AWARDEE OF TECHNOLOGICAL SCIENCES PRIZE

CHEN HOUQUN

Abstract

Chen Houqun, an expert of earthquake engineering for hydraulic structures, was born in Wuxi of Jiangsu Province in May 1932,and graduated from the Moscow Power Institute in March 1958 . Since then he has been working in IWHR (The China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Institute). Now he is a Research Professor and also Chairman of the Academic Committee of IWHR. In 1995, he was elected the academician of CAE (The Chinese Academy of   Engineering ) and now is Chairman of the Civil, Hydraulic and Architecture Division of CAE.
He has been responsible for researches on seismic safety of many important projects of hydropower, nuclear power and petrochemical industries.
He was in charge of the establishing of a large triaxial earthquake simulator with six degrees-of-freedom at IWHR, which has been recognized as the world's best facility for testing concrete dam model.
As a principal investigator of Chinese team, he has organized and implemented together with US team a series of field test at four arch dams with different heights and types in China through  1981 to 1998, under a long-term cooperative research program which was part of the China- US protocol for Scientific and Technical Cooperation in Earthquake Studies.
He was also the chief editor of the Seismic Design Code For Hydraulic Structures in China first issued in 1978 and revised in 1997.
Chen Houqun published over 120 papers and has been awarded 24 times the Prize of Progress in Science and Technology at national or ministerial level and some other honorable titles.