The Twelfth Kurobane Lecturer – Professor Leroy Gardner

Biography: Leroy Gardner is Professor and Head of Structural Engineering at Imperial College London and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is engaged in teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, industry training, specialist advisory work and leading an active research group in structural engineering. Professor Gardner is a distinguished figure in the field of structural engineering, particularly renowned for his pioneering work on the Continuous Strength Method (CSM) and its application to tubular steel structures. He champions the use of metal additive manufacturing (3D printing) in construction, including tubular steel and stainless steel structures. Title: Will be announced soon.

 

History of Kurobane Lecture

In 1998 IIW Sub-commission XV-E initiated a Prize for international achievement and acclaim in the field of Tubular Structures. This award took the form of a Keynote Address to the International Symposium on Tubular Structures (ISTS), to be known as the "Kurobane Lecture".

This was in honour of the prodigious contribution made to tubular structures by the late Professor Yoshiaki Kurobane of Kumamoto University/Sojo University, Japan. He was accordingly invited to give the inaugural presentation at the ISTS 8 in Singapore, in 1998.

• The second Kurobane Lecturer was Professor Jaap Wardenier, of Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, and his address was given at the ISTS 9 in Düsseldorf, Germany in 2001;
• The third Kurobane Lecturer was Professor Jeffrey Packer, of the University of Toronto in Canada, and his address was given at the ISTS 10 in Madrid, Spain in 2003;
• The fourth Kurobane Lecturer was Professor Peter Marshall, of MHP Systems Engineering in USA, and his address was given at the ISTS 11 in Québec, Canada in 2006;
• The fifth Kurobane Lecturer was Professor Ram Puthli, of University of Karlsruhe in Germany, and his address was given at the ISTS 12 in Shanghai, China in 2008;
• The sixth Kurobane Lecturer was Dr Nick Zettlemoyer, of ExxonMobil Development Company in USA, and his address was given at the ISTS 13 in Hong Kong, China in 2010;
• The seventh Kurobane Lecturer was Professor Xiao-Lin Zhao, of Monash University in Australia, and his address was given at the ISTS 14 in London, United Kindom in 2012;
• The eighth Kurobane Lecturer was Professor Yoo Sang Choo, of National University of Singapore in Singapore, and his address was given at the ISTS 15 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2015;
• The ninth Kurobane Lecturer was Dr Stefan Herion, of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, and his address was given at the ISTS 16 in Melbourne, Australia in 2017;
• The tenth Kurobane Lecturer was Dr Mick Eekhout, of Octatube & Delft University of Technology, and his address was given at the ISTS 17 in Singapore in 2019;
• The eleventh Kurobane Lecturer was Professor Ben Young, of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, China, and his address was given at the ISTS 18 in Beijing, China in 2023.