Kenji Aoki Author

Kenji Aoki, the principal author, was born in 1946. After graduating Department of Engineering of Kyoto University with a bachelor’s degree in 1969 and a master’s in 1971, he joined Kajima Institute of Construction Technology, where, as well as research and development, he participated in design, construction and measurement management in a number of civil engineering structures including rock caverns and long tunnels.

Through over twenty years of experience in construction of large scale caverns, he developed many techniques of testing, measurement and numerical analysis methods of mechanical properties of rocks during excavation. He researched mechanisms of groundwater flow in and around deep caverns and presented results in papers of JSCE and ISRM and through lectures and committee activities. In early 1980s, he introduced the technology of storing crude oil in the unlined rock cavern utilising groundwater into Japan, which was developed in the Scandinavian countries.

In more than ten years from 1981, Aoki tried to construct Japan’s first pilot plant of rock cavern storage of crude oil and to clarify the role of groundwater in cavern storage with abundance of cracks (this project was led by former Japan National Oil Corporation). Based on the site measurements, he contributed to establishing technical standards of design and construction of this sort of facilities. From the achievements of this test plant, three large-scale rock cavern crude oil storages with total capacity five million kilolitres were constructed in Japan in early 1990s. Their merits in disaster mitigation in earthquake are well recognised and they are still in operation.

He was awarded a Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 1989. He became professor of Kyoto University in 1999.

In 2004, Aoki served in the third Asian Rock Mechanics Symposium (ISRM) in Kyoto as co-organiser.

His long-established knowledge in surveying, testing and analysing groundwater flow in rocks, result of research and development in controlling groundwater flow in rocks of various properties and extensive practical experience were utilised in this LPG rock storage project by (Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) as the Chief Technical Officer.