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