Liu Baochen , Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering
Liu Baochen, male, was born in Kaiyuan County, Liaoning Province in 1932 and died in June 2017. He, an expert of geotechnical engineering, founder of the Chinese theory of random media and pioneer of its applications, was a professor and doctoral supervisor at School of Civil Engineering of Central South University. Early in 1962, he obtained a doctoral degree in technical science with honors at the Cracow College of Mining and Metallurgy (Poland).
He had served as former research director and vice president of Changsha Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (CRIMM), adjunct professor of Central South University, Northeastern University and China University of Mining and Technology, vice chairman of Chinese Society of Rock Mechanics and Engineering, and so on. He was elected as foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1994 and 1997 respectively.
With long-term study in mining engineering and geotechnical engineering, rock rheology and rock mechanics experiment, he obtained the rock stress-strain diagram for the first time in China, proposed an universal mechanics model of fractured rock in 1978, and formed a unique mining approach that impacts underground movement and deformation calculation, and developed a series of microcomputer softwares. He created and developed the theory of random media with unified time-space which was applied to protection of surface mining projects underneath buildings, river and the railway, and thus the security pillar area on Taizi River forbidden by Soviet experts was broken, and millions of tons of coal were exploited. This random media theory was also applied to iron ore, gold ore and phosphate rock, and a large number of ore underneath buildings, river and railway was exploited. Currently, the random medium theory is successfully applied to protect the surface buildings above tunnel project and subway shield construction project, which solved the predicted settlement of pre-hydrophobic surface of Beijing subway construction, and gained huge economic and social benefits. He was winner of one award of National Science and Technology Progress Third Class Award and many provincial and ministerial Science and Technology Progress Awards, and had the honor of the first Star of Science and Technology of Hunan Province (1994) and National Advanced Worker (2000).
