LAB LOGA page on LabLog, a review site (not the lab's official page)
Geosphere and Geotechnical Engineering Lab
Machine-translated · View original
The lab clarifies how ground liquefies and slopes fail, and applies this knowledge to disaster prevention.
AboutAbout the lab
Understand how the earth behaves, and prepare for ground disasters.
The Geosphere and Geotechnical Engineering Lab studies the investigation, design, construction, and maintenance of social infrastructure structures related to the ground.
It explores how the processes of the earth work and unravels how they connect to issues in geotechnical engineering.
It clarifies how ground disasters occur and develops effective methods for disaster prevention and mitigation.
Building on soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering, the lab also actively adopts new digital and data-driven approaches.
Key terms
- Liquefaction
- A phenomenon in which water-saturated sandy ground loses its firmness due to earthquake shaking and behaves like a liquid.
- In-situ test
- A test that measures the strength or stiffness of the ground as it is at the site, without taking the soil away.
- Discrete element method
- A numerical analysis method that represents soil or sand as an assemblage of individual particles and tracks the movement of the particles by calculation.
NewsLab news
Associate Professor Kamura received the Japan Society of Civil Engineers Paper Award
Associate Professor Kamura received the Highest Award in the Technical Achievement category of the Japanese Geotechnical Society Branch Awards
Master's and undergraduate students received the Best of Presentation Award at a paper presentation meeting
A student received the Excellent Presenter Award at the Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers
Associate Professor Kamura received the Ménard Award for Outstanding Papers
ResearchResearch themes
The lab investigates issues related to the ground and the geosphere through laboratory tests, in-situ tests, numerical analysis, and field surveys. It clarifies how ground disasters occur and applies this to methods for disaster prevention and mitigation.
*Illustrative imageGround Liquefaction
The lab studies in-situ tests that allow the behavior of the ground during an earthquake to be estimated easily at the site, and machine learning (joint research with a private company) that judges the degree of liquefaction from the characteristics of shaking alone. It also works on numerical analysis using the discrete element method, which represents soil as an assemblage of particles.
*Illustrative imageProtecting Slope Stability
The lab investigates how the placement of holes and the insertion spacing of perforated drainage pipes, which drain groundwater from slopes during heavy rain, affect drainage performance and slope stability. For cut slopes on expressways, it is developing, jointly with a private company, a method for predicting slope failure from past failure cases and rainfall data.
*Illustrative imageGround Supporting Offshore Wind Power
Offshore wind power is being researched around the world as a next-generation technology, but in earthquake-prone Japan, the type of foundation must be chosen with the behavior of the seabed ground in mind. The lab is conducting studies jointly with a private company on liquefaction of the seabed ground during earthquakes.
*Illustrative imageField Surveys of Ground Disasters
When ground disasters occur due to earthquakes or heavy rain, survey teams from academic societies and other organizations examine the sites and share their findings through quick disaster reports and briefing sessions. The lab also studies the properties of soil from the damaged ground.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Geosphere and Geotechnical Engineering Lab consist of faculty members, technical staff, administrative assistants, and doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- ProfessorShotaro Yamada
- Associate ProfessorAkiyoshi Kamura
VoicesStudent voices
Ratings and reviews reflect the experiences of individual current or former students, not the lab's official views. Whether a lab has reviews, or how many, says nothing about the lab itself.
Students who take part in an interview may receive a thank-you gift worth ¥1,000, regardless of what they say.
Student ratings (0 students)
--
--
--
--
--
--
Student voices answer questions like these
- What's great about this lab?
- What did you learn after joining?
- What's the vibe, and what is the professor like?
- Who is this lab for?
- Where do graduates go?
Your experience can help younger students choose their lab. Your name won't be shown.
Write a lab reviewAnonymous · Your draft is saved if you stopRelatedLabs similar to Geosphere and Geotechnical Engineering Lab
Life Cycle Engineering LabFaculty of Engineering, Department of Architecture and Civil EngineeringDevelopment of new building materials and construction metho…
Infrastructure Materials Engineering LabFaculty of Engineering, Department of Architecture and Civil EngineeringEnvironmentally low-impact construction materials from under…
Mathematical Systems Design LabFaculty of Engineering, Department of Architecture and Civil EngineeringDevelopment of mathematical methods for predicting and evalu…
Structural Creation LabFaculty of Engineering, Department of Architecture and Civil EngineeringLifetime safety assessment of infrastructure structures; sei…The information on this page is compiled by the LabLog team from the lab's public information and interviews. For corrections or removal requests, please contact LabLog, not the lab.
Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Niigata soil liquefaction” 作者不詳 / Public domain (cropped)
- Ground Liquefaction: “Soil liquefaction ( )” Martin Luff from Christchurch, New Zealand / CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
- Protecting Slope Stability: “Mudslide R477 a1” Alpsdake / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Ground Supporting Offshore Wind Power: “Middelgrunden wind farm edit filtered” Photo by Kim Hansen. Postprocessing (crop, rotation, color adjustment, dust spot removal and noise reduction) by Richard Bartz and Kim Hansen. / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Field Surveys of Ground Disasters: “2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi earthquake-Atsuma town Landslide-Aerial 20180906” Geospatial Information Authority of Japan / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Life Cycle Engineering Lab): “UHPFRC - Ultra-High Performance Fiber Reinforced Concrete” Bianca Paola Maffezzoli / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Infrastructure Materials Engineering Lab): “Concrete resistance test” Habib M’henni / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Mathematical Systems Design Lab): “Finite element mesh” Bruno Sudret / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Structural Creation Lab): “Ayunose bridge 1” MK Products at Japanese Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
About LabLog
LabLog is a lab review app for students only. Student members at each university interview students in labs and publish what they say. Student voices can only be read by students who sign up with a university email address. Operated by bestiee Inc.
Learn more about LabLog ↗Search engines and AI may reference the basic lab info and rating summaries on this page and the description of LabLog. Student voices are for student members only. Automated collection by programs (scraping, or input to or training of AI) is prohibited under Article 8 of the Terms of Service. If you need data for research or analysis, please contact us.