Richard Liew

Jat-Yuen Richard Liew, PhD, PEng, CEng, ACPE, FSEng, is a Professor and Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore. He is a fellow of Singapore Academy of Engineering. He is a Professional Engineer in Singapore, a Chartered Engineer in U.K, a Chartered Professional Engineer of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and Past President of the Singapore Structural Steel Society. He is also a Specialist Professional Engineer in Protective and Security Engineering. He is an elected member of the Singapore Professional Engineer Board (2021to 2023).

He received his B.Eng (First Class) and MEng from the National University of Singapore and PhD from Purdue University where his research on advanced analysis for frame design has contributed to Eurocodes and AISC design codes and specifications. His current research focus is on steel and concrete composite materials and structures with applications to high-rise and large-span structural systems covering defence, offshore, and building sectors. Hs research has garnered more than 10758 cites (h‐index=59; i10-index=210) in Google scholar (Feb 2022).

Dr Liew serves in the editorial board of the 7 international journals. He has authored and co-authored more than 400 scientific papers, including 8 books, 13 edited books and 16 book chapters. He delivered more than 100 keynote and invited lectures on topics related to design and construction of steel and composite structures. He received numerous research and teaching awards including the NUS Engineering Leadership Award 2020, Best Research Prize from the Institution of Structural Engineers (UK) 2017, Structural Excellent Award from Hong Kong Institute of Engineers in 2013, Hangai Prize (2010) for best paper published in International Association of Spatial Structures, and NUS Teaching Honour Roll in 2008. He taught MSC Classes on Structural Support Systems for Deep Excavation and Advanced Structural Steel Design and received numerous awards including 3 times Teaching Honour List Awards and 3 times Teaching Excellence Awards.

Dr Liew was conferred the “Honorary Fellow” by the Singapore Structural Steel Society in 2010 and by the Hong Kong Institute of Steel Construction in 2011 for his leadership roles and service to the steel industries in Singapore and Hong Kong. He is the key person responsible for developing the Singapore national annexes for Eurocodes 3 and 4, for the design steel and composite structures in Singapore. He was a member of the Singapore Specification committee on steel building products, advisory committee on the Hong Kong Code of Practice of Steel Structures, IABSE Working Commission on Steel, Timber and Composite Structures, technical committee for Singapore performance-based fire engineering design, Member of IStructE, Fire Engineering Task Group, and International Structural Steel Research Advisors (ISSRA) of the American Institute of Steel Construction. He chaired numerous international and national conferences, workshops and seminars including committees related to standards and specifications of steel and composite structures. He was invited as an honourable judge for the structural excellent awards by the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers, Singapore Structural Steel Society and Singapore Building Construction Authority.

He has secured more than $35 million external grants to fund his research work. His work on metal-cementitious composite structures has made deep impact to the development of tall buildings, offshore systems and protective structures. The efforts of his work focus on the investigation into and development of sustainable metal-composite materials and technologies including ultra-lightweight and high strength composite structural systems subjected to extreme loads. These investigations have ranged from technologies for prefabrication production of composite and hybrid structures for high-rise and large span systems at one extreme to design for fire hazards, impact and blast loadings for structures in offshore and defence related industries at the other end of the spectrum. He provides technical advice to steelwork contractors, consultants and the wider construction industry on a broad range of topics including design and construction of large span structures and tall buildings. Arising from his research work, he has filed several patents including novel connectors for modular buildings, 3-in-1 scaffold coupler, deployable cable-strut system, J-hook shear connector for sandwich construction and water-energy storage façade system. His research team has developed an ultra-lightweight floating concrete that have a structural compressive strength of more than 50MPa. This is a major breakthrough in research in cementitous composite materials for offshore and marine applications. The research team also made another breakthrough in the development of ultra-high strength concrete of 200MPa compressive strength which can be used for high rise building construction.

Dr. Liew represents the Singapore’s constructional steel industry and engineering professions on a number of national and government committees. He served as independent director of two public listed companies serving as a member of the audit committee and chairman of the nomination and numeration committees. He interacts closely with the industry in the Asia Pacific region serving as an expert and technical advisor and has been involved in numerous iconic projects. Some of the recent award-winning projects that he has involved include One Raffles place, Changi Jewel, JTC Logistic Hub, Flower Dome and Cloud Forrest Biome at Gardens by the Bay. He has seen his R&D outcome brought from the laboratory to full-scale applications. The latter would include the deployable cable-strut systems (IP Patents), performance-based fire engineering method (guides for performance-based fire safety design). His designs have been applied in some 50 full-scale installations for airport structures, high-rise buildings, large-span structures, and special cool-thermal wall for clean tech building.

He has nurtured a team of research fellows and research engineers who can act as co-investigators to conduct research on multi-disciplinary themes. He has wide contact with industry leaders and able to attract external funding to continue to fund his research group. His past projects with Ministry of Home Affair, Yongnam Engineering and Construction and Jurong Town Corporation on energy storage water facade system was another innovative project that combines energy sustainability and protective technology.