SNU College of Engineering (Dean Kookheon Char) announced on March 4th that Professor Thomas Kang from the Department of Architecture and Architectural Engineering has signed a license agreement with EVEHX, a leading Latin American post-tension company.

EVEHX, headquartered in Brazil with North American branch in the USA, is a leading Latin American company committed to the field of post-tension, and does businesses in Australia, Denmark/Euro, Egypt/Middle East, and India/South Asia. This technology transfer (TT) agreement covers all equipment, construction, service and software on this corresponding technology of EVEHX and its affiliated and future partner companies. However, for the protection of Korean industries, Korea was excluded from this contract.

Post-tensioning is a construction method to reinforce concrete used in complex structures like buildings with few interior columns, multi-story buildings with thin floor-slabs, long span bridges, cable-stayed bridges with large gap between columns, and observatories built far out from the cliff of canyon. In addition, it is also needed in constructing nuclear containments, storage tank, soil anchors, or any work that requires strong hold and stressing. Since the late 20th century, the demand of structures requiring post-tensioning has increased exponentially and now it is almost always applied in all construction sites of long span bridges, cable-stayed bridges, and nuclear containments.

Conventional post-tensioning lacked in managing the pulling of individual cables. Thus, the stretched cables had to be physically measured and recorded after the pulling job. It is Professor Kang’s team who has tackled and resolved this problem.

The smart post-tensioning is a 4th Industrial Revolution method that has minimized unnecessary processes to maximize the efficiency of conventional post-tensioning. Its reliability has largely increased through the raise of its economic feasibility while guaranteeing an accurate measurement and detailed management. Another strength, in these days when legal disputes are frequently heat up, is that this technique can clarify the cause of construction defects and flaws.

This technology has been selected as one of National Academy Engineering of Korea (NAEK)’s “Top 100 Future Technology” of 2018 to already be applied in many Korea’s construction fields. Professor Kang has also submitted patent application for this technique, which is under joint ownership with a new SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) Total PS, Inc. to US, Europe, China, India, Brazil, Australia, UAE, Mexico, and Canada. The patent registration in Korea, USA and Australia has been completed in 2016, 2018 and 2020, respectively.

Professor Kang comments, “The goal of EVEHX, the dominating company in the Latin America market in post-tension and a great international partner of SNU, is to become world number one. They are promisingly ambitious, and a passionate and resilient global company. It’s no joke that they may dominate the global market. I will keep up with developing original technologies of Korea as a first mover.”

Dean Kookheon Char states, “This contract is a demonstration that our technological prowess is expanding to the continent of South and Central America, as well as Australia. SNU College of Engineering professors including Professor Kang will strive to develop innovative high-tech conversion technologies to sturdy Korea’s foundation for researches.”