Kyoji Suyehiro
Kyoji Suyehiro (1877-1932)
1932 Obituary[1]
"THE LATE DR. KYOJI SUYEHIRO.
We regret to record the death of Dr. Kyoji Suyehiro, which, we have just learnt, occurred on April 9 last, at the early age of 45. Dr. Suyehiro was a naval architect who had attained a position of eminence in his native land and was well known to many in this country, while in recent years he had devoted much attention to the study of earthquakes and their effects on buildings.
Dr. Suyehiro, who was born in Japan in 1887*(See note below), served an apprenticeship of two years at the Mitsubishi Dockyard, Nagasaki, and also studied for three years at the Engineering College of the Imperial University, Tokio, under Dr. Hillhouse. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Engineering in 1909, and in 1910 visited this country, where he held a temporary position on the staff of the British Corporation Registry in Glasgow and Newcastle. After further work in the Mitsubishi dockyard he was appointed Superintendent of the ship-repairing shop of the Tokio Municipality, and in 1912 became a member of the Consulting Technical Staff of the Mercantile Marine Bureau, a position he occupied throughout the War. He held both these posts in conjunction with the Chair of Naval Architecture in the Engineering College of the Imperial University at Tokio.
In 1924, as the result of the disaster in the previous year, he turned his attention to the study of earthquakes and their effects on buildings, and published his conclusions in a paper read before the World Engineering Congress, which was held in Japan in 1929. The results of further work on this subject were also embodied in a series of lectures he delivered in the United States last year, and these have been published in the Proceedings of the American Sooiety of Civil Engineers, as well as in a book written by Mr. John R. Freeman.
Dr. Suyehiro was a member of council of the Japanese Society of Naval Architects, to whose Proceedings he was a frequent contributor, his papers including one on anti-rolling tanks, and others dealing with the application of the gyroscope, the gyroscopic vibration of marine steam turbines, and the balancing of turbine rotors. He was elected a member of the Institution of Naval Architects in 1919, and contributed some papers to that body. One of these, “ On the Yawing of Ships Caused by Oscillations amongst Waves,” was a mathematical study of gyroscopic action corroborated by experiments with models in his own tank, while another, “ On the Drift of Ships Caused by Rolling amongst Waves,” was awarded a premium. In 1911, he contributed an article to Engineering on “ The Distribution of Stress in Plates having Discontinuities,” while between that date and 1922 we published several articles from his pen on Shearing Stresses in a Ship’s Structure."
---
THE LATE DR. KYOJI SUYEHIRO. : (To the Editor or Engineering.)[2]
Sir,-—I find a misapprehension in the obituary of Dr. Kyoji Suyehiro, which was published in Engineering, July '29, 1932, As I was one, of his assistants and was consulted in connection with Dr. Suyehiro’s work oh engineering'and seismology, as well as his antecedents, I. feel some responsibility in the matter.
Dr. Suyehiro was born in Japan in 1877, not 1887, so that his death occurred at his age of 55. Although his death was not very early in comparison with the mean life of the ordinary Japanese, yet he left many works unfinished. The foundation of the Earthquake Research Institute, of which he worked as the director since 1925, being now made secure, he seemed recently to wish to devote the rest of his life especially to research work of naval architecture. Alas! His' death took place quite suddenly on April 9, 1932, and now he was no more among us.
Yours faithfully,
K. Sezawa.
Earthquake Research Institute,
Tokyo Imperial University.
September 27, 1932.