Purpose of Workshop :

Creating sufficient energy resources to replace oil and coal is the most critical and urgent need of the whole world. Of the new energy sources, wind and solar energy are desirable, but the usable quantities are limited. The only energy resource that has high potential and can replace oil and coal is nuclear energy .

The development and usage of nuclear energy has suffered a severe setback during the past thirty years primarily due to the “safety” problem, exemplified by the 1979 “Three Mile Island Accident” in the United States and the 1986 “Chernobyl Disaster” in Russia. The “safety” problem, particularly in the earthquake regions, includes three primary aspects:

The third question is obviously for the nuclear physicists and nuclear engineers to solve. Great progress has been made in this aspect. In the Generation IV nuclear power plants currently being designed, both the amount of nuclear wastes and their half-lives are drastically reduced. We have now reached the point where a “nuclear renaissance” is in the making.

The first two questions are related to infrastructure systems and are in the domain of civil engineers, especially those in the field of earthquake engineering. They also include those in the field of structures, materials, geotechnical and computational mechanics. It is both a solemn responsibility, and a global opportunity, for the Civil Engineers to meet this challenge and to answer the first two questions. The future development of nuclear energy depends strongly on the civil engineers in the design of infrastructure systems.

After thirty years of “anti-nuclear ” emotion sweeping over the world, we have lost more than a generation of civil engineers who had the knowledge and experience to design the nuclear power plants. On the other hand, great progress has been made in the seismic design of concrete structures. The purpose of the workshop is, therefore, three-fold: First, to provide an opportunity for the world-leading experts to meet and to search for the best way to design the infrastructure systems for nuclear energy. Second, to provide an opportunity for younger civil engineers to learn their trade from the top experts, and third, a proceedings publication* from the workshop will become the most up-to-date reference to guide the future research and design of infrastructure systems for nuclear energy.

*John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, is interested in publishing this book.

Sponsors

• Dept. of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University (NTU), Taiwan
• Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Houston, USA
• Dept. of Architecture, the University of Tokyo, Japan
• Division of Structural Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• National Science Council (NSC), Taiwan
• National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL), Taiwan
• Atomic Energy Council (AEC), Taiwan
• Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, AEC, Taiwan
• Fuel Cycle and Materials Administration, AEC, Taiwan
• Taiwan Power Company, Taiwan
• Sinotech Engineering Consultants, Ltd., Taiwan
• Taiwan Chapter of International Academy of Engineering, Taiwan

 

Co-sponsors

• American Concrete Institute (ACI), USA
• Asian-Pacific Network of Centers for Earthquake Engineering Research (ANCER)
• Chinese Society of Structural Engineers (CSSE), Taiwan
• Chinese Taiwan Society for Earthquake Engineering (CTSEE), Taiwan
• Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), USA
• European Laboratory for Structural Assessment (ELSA), Joint Research Center of European Commission
• Green Energy & Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan
• Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Science, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
• Japan Concrete Institute (JCI), Japan
• Mid-American Earthquake (MAE) Center, USA
• Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER), USA
• Ruentex Group, Taiwan
• SINTEC, Italy
• Taiwan Concrete Institute (TCI), Taiwan

 

Advisory Committee

• Thomas T. C. Hsu, University of Houston, USA (Chair)
• Tetsuo Kubo, University of Tokyo, Japan
• Pietro Gambarova, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• Sung-Gul Hong, Seoul National University, Korea
• Yi-Bin Chen, Atomic Energy Council, Taiwan
• S.J. Huang, Taiwan Power Company, Taiwan

Local Organizing Committee

• Kuo-Chun Chang, Director of NCREE (Chair)
• Cheng-Hsing Chen, National Taiwan University
• Ting Chow, Atomic Energy Council
• Liang-Jeng Leu, National Taiwan University
• Kuo-Liang Wen, National Central University
• Wen-Yu Chien, NCREE
• Juin-Fu Chai, NCREE
• Secretaries: Jui-Liang Lin, Chiun-lin Wu