keynote SpeakerS

 

 

 

 

 

 Tan Siew Ann


National University of Singapore, Singapore

 

Biography

 

Professor Tan Siew Ann was a Colombo Plan Scholar who graduated from Auckland University with First Class Honors B.Eng. in 1977 as the top engineering graduate of the school. He joined NUS as a Senior Tutor and earned his M.Eng. in 1982. His M.Eng. thesis research topic is in the Geotechnical area on the excess pore pressure behavior of marine clay in reclaimed land. He was awarded the NUS Overseas Graduate Scholarship to pursue his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in geotechnical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, which he completed 1982 and 1985, respectively. He has been a staff member of the Department of Civil Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) since May 1980. He retired from NUS end of June 2020. He is now an Honorary Fellow of NUS Engineering faculty.
He had served on the editorial board of “Geotextiles and Geomembranes”, of the International Society of Geosynthetics, and the Journal of “Geotechnical Engineering” of the South East Asian Geotechnical Society since 1997. He also serves as reviewer of several Geotechnical journals and Conferences over the past three decades. He has published over 300 technical papers covering topics such as Numerical Geotechnics for Deep Excavations, Pile Foundations, Geosynthetics, Ground Improvement of Soft Clays, and Land Reclamation challenges.
He has served as a committee member of several technical committees, including the US Transportation Research Board committee A2K06 on subsurface drainage in highway pavements, TC-09 Technical Committee on Earth Reinforcement for the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, SPRING Singapore technical assessor on geotechnical testing and site investigations, SPRING committee on earthworks and geotechnical engineering. Prof Tan had served as Chairman of TR26 the Technical Reference for Deep Excavation Works in Singapore from 2005 to 2010.
Prof Tan has been an expert user of Plaxis since 1992. He was actively involved in teaching Advanced Plaxis courses in industry since 2000. He has taught the use of Plaxis in Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia and the Netherlands over the last 20 years. He was the course leader for the 1st Asian Experienced Users Plaxis course held in Singapore in August 2003, and again in Thailand in April 2006. He serves on the Scientific Network committee for the Plaxis code development, training and applications since 2002. He is now part of Bentley academy for advancing education in Computational Geotechnics in the Australia Asian region.
He is a registered professional engineer, since 1992, and a specialist Geotechnical engineer in Singapore since 2008 when it was first created after the Nicoll Highway incident. He has been involved in several major consulting jobs in Singapore and the region. His acted as leader of the State “Expert Witness Team” comprising of four international experts in the COI (Committee of Inquiry) for the Nicoll Highway tunnel collapse incident of 20th April 2004. He also served as the State Expert Witness for the No.3 Church Street 31-storey Tower pile foundation excessive settlements case.
Prof Tan also served on the GeoSS-BCA Working Group for the implementation of EC7 for Ground Investigations and Pile Foundations in Jan 2015. He was one of the Keynote Speaker for the GeoSS-BCA Seminar on Deep Foundations on 24 April 2015, focusing on the use of EC7 for pile foundations design.
Prof Harry Tan was awarded the “GeoSS Outstanding Geotechnical Engineer of the year Award in December 2018”, in recognition of his sustained contributions to the geotechnical engineering profession in Singapore, in particular to research, education, and improving the standard of geotechnical practice in Singapore and the region.
On 25 September 2020, Prof Tan was the invited speaker for the “Woh Hup Distinguished Lecture” series at NUS which attracted over 1000 attendees on the Zoom and YouTube platform. His lecture on “Numerical modelling in geotechnical practice (a dream to reality) was very well received by many engineers in Singapore and the region.
On 16 December 2020, his lecture in the “Bentley Webinar on Ground Improvement” on the topic of “Applications of the Concrete Model in recent Singapore projects” was also attended by more than 700 engineers. These attest to the fact that Numerical Geotechnics is now an indispensable tool for modern geotechnical design and practice that requires high level expertise to realistically capture the nature of soil behaviour to optimise on cost-effective engineering.
Though retired, Prof Tan continue to actively teach Graduate Geotechnical modules at NUS CEE Department, and acts as an independent Geotechnical Expert Consultant serving industry in Singapore and the region to do advanced design and value engineering with State-of-the-art knowledge and capabilities to meet the exacting demands and challenges of green engineering that minimise resource consumption impact on our fragile environment.

 

Speech title "Advances in geomodelling for practical ground engineering problems"

 

Abstract—Extensive reliance on simplistic constitutive models together with empirical correlations to obtain geotechnical parameters sometimes result in an overly conservative design. Recent advances in ground engineering allow the design of complex geotechnical problems such as deep excavations or buried infrastructure projects to be very efficient and safe. Numerical analyses with the finite element method coupled with advanced constitutive models can produce predictions that match instrumentation data reasonably well. The Hardening Soil model with small strain stiffness, one such advanced constitutive model, can be calibrated against conventional laboratory tests such as the triaxial test and the oedometer test, as well as in-situ tests such as the pressuremeter test. The Hardening Soil model with distinct primary loading stiffness and unloading-reloading stiffness is excellent in estimating realistic ground movements, stress and strains of geotechnical problems that involve the unloading of soils. This paper aims to provide some insights on the calibration process of advanced soil constitutive models by proposing a sequential approach of calibration that is less ambiguous, consistent and produces repeatable results. Finally, a field case study demonstrating the advantages of using the Hardening Soil model will be presented.

 

 

 

 

C.W. Lim

City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

 

Biography

 

(FASME, FASCE, F.EMI, FHKIE, RPE, 2020 JN Reddy Medalist) Currently a fellow of ASME, ASCE, EMI and HKIE, Ir Professor Lim received a B.Eng. from University of Technology of Malaysia, M.Eng. and PhD from National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, respectively. Prior to joining City University of Hong Kong, he was a post-doctoral research fellow at The University of Queensland and The University of Hong Kong. He is also a visiting professor at various universities worldwide. He has expertise in theory of plates and shells, dynamics of smart piezoelectric structures, nanomechanics, metamaterials and symplectic elasticity. He is currently the subject editor for Journal of Sound and Vibration, joint-editor for Journal of Mechanics of Material and Structures, subject editor for Applied Mathematical Modelling, Managing Editor (Asia-Pacific Region) for Journal of Vibration Engineering & Technologies, Associate Editor for International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, etc. and also on the editorial board of some other top-ranked international journals. He has published one very well-selling title entitled “Symplectic Elasticity”, co-authored with W.A. Yao and W.X. Zhong from Dalian University of Technology, as recorded by the publisher, World Scientific, in Engineering Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering. He has published more than 370 international journal papers and have more than 13,000 citations. Recently Professor Lim was awarded the prestigious 2020 JN Reddy Medal as a recognition “for significant and original contributions to vibration of plates and shells, smart piezoelectric structures, nanomechanics, and symplectic elasticity”. He will deliver a plenary lecture and chair another plenary lecture at WCCM-APACM 2022, the largest biennial meet for computational scientists worldwide. In another scientific forum of four speakers organized by Chinese Science Bulletin and broadcasted on five online platforms, Professor Lim presented the opening lecture and the forum attracted accumulatively over 30,000 audience. He was also previously awarded Top Referees in 2009, Proceedings A, The Royal Society. Professor Lim is a registered professional engineer in Hong Kong.

 

Speech title "Seismic Metamaterials with Low Frequency Wide Bandgaps Using Steel Barriers"

 

Abstract—The feasibility of built-up steel section as barriers of seismic metamaterials is proposed in this study. We consider two types of built-up steel sections (as resonators) and the surface waves propagation in a single layer homogenous medium and a six-layered soil medium (substrate) is investigated by analytical and computational techniques. The presence of resonator on the surface of a semi-infinite substrate results in the generation of local resonance that induces low frequency wide bandgaps. The generation of local resonance bandgaps are mainly governed by the impedance mismatch between resonator and substrate and the coupling of surface waves propagating on the surface of a semi-infinite substrate with a longitudinal mode of resonator. We further consider the surface waves propagation in both types of media and compared the bandgap frequencies. For layered soil media, a bandgap with relative bandwidth greater than 1.5 is reported that indicates the surface wave bandgap is relatively wide and it is located at a low frequency. The result also shows the effect of impedance mismatch on the bandgap width. Furthermore, with a change in geometric parameter of the resonator and material properties of substrate, the position and width of bandgap do vary. The infinite unit cell model study is further validated by a finite unit cell based frequency response and time transient analyses. An excellent agreement is observed. The time transient analysis results indicate more than 50% reduction in vibration amplitude of the surface waves. The study provides an insight for having steel piles to protect critical infrastructures from earthquake hazards.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pen-Chi Chiang

National Taiwan University, Taiwan

 

Biography

 

Dr. Chiang began engaging in teaching and research activities in National Taiwan University since he obtained PhD degree from the Department of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, USA in 1982. Currently, he is a Distinguished Professor of Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Taiwan University, a Director of Carbon Cycle Research Center of National Taiwan University, a BCCE of American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES), a Fellow of Water Environment Federation (WEF), and a Diplomat of the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He has been actively involved the international and national academic associations served as the Board of Director (1987-2007), Executive Committee (2001), Academic Committee (2008-present), WEF; Chairman, IAWQ Specialized Conference (2001); President, Chinese Institute of Environmental Engineering (2004-2006); and AIChE Local Chapter (2009-present). Dr Chiang is known for his work in physicochemical treatment such as carbon adsorption, membrane and ozonation processes. In addition, he was also devoted to the research projects in the area of carbon capture technology, integrated watershed management, and sustainability for energy and industrial development. He has received numerous awards for research achievements, including Outstanding Research Award, National Science Council (1988-1999), Distinguished Chinese Institute of Engineer Research Award (1993), Outstanding Chinese Institute of Environmental Engineering Research Award (1993, 1995), Best Paper Award, Environmental and Water Resource Institute, ASCE (2005), and Best Paper Award, Chinese Institute of Environmental Engineering (2011, 2014). Dr Chiang has published more than 200 paper papers in the above area since 1990.

 

Speech title "Integration of Nature Carbon Sink and Biomass Energy Utilization for Net Zero Circular Economy"

 

Abstract—Recently, with the rapid development of the global economy and the acceleration of industrialization, and large-scale deforestation have led to increased global warming which caused the negative externalities and spillover effects around the world. Both scientists and engineers have to find cost-effective carbon capture technologies for climate change mitigation. Among them, the natural mechanism of natural carbon sinks has attracted much attention as an economical means of reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. As a result, this paper was focused on investigating principles of natural carbon sink, natural carbon sink measurements, enhancement of the natural carbon sink, and biomass energy utilization technologies for achieving sustainable management of nature and increasing natural carbon stocks.
Although the integration of natural carbon sinks, and utilization of biomass technologies energy face challenges, technological innovation, international cooperation, policy support, cross discipline cooperation and comprehensive management should be developed to achieve, the goal of net-zero circular economy, Consequently, this will make positive contributions to addressing climate change, protecting ecosystems, promoting net-zero transformation, and laying the foundation for building a more sustainable and low-carbon resilient society in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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