially, thedemonstration tour conducted on
the 2nd day could be a benchmark
in our activity in the future. We
would like to conduct similar eventsin each country if we have such an
opportunity.
We appreciate Metropolitan
Expressway Co. Ltd. and Metroplitan
Expressway Engineering Co. Ltd. fortheir supporting the demonstration
tour.

ICUS Newsletter Jan. to Mar. 2016

Page 11

Editor’s note…

This is the last paper printed ICUS
Newsletter. From the next volume,
ICUS Newsletter will be put ICUS
website only.
With a strong support andunderstanding by international anddomestic research institutes andfriends, ICUS has been actively
working to achieve its goal for the last
15 years. ICUS was established on
April 1, 2001 as a successor research
center of International Center for
Disaster-Mitigation
Engineering(INCEDE) and was reborn as n-ICUS
and restarted its activities on April 1,
2011 with five-year term.
According to the current IIS
regulation, extending the term of

research center is allowed only
once as an exception. However, theexternal review committee strongly
recommended that n-ICUS shallcontinue to sustain good relationships
among n-ICUS and many research
institutes
bothnationalandinternational societies and not tostop contributing urban safety of theworld. Responding the committee’s
advice, n-ICUS has decided tocontinue its activities for another five
years with competitively obtained
research project fund, such as
SATREPS and SIP whose activities
are introduced in the volume. The
SATREPS stands for Science andTechnology Research Partnershipfor Sustainable Development and it

International Center for Urban Safety Engineering (ICUS)
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan
Tel: (+81-3) 5452-6472, Fax: (+81-3) 5452-6476
http://icus.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

is supported by Japan International
Agency and Japan Science andTechnology Agency. The SIP stands
for
Cross-ministerial
Strategic
Innovation Promotion Program andit is supported by Cabinet Officeof Government of Japan. We plan
to report regularly the activities of
SATREPS and SIP in ICUS web site.
The n-ICUS will continue its
activities aggressively henceforth too
with the assistance and understandingof many supporting organizations
and friends with whom it has worked
jointly in various activities. We hope
to continue to receive their guidance
and assistance as before.

by K. Meguro