2017. 4. 3

Japan Society of Civil Engineers
International Activities Center

IAC News No.54
Expectation upon 5th Anniversary of IAC
This April is the fifth anniversary of JSCE IAC. When the International Activities
Center (IAC) started, the organizational structure related to international activities
was completely reshuffled, the number of full time staff and the budget forinternational activities of JSCE was doubled and tripled, respectively. I believe that
JSCE presence in international scene has been strengthened significantly during
last five years. The English website of JSCE that used to be the English page ofJSCE international section, has gradually become the English page of the entire
JSCE website. IAC newsletter published quarterly is now published monthly
together with several special issues. Before IAC was set up, JSCE only had aregular joint event with overseas institutions with Agreement of Cooperation (AOCinstitutions) at JSCE annual conference. At present JSCE has a number of regular
UEDA Tamon, Dr. Eng.
events with six associations in China, Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar, Taiwan andSenior Director, IAC(Hokkaido University)
Vietnam. A series of seminars as educational program for engineers aiming towork under international environments hosted by JSCE is increased to two after
IAC started. Under the initiative of IAC, “Associate Member” category, taking into consideration benefits andinterests of international members residing overseas has been introduced. It is expected to enhance international
member network gradually.
During the last five years JSCE has made a firm step forward as mentioned above. This is just one step though.
Information dissemination in English is still far less than that in Japanese. The regular joint activities are rather
limited to technical presentations. I am not saying that all the activities in JSCE should be in English. However,civil engineering in Japan is very international in its nature. Civil engineering in Japan, which is significantlyadvanced due to its harsh natural environments, should be applied to other countries, especially less developed
countries as the role of civil engineering. More sustainable infrastructures, which is more resilience against
natural disasters and durable against environmental actions, can be achieved by the advanced technology in civilengineering. For this great purpose, JSCE together with Japanese civil engineers should attempt to take a muchgreater role in the world. This attempt is necessary for construction industry in Japan, which has continued to beshrinking.
What is the efficient way for JSCE to take a greater international role? One of the pillars among JSCE activities
is technical activities by permanent committees, currently 28. A certain fraction of these technical committee
activities should be designated as international ones. Once it is designated as international, the committee
activities should be open to international members and conducted in English partially/fully. By doing soinformation dissemination in English would increase naturally and the regular joint activities with AOC
institutions will change to include joint publications of technical documents, such as state-of-the art reports andstandards. They can serve as record of the activities and at the same time contribute to the society more efficientlyand widely. These technical activities can be carried out under collaboration with international organizations.
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JSCE should provide financial and logical support. What is suggested here is my own rather than JSCE official
one, however a similar concept is written in the JSCE statement to set up IAC. I believe that JSCE can set it as
the long-term goal. During the next five years, I would like to see a step towards this goal, which is “10%” oftechnical activities designated as international.

New Administration of Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council(ACECC)
Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council (ACECC) the umbrella organization of civil engineeringorganization in Asia was established in 1999. JSCE the one of the three co-founders of ACECC has been taking
an active role in developing ACECC since then.
The governing body of ACECC is Executive Committee(EC), which consists of the representatives nominated bymember societies/institutions. Under the EC, as referring to
the Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council
Constitution, CECAR Local Organizing Committee (LOC),
Planning Committee (PC), Technical Coordinating
Committee (TCC), and Finance Committee (FC) are set up,
and these committees except the LOC hold meetings at
Executive Committee Meeting which is generally held
twice a year.

Executive Committee (EC)
CECAR* Local Organizing Committee(LOC)
Planning Committee (PC)Technical Coordinating Committee(TCC)
Financial Committee (FC)The Organization of ACECC Administrative*CECAR: Civil Engineering Conference in the AsianRegion

The objectives of the Council are as follows:

1. To promote and advance the science and practice of civil engineering and related professions forsustainable development in the Asian region.
2. To encourage communication between persons in charge of scientific and technical responsibility for
any field of civil engineering.
3. To improve, extend and enhance activities such as infrastructure construction and management,
preservation of the precious environment and natural disaster prevention.
4. To foster exchange of ideas among the member societies/institutions.
5. To cooperate with any regional, national and international organizations to support their work, as theACECC deems necessary.
6. To provide advice to member societies/institutions to strengthen their domestic activities.
7. To achieve the above objectives, international conferences called the Civil Engineering Conference inthe Asian Region (CECAR) will be held on a triennial basis as the main activity of the ACECC.
*The above is excerpts from the Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council Constitution
As for the triennial CECAR, offer to host the CECAR will be sent by a member societies/ institutions to theECM. Any member of the member societies/ institutions are entitled to offer to host the conference. If offers
made by more than one member societies/ institutions, the EC requests them to present a proposal at the2

Executive Committee Meeting (ECM), and then decides the host by majority vote. The term of host is basicallythree years, spanning between two CECARs; accordingly, the host with the ACECC flag is handed over to thenext one at the time of CECAR.
CECAR 7 was held in Honolulu, Hawaii, August 31-September 2, 2016. At the closing ceremony, Mr. Mark W.
Woodson, the President of ASCE which hosted the CECAR 7, handed over the ACECC flag to Dr. Tamiharu
Tashiro the President of JSCE the next CECAR host. At the same time, the following representatives wereappointed to the ACECC Chair and the EC: Dr. Osamu Kusakabe (International Press-In Association) as ACECC
Chair, Mr. Masayasu Kayano (Kajima Corp.) as The Chair of CECAR 8 Local Organizing Committee, Dr. Mitsu
Okamura (Ehime University) as The Chair of Planning Committee, Mr. Masaaki Nakano (Nippon Koei Co.,Ltd.) as the Chair of Technical Coordinating Committee, and Mr. Jeffery R. Howard (Engineer Australia) as theChair of Financial Committee. Dr. Kenichi Horikoshi (Taisei Corp.) would continue to serve as Secretary
General of ACECC.

Dr. Osamu Kusakabe(International PressIn Association)
ACECC Chair

Mr. Masayasu Kayano(Kajima Corp.)
The Chair of CECAR8Local Organizing Committee

Dr. Mitsu Okamura(Ehime University)
The Chair ofPlanning Committee

Mr. Masaaki Nakano(Nippon Koei Co., Ltd.)The Chair of TechnicalCoordinating Committee

An interview to Dr. Horikoshi is published in the IAC News No. 52, in which he outlines the ACECC and talks
about his hopes and wishes for CECAR 8. Please take a look at the newsletter on the JSCE HP (Japanese:
http://committees.jsce.or.jp/kokusai/node/26; English: http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/iacnews/52).

Completing the construction work for Ethiopian National Trunk Road 3
The construction work for Ethiopian National Trunk Road 3 started in 1999 as aproject financed by a grant from the government of Japan and completed fullconstruction of 294km from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, to Debre
Markos in 2016. In this brief report, we will look back the construction work of
the National Trunk Road 3 over the period of 17 years.
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is vastly highland area and thealtitude of construction site was between 1,000m and 3,100m above sea level.
National Trunk Road 3, which starting point is situated in Addis Ababa, is aprincipal road, running through 3 northwest agriculturally important states, aninflow channel for petroleum products from neighboring country, Sudan, and an3Mr. Tomoyuki Ogawa(Kajima Corporation)

outflow channel for daily necessities.
For Ethiopia that is landlocked,improving National Trunk Road 3
which connects to a neighboring
country,

Sudan,

hasbeen

longtimehopebecausetheiroftheoverwhelmingly expected economic
effects

derivedfrom theactivecommodity distribution of agricultural
products or petroleum. Once in severalyears, Ethiopia was devastated bydrought and hit by severe foodshortage.

Althoughgrain-growing

The Completed Trunk Road 3

regions in the North were fertile, foods
were not distributed to drought-stricken regions in the South due to a traffic congestion caused by undeveloped
roads. By the completion of improvement works for the National Trunk Road 3, more efficient distribution offoods from the North to the South are expected.
One of the key elements that made the construction work continue over a period of 17 years was to cultivate
local staff that was the center of the construction work. Not only exchanging skills and techniques between
Japanese and Ethiopian staff, but also transferring them among local staff took place smoothly. At monthly safety
meetings, the purpose of this project, safety-first policy, and the contribution to a local community wereexplained with time and care to local staff. As a result, Japanese method of management for measures to improveblack cotton soil was learned and shared among those involved in the construction work and techniques werealso carried on. At the height of construction work, over 1,000 workers were engaged.
As mentioned above, our contribution to the economic development in Ethiopia was highly valued and led toreceiving an award for distinguished service from engineer association.

Full View of an Ending Point (Downtown Debre Markos)

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Deep Underground Cable Tunnel Project in Singapore - EW1 section
The new transmission cable tunnels, which were planned to meet the expected
increase in electricity demand in Singapore, are 18.5 km in north-south direction(NS construction packages) and 16.5 km in east-west direction (EW constructionpackages). EW1 package is located at the west end of the East West Line and its
bored tunnel is approx. 4km in length. EW1 started in October 2012 and isscheduled to complete in March 2017. The whole project is planned to completeat the end of 2018. In this highly urbanized city state, various utilities such asgas, water supply, telephone lines, etc. have been embeded underground, andMRT (subway) tunnels have been running deeper because of the developing
network. Since it crosses the existing Deep Tunnel Sewerage System (DTSS),

Mr. Toshiya Imazato(Obayashi Corporation)

the cable tunnel is planned at a depth of 55 m or more, i.e. deeper than the DTSS.

The project comprises six

design-build packages, awarded to two Japanese companies and three Korean companies.
The tunnels in EW1 were constructedmaximum 68 m deep from Ayer RajahShaft at the west end and from Holland
Shaft at the east end with two TBMs.
The TBMs started mining in May andJune 2014 respectively, then arrived andconnected by underground docking inJanuary 2016. Both of the TBMs werefirstly scheduled to be dismantled at
North Buona Vista Intermediate Shaft;however,EPB(EarthPressureBalanced) TBM on the Ayer Rajah side

The Location of the Project

advanced farther after passing theintermediate

shaftandtheTBMs

docking location was arranged underHolland Village MRT Station.
The west side ground of EW1 tunnel issedimentary rocks which is called Jurong
Formation(maximumunconfinedcompressive strength: 78 MPa) and theeast side ground is Bukit Timah Granite(maximumunconfinedstrength: 227 MPa).

compressiveThe Tunnel Route

There are also inpart mixed ground condition containing weathered soil layer.

5It was necessary to frequently replaceroller cutters in the Bukit Timah
GranitesectionCompressed

airdrilling/grouting
providedininparticular.

facilities

andmachines

wereTBMs

asauxiliary

facilities for roller cutters replacement,
which are the standard facilities for

Geological Profile near the Docking Locationbored tunneling in Singapore. When it
was unable to decrease the groundwater inflow to a specified flow with compressed air only, we controlled theinflow of water by called “reverse flow grouting” method, which was devised at one of our bored tunnel
construction sites in the USA.
The method is that water is injected into the TBM chamber at a pressure higher than the natural water pressure
to make water flow towards the surrounding ground cracks, and at the same time cement grout material isdischarged to outside of the TBM to naturally flow into the cracks to fill them.
Besides the vertical shafts, adits and bored tunnels as mentioned above, cut & cover tunnel, two ventilationbuildings, and one equipment building have been constructed. At this time, M&E works are nearly completed
and various testing & commissioning are in progress for handing-over to the Client and other cable laying
packages. Since our East Coast Reclamation Project started in 1965, the year of Singapore independence, a lotof projects have been done until now by Japanese contractors. We are happy that EW1 project is now almost
completed, and it will also be recorded as one of the successful projects by Japanese contractors here in Singapore.

Updates◆The summary of feature articles in the April 2017 issue of the JSCE Magazine is available on the JSCE website.
http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/magazine◆Journal of JSCE
The Journal of JSCE is the collection of research papers which can be viewed on the JSCE website.
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/journalofjsce◆Disaster Fact Sheet
http://committees.jsce.or.jp/disaster/◆IAC Students and Alumni Network
http://www.jsce-int.org/IAC_network§ IAC News Subscription §The IAC News is one of the communication tools to share information and ideas with the members. We would like to invite
you, your friends and colleagues to join the communication and to subscribe the IAC News. Please register online:(http://www.jsce-int.org/node/150). We look forward to meeting you.
§ IAC Facebook §Recent activity of International Activities Center is introduced on this Facebook. By all means, please see this home page.
(https://www.facebook.com/JSCE.en)
Comments and Questions
Please send us your feedback and comments to help us improve the IAC news. We look forward to hearing from you.
JSCE IAC: iac-news@jsce.or.jp

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