Akimitsu Kurita

Akimitsu Kurita (in Japanese script: 栗 田, 章 光; born August 23, 1946 in Osaka ; † February 15, 2018 in Osaka) was a Japanese civil engineer and university professor .

Life

After graduating from high school, Kurita studied civil engineering at the Osaka Institute of Technology (OIT), from which he graduated in 1969 with a Bachelor of Science. He was followed by a Master of Science degree at the same university in 1971. From 1971 to 1982 Kurita worked as a research assistant at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the OIT. In his dissertation he dealt with earthquake-proof construction and maintenance management of bridges. The focus of Kurita's research interests was on the steel composite and in particular the load-bearing behavior of headed stud anchors , the effects of shrinkage and creep of concrete in composite bridges and the use of precast elements in composite bridges.

In the early 1980s, Kurita began working with the statics professor Yukio Maeda (1922–2005) to develop a new design tool for composite structures. At the same time, Karlheinz Roik and his colleagues at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) worked out the basics for the first edition of Eurocode 4 for composite constructions. The research of the steel construction scientists from Bochum caught the interest of Kurita and led him to a research stay at the RUB in 1982/83. This research stay soon established scientifically productive friendships with Roik's students such as Gert Albrecht , Reinhard Bergmann, Gerhard Hanswille and Ingbert Mangerig.

After his return to the OIT, Kurita continued his activities to create guidelines for the design of composite structures and dealt with cable-stayed bridges in composite construction, the reinforcement of bridges by using external cables and the fatigue behavior of headed stud anchors. In 1993, Kurita became an associate professor and two years later a full professor for steel and composite structures at the OIT. In 1994 Kurita and Gert Albrecht from the Technical University of Munich founded the Japanese-German Bridge Symposium, which takes place every two years and takes place alternately in Osaka and Munich . In memory of the deceased founders of this conference series, the Kurita-Albrecht Awards for bridge engineers from Japan and Germany were presented for the first time at the 12th Symposium from September 4th to 7th, 1918 in Munich. In 2000 Kurita advanced to the position of chief director of the experimental test facility for structural engineering at the OIT. He led the steel construction research at the OIT to a high reputation in Japan and also on the international stage.

Kurita's advice was sought after by the international professional community. For example, he has been on the editorial board of Steel Construction - Design and Research magazine since 2009. On the occasion of the completion of his 70th year of life, Marcus Rutner, with the support of the then editor-in-chief of this magazine, Karl-Eugen Kurrer , launched issue 1/2017, in which current research results on composite bridges were published in eight articles by well-known steel construction scientists

Kurita worked successfully for the accessibility of research results for the practice of bridge construction in general and composite bridge construction in particular. From 1998 to 2002 he was a member and head of the technical committee for the investigation and development of the composite bridge with two main girders and prestressed reinforced concrete slab of the Expressway Highway Technology Research Center. Kurita contributed his high level of expertise in the field of bridge construction to the committees of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE). He also served as chairman of the Council of Urban Planning for Takatsuki City from 2000 to 2005.

Akimitsu Kurita passed away at the age of 71.

Fonts

• Akimitsu Kurita: Theory and Design of Steel-Concrete Hybrid Structures, Parts 1-2 . Japanese Society of Civil Engineers. Tokyo 1999.
• Hiroshi Nakai and Akimitsu Kurita: Stahlbrückenbau in Japan , in: Stahlbau , 72nd year (2003), no. 5, pp. 287–288.
• Satoru Sakuma, Akimitsu Kurita and Yashiro Okamoto: The Tarodani Bridge - a composite bridge as a frame construction consisting of steel trusses and reinforced concrete pillars , in: Stahlbau, 72nd year (2003), no. 5, pp. 331–339.
• Gert Albrecht, Marcus Rutner, Akimitsu Kurita and Osamu Ohyama: Modification of DIN-Fachbericht 104 with regard to the calculation of long-term tension stiffening , in: Stahlbau, 73rd year (2004), no. 9, pp. 648-655.
• Kazuo Takehara, Yusake Imagawa, Osamu Ohyama, and Akimitsu Kurita: An actual test and FE analysis of a steel and concrete composite girder bridge exposed to fire , in: Steel Construction - Design and Research, Vol. 2 (2009), No. 2, pp. 72-77.
• Nobumasa Iwasaki, Shinji Tenma and Akimitsu Kurita: Portal frame bridges in Japan , in: Structural Engineering International, Vol. 21 (2011), Issue. 3, pp. 290-297.
• Yusake Imagawa, Osamu Ohyame and Akimitsu Kurita: Mechanical properties of shear stud during and after fire , in: Structural Engineering International, Vol. 22 (2012), Issue. 4, pp. 487-492.
• Norifumi Yanagisawa, Yusake Imagawa, Osamu Ohyama, Marcus Rutner and Akimitsu Kurita: Fire safety of bridges - methodology supporting design and forensic evaluation , in: Steel Construction - Design and Research, Vol. 10 (2017), No. 1, pp. 2-9.

Web links

• Literature by and about Akimitsu Kurita in the WorldCat bibliographic database

swell

• Marcus Rutner and Osamu Ohyama: Akimitsu Kurita 70 years , in: Stahlbau, 85th year (2016), no. 9, pp. 639–640.
• Reinhard Bergmann, Marco Bergmann, Ingbert Mangerig and Marcus Rutner: Akimitsu Kurita died , in: Stahlbau, 87th year (2018), no. 6, pp. 632–633.

proof

1. ↑ NN: 12th Japan German Bridge Symposium v. September 4-7, 2018 in Munich: Kurita-Albrecht Awards established for bridge construction engineers from Japan and Germany , in: Stahlbau, 87th year (2018), no. 11, p. 1139.
2. ↑ Marcus Rutner: Editorial, Steel Construction - Design and Research , Vol. 10 (2017), No. 1, p. 1.