Faculty Members OKAWARA Masafumi

  • Environment
  • Disaster Prevention

OKAWARA Masafumi

Professor

  • Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • [Master's Program] Regional and Community Design
  • [Doctoral Program] Systems Innovation Engineering

Fields of Research

  • geotechnology
  • soil mechanics

Research Themes

Research into the mechanism of soil failure phenomena

My research interest lies in the mechanism of soil failure phenomena, such as landslides and slope failures. An international joint research project on the genomic analysis of the substances of which soil is comprises (geo-genomics) has finally been launched. What behavior and properties does a three-phase mixture of soil particles (solid), water (liquid) and air (gas) have in the micro-world? The answers will gradually become clear with the use of cutting-edge analytical instruments. It is expected that new principles of measurement and countermeasure techniques that are totally different from conventional ones will be found.

Teaching Philosophy

My goal is to establish a basic knowledge of soil mechanics, geotechnical engineering, analytical chemistry and physical chemistry which are required in geotechnical engineering and geotechnical and environmental engineering so graduates can perform not only locally but globally.