[ Photo of professor emeritus Masashi Kashiwagi ]

Hyundai E&C has recruited a global expert with world-class technology and abundant field experience to lead the new marine space construction market.

Hyundai E&C announced on the 1st that it has hired professor emeritus Masashi Kashiwagi, who served as a professor of shipbuilding and marine engineering for 36 years at Osaka University and Kyushu University in Japan.

Professor Kashiwagi is one of the world’s leading shipbuilding and marine engineering scholars who served as chairman of the JASNAOE(The Japan Society of Naval Architects and Ocean Engineers) of Japan, a marine port technology powerhouse. 

Japan, which has researched floating structures since the 1970s, conducted MEGA-FLOAT demonstration project for the construction of a large floating city off the coast of Yokosuka, the entrance to the Tokyo Bay, and succeeded in conducting 350 times of takeoff and landing test of a 60 seat aircraft on a 1 km long, 121m wide runway. Professor Kashiwagi played the key role in the project, leading the design and technology development and promoting cooperation with global companies.

Hyundai E&C plans to further strengthen its competitiveness in building floating infrastructure through abundant field experience and Japan's technology network as well as expertise accumulated by Professor Kashiwagi throughout many years of research.

Recently, the floating infrastructure market is rapidly growing in the global construction sector driven by the need for overcoming the sea level rise crisis, preserving the marine environment, and developing marine spaces. Saudi Arabia has announced a plan to include a 48㎢ floating industrial complex in its Neom City construction project, which can accommodate a population of 3 million.

In order to host the 2030 World EXPO, the Busan Metropolitan City is considering building a new airport with hybrid site development that combines reclamation and floating approach, and is also planning to create a sustainable floating sea city with UN-HABITAT (the United Nations Human Settlements Program). 

Meanwhile, Hyundai E&C has conducted joint internationals studies with leading universities such as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and the University of Queensland in Australia whose focus of research is in marine development and actively promoted industry-academic studies on floating structures. 

Moreover, in 2018, Korea's largest 200m-long Bujan Bridge ship docked at the Incheon Port International Passenger Pier. Hyundai E&C successfully completed four concrete-integrated Bujan bridge, including a bridge-shaped structure floating on the water to load or unload passengers or cargo, showcasing the company’s technological prowess. This was a high-level construction with many external factors to consider, including seawater-induced corrosion and wave-caused fatigue limit, and at that time, a Singaporean government agency visited the construction site to benchmark Hyundai E&C’s technology know-how.

In addition, Hyundai E&C has completed a demonstration design of concrete floating mooring facility ordered by the Singapore government in 2021, thereby continuously expanding its realm in the floating infrastructure markets. 

A Hyundai E&C official said, “Professor Kashiwagi, a world leading shipbuilding and marine engineering expert, plans to leverage his academic and practical knowledge and expertise, and technical network to focus his capabilities on expanding Hyundai E&C's marine infrastructure development business,” adding that, “it will create synergy with Hyundai E&C’s marine infrastructure construction technology to further expand our influence in all areas of floating infrastructure markets such as marine airports, marine cities, and wind power generation.”