SEAGS-AGSSEA Partnership

The Association of Geotechnical Societies in SouthEast Asia (AGSSEA) is an enlarged Society of SEAGS and promoted by SEAGS to bring all National Societies of SE Asia under one umbrella. The objectives of the Association shall be the promotion of co-operation among geotechnical societies in SE Asia; and the assistance to member societies who have limited number of members.

SEAGS and the Asian Institute of Technology

From the very inception of the Society, the Secretariat has been located at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok where much of the geotechnical engineering research in Thailand has been conducted.

International Affiliations

SEAGS is affiliated with the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), the International Association of Engineering Geology (IAEG), and the International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM).

The President & past Presidents of the Society

Dr. Za-Chieh Moh (1967 – 1973)
Prof. Chin Fung Kee (1973 – 1975)
Prof. Peter Lumb (1975 – 1977)
Dr. Tan Swan Beng (1977 – 1980)
Dr. E. W. Brand (1980 – 1983)
Dr. Ting Wei Hui (1983 – 1985)
Prof. A. S. Balasubramaniam (1985 – 1987)
Prof. Seng Lip Lee (1987 – 1990)
Dr. Chin Der Ou (1990 – 1993)
Dr. Ooi Teik Aun (1993 – 1996)
Dr. Surachat Sambhandharaksa (1996 – 1998)
Dr. John C.C. Li (1998 – 2001)
Prof. Kwet Yew Yong (2001 – 2007)
Dr. Chung Tien Chin(2007 – 2010)
Dr. Ooi Teik Aun (2010 – present)

The Secretary General & past Secretary-General of the Society

Dr. Robert Mackey (1967 – 1970)
Dr. John Nelson (1970 – 1973)
Prof. A.S. Balasubramaniam (1972 – 2000)
Prof. D.T. Bergado (2000 – 2013)
Dr. Noppadol Phienwej (2013- present)

OBITUARY

Professor Nilmar Janbu (1921 – 2013)

Nilmar Janbu, Emeritus Professor of geotechnical engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, passed away peacefully in Trondheim, Norway on 4 January 2013, at the age of 91 years.

Everybody in the geotechnical family knows about his enthusiastic contributions to soil mechanics; no need to mention his studies on slope stability problem. Furthermore, his friendly and diligent personality has been attracting many people all over the world. The Editor of the ISSMGE Bulletin still remembers Prof. Janbu’s lecture on the mechanism of quick clay that was delivered during the 7th Landslide Symposium in Trondheim, 1996. He mixed salt with liquefied quick clay and surprised the participants by showing the recovery of the rigidity of the clay; see the photograph to the right. His memory will be eternally with us whenever slope stability and quick clay are discussed.

More detailed obituary is available in the Geotechnique Journal, Vol. 63, Issue 10;
http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/content/issue/geot/63/10.

Download ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 7, Issue 4 Page 65
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OBITUARY

Nicolas Neocles Ambraseys (1929-2012)

Nicolas (Nick) Ambraseys, famous for his immense contribution to Engineering Seismology, was born on 19th January 1929 in Alexandria (Egypt) of Greek parents. The family came back to Greece when he was about 4 years of age. He died peacefully at his home in London on 28th December 2012 at the age of 83. The worldwide community involved in seismology and earthquake engineering will miss him greatly.

Nick Ambraseys graduated in Rural Engineering from National Technical University of Athens in 1952. After completing his army service in Greek Navy, he came to Imperial College in London to study for his Diploma of Imperial College (DIC) in Soil Mechanics and later his PhD on the subject of seismic stability of earth dams under the supervision of Professor Alan Bishop, which was awarded in 1958. Following a few years at universities in Greece and in Illinois in the United States of America he remained at Imperial College until his death. He became Professor of Engineering Seismology in 1974. In 1968 he established the Engineering Seismology Section in the Department of Civil Engineering and from 1971 to 1994 he led this section. He retired from this position in 1994 and he remained very active as an Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Fellow. Nick could not stop working on his research and even during the last few months of his life he continued working and collaborating on various research topics, including the stability of ancient Greek columns. The number of publications reaches into nearly 300.

His research covered many problems connected with earthquakes and their effects on the ground, structures and populations. His PhD and early articles were concerned with the response of earth dams to earthquakes. He was actively involved in the design of Mangla Dam in Pakistan with Professor Skempton and there, he became fascinated with historical seismicity. Following the Skopje earthquake of 1963, where it did not seem to have any earlier earthquakes, he started looking into the history of seismicity of the region and he became fully involved in this study and pioneered the study of historical seismicity. His greatest and unparalleled contribution was in this field. His meticulous study of historical accounts of past earthquakes in Eastern Mediterranean all the way to Pakistan resulted in several books and articles. His first book on this subject was “A history of Persian earthquakes”, published in 1982 co-authored with Charles Melville. His last book “Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and the Middle East” published in 2009 contained nearly 1000 pages. He has studied other regions and published many articles and books on this theme. He has undertaken many field studies after disastrous earthquakes all over the world mainly under the aegis of UNESCO, collecting enormous quantity of data for depicting the first comprehensive picture of the probability of earthquake occurrence worldwide. He considered these regions as huge laboratories providing data for understanding of earthquakes, earthquake engineering involving both soils and structures and earthquake strong motion. His broad experience, not only in the field of Engineering Seismology, but also in the field of soil mechanics was recognized by the 44th Rankine Lecture given by him in 2004. These studies were full of wisdom and insight. These studies provided him with many important contacts all over the world. His great ability with languages (fluent in three or four and comprehension of many others) helped all of these works and to sustain contacts with people of many nationalities. As well as conducting research himself he supervised many masters and PhD students and he collaborated with numerous workers worldwide. His vast experience of practical earthquake problems has been put to good use through consultancy for vast large-scale engineering projects in seismically active regions.

Download ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 7, Issue 1-2 Page 27
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OBITUARY

Robert V. Whitman (1928-2012)

ROBERT V. WHITMAN, Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), died of Parkinson’s disease on February 25, 2012, at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts at age 84. He was world-renowned for his expertise and leadership in soil dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering, as an engineering educator, and for his dedication to public service.

Bob Whitman was born of academic parents on February 2, 1928, and raised in a small town near Pittsburgh, PA. After earning a BS degree (1948) in civil engineering from Swarthmore College, Bob attended MIT for his graduate studies in civil engineering, first in hydraulics and structural engineering (SM 1949), completing his doctorate (ScD) in structural dynamics in 1951. He joined Professor Donald Taylor’s geotechnical group as a Research Associate/Engineer and was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering in 1953. Apart from two years serving as an officer in the US Navy Civil Engineer Corps (1954-1956), Bob remained on the MIT faculty for the next 40 years, retiring as Professor Emeritus in 1993.

Whitman’s initial work with Taylor dealt with the effects of nuclear blasts on underground structures and marked the beginning of an illustrious career in the new discipline of soil dynamics. This included service on Air Force advisory panels for the design of hardened missile complexes and stable foundations for long-range radar stations. His research then expanded to the general problem of designing foundations with vibrating loads. Two ASCE papers co-authored with the late F.E. (Bill) Richart, Jr. in 1967, which treated the problem as a dynamically-loaded rigid disk resting upon an elastic half-space, represented a fundamental breakthrough in the understanding of foundation dynamics. Bob became one of the pioneers and leading experts in the area and generations of MIT students benefited from extensive drafts of his book on soil dynamics.

The devastating 1964 earthquakes in Alaska and Niigata, Japan, stimulated research on the effects of ground shaking on soil liquefaction and the associated damage to buildings and related infrastructure. Bob’s initial technical contributions to this new discipline of geotechnical earthquake engineering included developing the analytical method that was adopted for the well known and still widely used Newmark “sliding-block analysis” to estimate the movement of earth slopes during earthquakes. He then went on to: independently develop a method similar to the “Seed-Idriss Simplified Procedure” to predict the potential for soil liquefaction based on using in situ tests for assessing the sand’s resistance to shaking; draw the first national earthquake hazard maps utilizing probabilistic predictions developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS); and draft the 1985 National Research Council (NRC) report Liquefaction of Soils During Earthquakes that still serves as a general guide for earthquake liquefaction analyses. Bob also served for five years as chair of ASCE’s Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering and received its C. Martin Duke Award (1992).

Read more from ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 6, Issue 4 (p.19)
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OBITUARY

Professor Wilson H. Tang

Written by Charles W. W. Ng

On Thursday, January 5, 2012, Professor Wilson H. Tang, aged 68, passed away peacefully in the company of his loving family in Chicago after a long and courageous battle with his illness. Born in Hong Kong, Professor Tang pursued further studies in the US after completing his high school education at La Salle College. He earned his Bachelors (1966) and Masters (1967) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and completed his Doctorate from Stanford University (1969), all in Civil Engineering. He taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for 27 years before joining the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology as Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Civil Engineering in 1996. Under his leadership, the department evolved into one of the best in Asia. He retired in 2009, but remained active in research, teaching and public service.

Professor Tang had an extremely distinguished academic career in which he made significant contributions in the areas of safety and reliability analysis in Civil Engineering. He was a world leader in promoting the use of reliability based methods for risk mitigation and design in various areas, geotechnical engineering in particular. His expertise covered application of probability methods to the wide area of civil infrastructure engineering/management. He had over 250 technical publications and his co-authored books (with A. H-S Ang) including “Probability Concepts in Engineering Planning & Design,” recently revised, have been widely adopted by top universities worldwide. The books have also been translated into five languages. Professor Tang had led several major international boards and committees. He was a long-term member of ISSMGE and served as vice chair of TC32 Risk Assessment and Management between 1997 and 2001. More importantly, he encouraged his colleagues and students to join ISSMGE. His distinguished career is evident by the highest honors that he received worldwide including the State of the Art Award, Fellow and Distinguished Member from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the highly respected T.K. Hsieh award from the Institution of Civil Engineers in the UK, the US Offshore Energy Center’s Hall of Fame and Guggenheim Fellow, and Fellow and Vice President of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Download ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 6 Issue 1   PDF format

OBITUARY

Toshio Aboshi (1925-2011)

Professor T. Aboshi passed away on January 20th in 2011 at the age of 86 a few days after tumbling down the stairs at his home. His death has deprived the geotechnical community of the distinguished scholar and engineer who was well known for his life-long dedication to the soft soil engineering particularly associated with large-scale construction of man-made islands for airports.

Professor Aboshi graduated from the University of Tokyo, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, in 1945. That was the year of social confusion and disaster in Japan after the end of the World War II. It was the hardest time to find a job opportunity particularly for the young elites who specialized the aeronautical engineering. After graduating from the university, he spent some period of time in the soil mechanics laboratory at the Civil Engineering Department, University of Tokyo, under the guidance of Professor Takeo Mogami.

Professor Aboshi changed the expertise of his pursuit to civil engineering and embarked on his illustrious career at the Hiroshima University, western part of Japan Mainland. During the period of recovery from the war-wrecked era and extensive development in industries along the coastal area, he was actively involved in the studies of settlements and stability of soft soil ground created by reclamation. In 1950, the Japan’s first ground improvement by sand drain method was carried out in the highway construction project in Okayama prefecture. Professor Aboshi measured the horizontal coefficient of consolidation ch, using a special consolidation test apparatus which he developed. The result that ch=(6-8)cv for natural undisturbed clays were published in the 1st Asian Regional Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering in 1960. In 1962, he supervised two ground improvement works of reclaimed lands in Hiroshima Prefecture, which were the first cases in the world regarding application of prefabricated vertical drain method. He developed the band drain made of papers, which was named “paper drain” at that time. The machine for the installation of the drain and the method of observation and control were developed by Professor Aboshi. His works triggered the prevalent use of various types of vertical drain methods in the coastal development projects in 1960s-1980s.

Read more from ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 5, Issue 6 (p.53-54)
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OBITUARY

Keiichi Fujita (1924-2010)

On July 31, 2010, Dr. Keiichi Fujita died suddenly at home at the age of 85 after he was diagnosed as cancer at the end of May. His death has deprived Japanese and international community of geotechnical engineering of an eminent engineer and distinguish leader. He was a rare breed of academician who integrated the practices of foundation engineering with research and education.

He was born in 1924 and graduated from the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Tokyo in 1946. He embarked on his career as a civil engineer at construction company, Hazama. Because of his high caliber as a man of hardworking with vitality and intellect, he was given an assignment to work in the section of research and exploration of new technologies associated with soil mechanics and foundation engineering. His achievements were highly recognized in the company culminating in 1983 in the position of Executive Director of Hazama in charge of  research and exploitation of new technologies.

In 1988, he was conferred professorship at the Tokyo University of Science and move to academic arena as an educator and a researcher. Since then he kept on being affiliated with this university until he completely retired in 2004.

From an early year of his career, Dr. Fujita engaged himself positively in the work of the Japanese Geotechnical Society (JGS) as members of several technical committees discussing practical problems such as pile drivability, ground anchors and deep excavation. His engagement with JGS was not only in the technical areas but also more deeply in voluntary businesses associated with management of the Society as a selfsupporting organization. He was instrumental in improving details of clerical works of the Society consisting of about 15 personnel.

Read more from ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 4, Issue 3 (p.48)
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OBITUARY

Dr. Leonardo Zeevaert Wiechers (1914-2010)

His life and achievements

Prof. Zeevaert at his office, ca. 2000

The international geotechnical engineering community is deeply saddened that Dr. Leonard Zeevaert passed away in Mexico City on February 16th, 2010. He was born in Veracruz, Mexico, on November 27th, 1914.

He obtained a Civil Engineer degree from the National University of Mexico in 1939, a Master degree in Civil Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940 and was bestowed the title of Doctor in Philosophy (Ph. D.) at University of Illinois in 1949, where he worked with Dr. Karl Terzaghi in different soil mechanics assignments.

Professional practice. As a consulting engineer, he carried out Soil Mechanics surveys and performed analysis and design of structures and foundations for as many as 692 projects, during more than 50 years. He developed several foundation systems for highly compressible soils such as those encountered in Mexico City. He brought forward the basic theory of compensated foundations combined with friction piles and proposed a new method to estimate negative skin friction on point bearing piles.

One of the most important projects in which he had a leading participation was the Latinoamericana Tower, a 43-stories high building for which he performed Soil Mechanics studies, designing the foundation and acting as consulting engineer in the design of the steel structure, where the concept of controlled flexibility was applied for the first time (1947-1948). He developed a new procedure for the construction of buildings, eliminating columns in the facade to provide more architectural flexibility in the ground floor of such constructions. These ideas were introduced for the first time at international level in the design of the headquarters of “Compañía de Seguros Monterrey” (1960) and “Celanese Mexicana, S.A.”, both built in Mexico City.

He was also active in the field of Coastal Engineering studying wave action on the coastline and hydraulics of marginal lagoons. He designed harbors and marinas for small boats for various sites in the Mexican Republic.

He performed the analysis and design of foundations for turbogenerators at several industrial plants and provided advice for the foundation design of an atomic energy plant in San Jose, California, U.S.A.

Read more from ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 4, Issue 1 (pp.42-44)
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IN MEMORIAM

Dr. Victor Milligan
(November 11, 1929 – March 4, 2009)

The international geotechnical engineering community is deeply saddened that Dr. Victor Milligan, P.Eng., FCAE, FRAE, FEIC, passed away suddenly on March 4, 2009 in his 80th year, while he and his wife Donna were on vacation in Mopti, Mali, West Africa. Dr. Milligan was a world renown geotechnical engineer, a key founding member of the international consulting firm Golder Associates, and a past Vice-President for North America of the ISSMGE.

Victor Milligan was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on November 11, 1929. He graduated from Queen’s University, Belfast in 1951 with a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering, and obtained a M.Sc. in Soil Mechanics at Queen’s in 1952. He then worked as a research fellow at Purdue University in Indiana, United States, on a King George VI Fellowship.

Dr. Milligan emigrated to Canada in 1956 and worked for Geocon Ltd., where he quickly rose to the position of Chief Engineer. In 1960, in partnership with Dr. Hugh Golder, he formed Golder Associates where he held posts of President and Chairman. Dr. Milligan was the driving force of the firm as it grew from a single office of five employees to 160 offices with over 7,000 employees worldwide. Long before his retirement from the company in 1994, Golder Associates had fully secured a worldwide reputation for excellence in geotechnical engineering – an achievement that Dr. Milligan looked upon with considerable pride. Golder Associates owes an immense debt to Dr. Milligan for instilling values that are the foundation of the company’s culture. In his “retirement” in 1994 to individual practice, he continued to act as Senior Consultant to Golder Associates and served on many Technical Review Panels and Consulting Boards for international clients with world class projects.

Dr. Milligan was recognized internationally as an expert in geotechnical engineering, especially in the fields of dams, embankments and soft ground tunnels. He worked on in excess of 150 dam projects throughout the world including one of the highest rockfill dams in Europe. In addition, he worked on 15 major tunneling projects in North America, South America, Australia and Singapore. He published over 50 technical papers, many of which were invited, keynote and award winning lectures.

Dr. Milligan received numerous awards, honours and accolades in recognition of his many significant accomplishments and contributions to engineering. He received two Honourary Doctorates – from Queen’s University in Belfast and Waterloo University in Canada. He was also recognized by many learned societies achieving Fellow status in the Canadian Academy of Engineering; the Engineering Institute of Canada; the Royal Academy of Engineering in the U.K., where only 70 such persons are allowed from overseas; and, Honourary Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers – the only person from Canada to be so recognized.

Dr. Milligan was one of the founders and the initial Editor of the Canadian Geotechnical Journal, President of the Consulting Engineers of Ontario and Vice-President for North America of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineers. He was the recipient of several prestigious medals and awards, including the Thirty-Eighth Karl Terzaghi Lecturer in 2002; the Sir John Kennedy Medal, the Julian Smith Medal and the K.Y. Lo Medal – all top awards of the Engineering Institute of Canada; the R.F. Legget Award from the Canadian Geotechnical Society – its highest award; and, the Beaubien Award from the Consulting Engineers of Canada.

Dr. Milligan was a gifted middle-distance runner when he was younger. He first gained acclaim as the first schoolboy from Northern Ireland to win the British Public Schools Mile championship. While injury prevented him from competing in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, he captained the Northern Ireland team at the 1954 British Empire Games in Vancouver. There he finished fourth in the fabled “Miracle Mile” just yards behind Sir Roger Bannister of England and John Landy of Australia.

The introduction of Dr. Milligan at the 2002 Karl Terzaghi Lecture provides good insight to his character. The introduction included the following citation:

“Victor was also the driving force behind the company’s ownership model. He wanted to build a superior company, and to do this he firmly believed that if the employees were owners, this would be reflected in their attitude towards their clients and product quality… Victor Milligan has only one standard. Whatever he does, it must be the best”.

Dr. Milligan will be greatly missed by his wife Donna, his sons Jeffrey and Michael, daughter-in-law Bobbi, grandson Alexander, great-niece Karen, his family in Northern Ireland, and by his many friends and colleagues in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Greece, Singapore, Australia, and elsewhere. That his circle of friends and family is so extensive and devoted is a testament to his integrity, loyalty, sense of humour and sharp wit, passion, and extraordinary zest for life.

Download ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 3, Issue 1 Page 6
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IN MEMORIAM

Koichi Akai (1927-2008)

Koichi Akai, Emeritus Professor of Graduate School of Engineering at Kyoto University, Kyoto Japan died of pneumonia on Friday September 26, 2008 at the Hospital in Kyoto. He was born in Osaka, Japan November 28, 1926.

Akai Koichi received Bachelor degree of Civil Engineering 1950 and Doctor of Engineering degree for Civil Engineering 1957, both from Kyoto University. He jointed the Civil Engineering Department of Kyoto University as a lecturer and was a Professor of the Department of Civil Engineering from 1962 to 1990. Prof. Akai stayed at soil mechanics laboratory of Prof. Schultze at T.H. Achen1958-1959 as a visiting researcher, and then he moved NGI November 1959 and was a visiting researcher of NGI at Norway for one year. Since 1990 Professor Akai was a professor emeritus of Kyoto University and from 1990 to 2002 Professor Akai was a president of Geo-Research Institute, Osaka. Prof. Akai greatly contributed to the geotechnical subjects that include seepage flow, deformation and strength characteristics of soil, rock mechanics, Soil dynamics etc. and authored over 250 technical publications and four books including Analytical Background of Geomechanical Phenomena — A Treatise on Staring the Geo-Chaos. In 1978, he was awarded the Japan Society of Civil Engineers prize. Prof. Akai served as a chairperson of the organizing committee for 8th Asian conference of SMFE at Kyoto 1987 and was a chairperson of TC22 of ISSMGE on Indurated Soils and Soft Rocks from 1989-1993. He worked as a president of Japanese Geotechnical Society from 1992-1993. From 1989 to 2000, Prof. Akai was a chairperson of the advisory committee of the construction of Kansai International Airport which was awarded as one of 10 “Civil Engineering Monuments of the Millennium” in the world built over the past century from ASCE.

Reported by Professor Fusao Oka

From ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 2, Issue 4 (p.11)
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