Osamu Kusakabe
Development and challenges of physical modelling - Japanese contributions
Abstract
This lecture note describes development and challenges of physical modelling in geotechnical engineering with a special reference to Japanese contributions. A review on role of physical modeling is given. Development of modelling techniques and apparatus over a half century is presented in six selected areas, model preparation, soil characterization, modelling construction sequence, modelling earthquake, modelling ocean wave, and modelling tsunami events. A few scaling issues are discussed in relation to generalized scaling laws and spatial variability. Comments on large model test under 1 g environment are briefly given.
Biography
Professor Osamu Kusakabe was born in Tokyo, Japan. After obtained master’s degree of Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, he went to the UK and did his M. Phil. and Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Andrew N. Schofield. Returning to Japan, he worked at Utsunomiya University, Hiroshima University and Tokyo Institute of Technology. He served as Secretary and President of the Japanese Geotechnical Society (JGS). In the capacity of the JGS Secretary, he played an important role in developing a series of Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference in Asian region. In the ISSMGE, he was Secretary of Technical Committee 2 on Centrifuge Testing and Secretary of Technical Committee 28 Underground Construction in Soft Ground. He served as a member of Board of ISSMGE, responsible for launching and editing ISSMGE Bulletin. He was the Founding Editor-inChief of the International Journal of Physical Modelling in Geotechnics. Presently he is Emeritus Professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology, Auditor of Nagaoka University of Technology, and Executive Director of International Press-in Association. His recent publication is ‘New Horizons in Piling’ published by CRC Press, co-authored with Prof. Malcolm Bolton and two other authors.