Volume 4, Issue 4 December 2019

Reports

From IPA Singapore Regional Office
Tomotaka Hirose
Chief, Construction Solution Department
GIKEN SEISAKUSHO ASIA PTE., LTD.
I am pleased to write this article regarding the IPA Singapore Regional Office. I have worked for GIKEN Seisakusho Asia,
which is a subsidiary of GIKEN LTD., since 2018 and I have been involved with the IPA regional office as a corresponding
member. The IPA regional office was established in March 2019 by IPA headquarters. According to their visions, the roleof corresponding members is to strengthen the relationship between the general members and the vice president in theregion through region-specific activities such as supporting the vice president, organizing seminars, and improving IPA
activities. Photo 1 illustrates the IPA seminar that was held in Thailand in 2018, where I made a presentation about E-site
visits as one of the speakers. In addition to the Thailand seminar, seminars were also held in Vietnam and the Philippines
in 2018. The IPA is now preparing to hold seminars in Indonesia and Taiwan as well. Thus far, Mr. Yamaguchi, the IPA
secretariat, has discussed how we could have a significant influence on the Indonesian construction market with theIndonesian Society for Geotechnical Engineering (HATTI) and the Indonesia Society of Civil and Structure Engineering(HAKI). Moreover, the IPA secretariat has said that the Indonesia seminar in Jakarta will be convened as early as nextMarch.
Since the IPA has started providing seminars in Southeast Asia, GIKEN Seisakusho Asia has consistently supported the IPA,
cooperating with Prof. Leung who is a professor at National University of Singapore and IPA’s vice President (Photo 2).
Beginning with the IPA seminar on press-in technology in Singapore in 2017, seminars have been held at several venues
throughout Southeast Asia. With the press-in being an advanced construction system, we need to further justify thepress-in method to clients and engineers alike from an academic point of view using validated documents. Thanks to IPA
activities, the press-in piling method has spread to Asia including Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, and Vietnam. For thesecountries and others in Southeast Asia, the press-in piling method offers significant advantages in addressing problems
that arise due to vibration issues, narrow construction sites, traffic congestion during a construction project, and theaccessibility of technology. Consequently, we are confident that the IPA will play an extremely important role in spreading
engineering knowledge regarding the press-in method.
On a different note, the Technical Committee (TC3) on steel sheet piles was organized by IPA and has been researching
the Partially Floating Sheet Pile (PFS) Method since 2017 (Fig. 1). The PFS method uses sheet piles reaching bearing
stratum in conjunction with floating piles to protect river embankments from lateral displacement and has become apopular technique in Kyushu, located in western Japan. This unique method installed by press-in machines cansignificantly reduce material cost and construction duration. I have joined TC3 as an overseas committee member andProf. Otani, a professor at Kumamoto University and the president of the Japanese Geotechnical Society, is serving aschair of TC3. We recently held the TC3 symposium that explained applications of the sheet pile and PFS methods to Thai
civil engineers in Bangkok, Thailand on 31 October 2019. The aim of TC3 currently is to expand the scope of applicationsof the PFS design method. In short, the IPA has been, and will continue to be, significantly involved in advancing
construction technology and methodology throughout Southeast Asia to improve construction projects in several nations.

Photo 1. IPA Seminar in Thailand(2018)

Photo 2. Attendance of the Taiwan
exhibition (a picture taken with Prof.
Leung, Vice President of IPA)

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Fig. 1. Partially Floating Sheet Pile
Method