The Department has a cooperative agreement with the CEE Department
at Saitama University, Japan since 2005. Saitama is one of the
large cities that comprise the Tokyo metropolitan area, and Saitama University
is one of the national universities in Japan.
In 2008, the agreement took a significant turn toward a much closer
cooperation by having a 21 member delegation from Saitama visit UHM,
followed by the visit of a 6 member delegation from UHM to Saitama University..
In mid-February 2008, Dr. Yoshiaki Okui, Associate Professor (Structural),
Dr. Yasunao Matsumoto, Associate Professor, (Structural, Vibration and
Noise), Dr. Minh Ha, Assistant Professor, (Structural Materials, Concrete),
Dr. Shingo Asamoto, Assistant Professor, (Structural Materials, Concrete),
Dr. Hidenori Mogi, Lecturer (Earthquake Engineering, Ground Motion),
Aya Kojima, Graduate Student (Transportation) and 15 undergraduate students
visited the UH-Manoa campus for four days. They participated in
several laboratory and classroom activities including field trips to
the Grace Pacific Makakilo quarry and asphalt concrete plant facility
in Kapolei guided by Dr. Ricardo Archilla, and to the concrete durability
marine corrosion test site at Pier 38 in Honolulu Harbor guided by Dr.
Ian Robertson. Our colleagues from Japan gave a number
of lectures, as follows:
- Dr. Yoshiaki Okui: Web Slenderness Limit for Section Classification
of Steel-Concrete Composite Girder - Dr. Ha Minh: Chloride-Induced Corrosion in Post-Tensioned Concrete
Beams with Poor Grouting Conditions - Dr. Hidenori Mogi: Analysis of Scattered Waves on Ground with
Irregular Topography Using the Direct Boundary Element Method and
Neumann Series Expansion - Dr. Shingo Asamoto: Multi-Scale Time-Dependent Model of Solidifying
Cementitious Composites - Aya Kojima, PhD Student: Micro Area Transportation Planning Considering
Diversity of Residents’ Attitude to Community Participation - Dr. Yasunao Matsumoto: Research Activities for Assessment of
Vibration and Noise Problems with Respect to Human Responses

Saitama Visit to UHM
Then in early March, a contingency of two professors, a research associate
and three graduate students from UHM visited CEE at Saitama for four
days. We visited most of their labs and met most of their faculty. We
also had meetings with top Saitama University administrators including
the president of SU.
CEE at SU organized two major events in cooperation with a number of
Asian universities: the International Exchange Forum and International
Workshop on Recent Technology in Structural and Transportation Engineering. Our
group made the following presentations at their workshops:
- H. R. Riggs, Graduate Program at UHM CEE””Admissions, Programs,
and Graduate Courses. - H. R. Riggs, UH Performance-Based Tsunami Engineering.
- Panos Prevedouros, A Primer on Sustainability in Engineering.
- Panos Prevedouros, ITS Instruction and Research at UHM.
- Gaur Johnson , Load Testing the Hanapepe River Bridge on the
Island of Kauai. - Krystian Paczkowski Tsunami Wave Impact on Structures.
- Lambros Mitropoulos , Defining Road Uniformity and Its Effect
on Road Safety. - Yvonne Midkiff, The Impact of Native Hawaiian Burials on Construction
in Hawaii.

UHM visit to Saitama
The Department looks forward to a close cooperation with Saitama University
in the future.