InCIEC 2014

Human footfalls are the main source of vibration in office building and it could affect the structure of the building as well as causing discomfort and annoyance to the occupants of the building when the vibration level inside the building exceeds the recommended level. The objectives of the study are to determine the level of vibration on each floor of a multi-storey building due to footfalls and to perform structural response on the multi-storey building due to footfalls input. The selected building for this study is Registrar Office building located in Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM). The scope of study is focused on the effect of vibration induced by footfalls on multi-storey building and analyzing the data using MATLAB and ANSYSv14. The real inputs of vibration induced by footfalls were measured and obtained using Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV). The vibration level induced by footfalls on the multi-storey office building can be determined using Vibration Criteria (VC) guidelines. Finally, from the study, the vibration level achieved for this Registrar Office building is in ISO level range which is still under the acceptable limit for office building.

Reinforced concrete (RC) stocky wall panel is a new innovation to the construction industry. To-date, studies on the RC stocky wall panel are under progress. This paper is analyzed shear resistance of rebar connector in RC stocky wall panels using LUSAS 3D model. Four (4) number of model have been analyzed using finite element analysis with varies size of rebar connector which is T12, T16, T20 and T25. These models of RC stocky wall panel was constructed in same dimension, 125 mm × 1,000 mm × 500 mm (Thickness:Length:Height). This paper was concerned with a finite element model to determine the maximum deflection of the RC stocky wall panel in resisting lateral load. These four (4) models are being analyzed to observe its deflection, stress and strain. The result was illustrated and discussed in graphs namely stress-strain relationship and also load versus displacement contour. The size of rebar connectors are affected the shear resistance results in term of lateral deflection, stress and strain. From this study, it can be concluded that, the larger diameter of rebar size has give the less displacement in model.

Nowadays lightweight concrete (LWC) is used on a large scale for structural purposes. The application of structural LWC in the construction industry has many advantages such as saving in dead load for structural design and foundation, reduce the risk of earthquake damage to structure, and good tensile strain capacity. Modulus of elasticity of concrete has been considered as a vital factor in designing concrete structures. However, in practice, the concrete modulus usually not measured, but estimated from the concrete compressive strength using empirical. Therefore, this study is conducted to determine the modulus elasticity of lightweight concrete by stress-strain in lateral and longitudinal direction. Hence, the poison ratio of LWC also determined. From this research, it was found that Poison ratio for the EPS-LWC enhanced with steel fiber is 0.17. Meanwhile, the modulus of elasticity is 13.79 GPa.

Precast reinforced concrete wall offer many advantages during construction stage. One of the advantages is fast and economical. Despite that, the structure strength is carefully design in order to provide strong and reliable elements that made up the whole building. This research focus on the structural performance of three-ribbed wall reinforced with steel fibre and apart from steel fabric as the main reinforcement (WSF). In contrast, another typical wall was constructed without using steel fabric (WOSF). The wall dimensions were 1,600 mm × 1,000 mm × 100 mm (height × length × width) reinforced with B7 of steel fabric size as well as steel fibre HE 0.75/60 using concrete grade 30. Both walls were set up as pinned-fixed at the top and bottom end. The loading consist of uniformly distributed axial load connected to hydraulic jack and has 2,000 kN capacity limit. Analysis of results was done based on the ultimate load carrying capacity, wall displacement, mode of failure and cracking pattern. The location of the maximum displacement was located at 1,450 mm from the bottom while wall WOSF occurs approximately at 1,150 mm (about 0.7 H of the wall height). Wall WSF fails by crushing as indicates due to slenderness ratio 16 less than 20 and it experienced crushing at the top end along load distribution area. Load appliance to the WOSF wall was stopped as no sign of failure can be identified as the machine already reached its capacity.

This paper reports the investigation made on the suitability and the optimum ratio of quarry dust in replacing river sand for brick production. A series of mix proportions for different ratio of cement:sand:quarry dust were prepared. Five types of mix proportions were practiced in the production of brick specimens were 1:10:0, 1:7.5:2.5, 1:5:5, 1:2.5:7.5 and 1:0:10 (Cement:Sand:Quarry Dust) and denoted as B1, B2, B3, B4 and B5 respectively. The curing method applied in this study was air dry as this type of curing was widely used in the manufacturing of bricks. The compressive strength of the samples was determined at 7, 28 and 45 days. Compressive strength tests were conducted in accordance with BS 3921:1985. Water absorptions of the samples were determined by using 24 h cold immersion test and 5 h boiling test. Bricks with mix ratio 1:0:10 (B5) containing 100 % quarry dust in replacing the sand gave the highest strength and the lowest water absorption compared to other ratios. All the quarry dust-sand-cement bricks exhibited a compressive strength much higher than the minimum requirement for standard bricks (5 N/mm

2

) according to British Standard (BS 3921:1985). Bricks B5 can be considered to be in ‘severe weathering’ grade and the other bricks are in ‘moderate weathering’ grade in accordance with ASTM C62.

Utilization of Recycled Aggregate (RA) in concrete is due to the awareness of society in preserving natural resources for future generation. RA application as coarse aggregate in concrete mixes initiation is to make use effectively of the waste materials. The purpose of this study is to improve the Recycled Aggregate Concrete (RAC) by using the Micronized Biomass Silica (MBS). Concrete cube specimens containing various percentages of RA and MBS were prepared and tested. The results indicated that after 28 days curing, concrete containing 12 % of MBS and 100 % RA enables to enhance the compressive strength up to 17.20 % and reduce the water permeability coefficient and water penetration up to 47.10 and 7.5 % respectively. It can be concluded that RAC containing MBS perform significantly better RAC without MBS.

The paper presents an evaluation of high rise building in Kedah which subjected to low intensity earthquakes effects. The earthquake study is relevant even though Malaysia is outside the earthquake region but still had experienced and did suffered from major cases in the past like Tsunami. Engineers should concern and consider the loading for reinforced concrete building due to earthquake in Malaysia’s building design procedure. The study addresses on the earthquake study due to performance of critical frame reinforced concrete building. The Quarters Tentera Laut Diraja Malaysia (TLDM) Langkawi, Kedah was chosen as a main model for this study. The building was analyzed using Finite Element Modelling (FEM) under different types of analyses using IDARC 2D depend on variety of earthquake intensities from Time History Analysis (THA) considering low to medium earthquake intensities. The yield point at beam-column connections was analyzed to determine the damage index and damage level of the building. The building performed the early yielding point at 3.115 s for beam element at intensity 0.20 g. Based on result, the critical frame 2A/F–B of the building can stand an earthquake happen with intensity up to 0.20 g. There is no structural damage but some non-structural damage is expected in the non-linear analysis of modal frames which indicates that the building was categorized in the light damage level.

Lightweight concrete which was proposed normally to reduce the dead load of ordinary concrete has become very popular among researcher. One of the lightweight concrete is known as lightweight foam concrete. This type of concrete can support lesser load compared to ordinary concrete. Thus, a lot of study has been conducted to increase the strength of lightweight foam concrete. Fiberglass has been introduced to increase the strength of lightweight foam concrete, however, it is not an environmental friendly product. Therefore, in this study natural fiber named as coir fiber has been used to strengthen the foam concrete. A total of 18 cube samples with 100 × 100 × 100 mm size have been produced. The samples have been produced using protein and synthetic foaming agent and comparison on compressive strength have been made. Different densities of concrete were considered in this study which are 1400, 1600 and 1800 kg/m

3

. A compressive strength testing machine was used to obtain the strength of these 18 cube samples at 28 days of water curing. Results on compressive strength have been compared between the lightweight coir fiber concrete containing protein and synthetic foam of various densities. The relationships indicate that the increment of concrete density has increased the strength of lightweight fiber concrete containing protein and synthetic foam. Besides, the strength of lightweight fiber concrete containing synthetic foam is higher than protein foam.

Foamed concrete has recently gained attention as an alternative to normal concrete in structural engineering. Foamed concrete with a low range of densities can be obtained for various applications. As a structural component, foamed concrete is mainly advantageous given characteristics such as high strength with low density, good serviceability, and light weight. Therefore, many studies have investigated its strength and mechanical properties. However, these investigations did not examine the fracture energy of foamed concrete, which is the main parameter that governs damage and crack mechanisms. Therefore, the present study aims to experimentally investigate the fracture energy of foamed concrete using beam specimens with V-notches through the three-point bending test. Beam specimens of foamed concrete were cast and prepared at densities of 1,400 and 1,600 kg/m

3

. Moreover, the designed V-notch was 30 mm long and was positioned at the center of the beam. The beam specimens were then assessed to generate the strength-displacement profiles. Consequently, fracture energy was determined based on the Hillerborg, Bazant, and Comite Euro-International du Beton models. Results showed that cracks propagated from the tip of the notch to the upper surface of the beam. Surprisingly, the fracture energy of the foamed concrete were relatively high at approximately 18–25 N/m given compressive strengths of 6.4 and 14 MPa. Furthermore, the fracture energy of foamed concrete was only a fraction of that of normal concrete.

This paper presents experimental results on strength and deformation behaviour of concrete reinforced with steel fibre from recycled tyre. Various concrete mixes were made where steel fibres were used at volume fractions ranging from 0 to 2 % by volume of concrete mix. Test specimens comprising of cube, cylinder and prism were prepared and tested for strength after 28 days of curing in water. It has been found that the compressive strength of concrete was slightly increased by the incorporation of recycled steel fibre. However, the tensile and flexural strength of concrete was remarkably improved with the increase of fibre content. Laboratory investigation further revealed that the addition of steel fibre had no influence on drying shrinkage; the creep of concrete, however, was found to be lower in concrete with fibre reinforcement than that in the control specimen.

International market expansion into foreign markets has become increasingly important for construction firms. In this borderless world, no market is safe from foreign competition. This situation is also evident for the construction firms, as international construction is not a new phenomenon. Hence, firms have to be prepared and adopt effective strategies to face various challenges in unfamiliar environments and most importantly be able to sustain and perform in new business ventures. The main aim of this research is to determine the factors influencing the performance of the Malaysian construction firms in international markets. Questionnaire surveys were sent to 115 construction companies registered with CIDB Malaysia. A structural equation modeling (SEM) using partial least square (SMART PLS 2.0) was used to determine significant factors influencing performance of the firms. The confirmatory factor analysis carried out through SEM-PLS analysis has revealed that firm factors have significantly influenced the firm’s performance. The findings based on loadings generated by the PLS-SEM model revealed the eleven significant factors influencing the firm’s performance are the firm’s ability to assess market signals and opportunities, long-term and strong management strategic orientation and objectives, superior management and organizational dynamic capabilities, firm’s financing capacity and competencies, strong resources related to level of knowledge and Research and Development, profit targets, level of knowledge and international experience, product differentiation (strong brand name), reputation, good track record and competitive advantage. The five significant performance factors are based on the acquirements of competitive advantages, return of investment, prestige, stability, business expansion and security of the firm.

Construction has been acknowledged as a production process with much inefficiency related to various generated wastes during the process. Lean construction initiative is attempting to mitigate this problem by reducing waste generating processes and, on the other hand, trying to increase the value the customer needs. There have been many successful applications of the lean construction principles in many countries that encourage the adoption of the principles in Indonesia. One of the efforts in implementing one of the lean construction principles in the Indonesia construction industry was conducted in an action research and is reported in this paper. The research was aiming to implement flow improvement approaches to reduce the waste in a three-unit residential construction project, and focusing only on brick laying operations of three different materials for three different houses: clay brick, concrete brick, and light-weight brick. Durations, sequences, and resources related to each task in each operation were collected using a video camera to calculate their performances such as productivities, idleness of resources, and cycle times during the beginning phase of the operations and then considered as existing conditions. Based on existing performances, especially related to non-productive activities, analyses and recommendations were made to improve the flow of each brick laying operation. The recommendations were then implemented to the next phase of all three operations, and resulted in reduced waste, potentially better productivity, cycle time, and labor utilization factors of those three brick laying operations.

Standard Method of Measurement (SMM) is a reference document used to determine a localized technique of construction measurement protocol needed in producing a good Bills of Quantities (BQ) which is then incorporated into the contract document for the project. The preparation of the BQ based on SMM that is reflective of the actual work will actually help the contractor to price the tender realistically. Tendering is a serious business, whereby failure to properly price it at a realistic and profitable level can give a bad impact to the contractor’s organization. Thus, it is crucial to conduct research which aimed to investigate the two edition of the SMM for building works between the SMM1 and SMM2 version in the preparation of the BQs, focusing towards improving the appreciation of the contractors during the course of tender and construction. In view of the above matter, this paper will attempt to identify a few differences on the method of measurement between SMM1 and SMM2 and to analyze the contractors’ perception on the application of the SMM in determining the tender realistically and reflective of the work on site. Triangular data collection approach was used in order to obtain a variety of information on the same issues. It comprises a literature review followed by document analysis, a questionnaire survey which was then supported by semi- structured interviews. However, due to the limitation of the space, this paper will only focus on one major element which is the excavation work. There are three differences identified between the SMM1 and SMM2, which are; unit of measurement, method of measurement and additional new items/elements. There were also a few items the contractor prefers to be measured according to the SMM1. Thus, an improvement is needed in order fill in the gap identified between the two SMMs.

Industrialised Building System (IBS) is a construction process that uses standardised building components mass produced in a factory or on site, then transported and assembled into a structure using appropriate machinery and equipment with minimal workers on site with proper planning and integration. IBS is the term used to represent the prefabrication concept in Malaysian construction industry. IBS contributes to sustainability, improves site safety, quality and productivity in the built environment. Since the move towards industrialisation in the construction industry is a global phenomenon, the definitions, classifications, characteristics and concepts of IBS needs to evolve and in line with the global understanding. The main objective of this paper is to study the way forward for IBS (adopting sustainability, degree of industrialisation and modular construction) and revisit the current definitions, classifications, characteristics and concepts in IBS based on comprehensive reviews of previous researches with an explanatory method. Better understanding on the fundamentals and future improvement of IBS will encourage construction industry players to adopt IBS and increase the awareness on IBS.

The building maintenance programme is the important part of the building life cycle. All planned or unplanned maintenance programme are designed to maintain the originality and conditions for the specific building. The comprehensive planning and evaluation processes of building maintenance performance for heritage building is crucial in determining the best practice and procedure in order to meet the prescribed requirements. The awareness programme among involve parties is needed to strengthen their basic understanding about the importance of maintaining the heritage buildings. The lack of maintenance scope and procedure in heritage building is considered as a non-sustainable result to the existing building condition. This lacking situation will be the initial cause of building defect and deterioration problems and have to allocate a lot of money in order to repair and rehabilitate the selected heritage buildings. The aims of this study are to identify and review the related issues of building maintenance performance for heritage buildings. The review will also reveal the identified significant factors which are giving an influence to the building maintenance performance for heritage buildings. The building maintenance performance has considered as one of the major issues in heritage buildings in order to prolong its life expectancy. This paper reviews the previous significant factors in building maintenance performance in heritage building. The relevant significant factors should be considered during planning phase of the maintenance programme.

Construction industry in Malaysia is one of the main contributors to economic growth, yet there are still issues related to construction cost overrun. Many factors have triggered the cost overrun issues that might have high possibility to ruin the overall performance of a construction project. To cope with these issues, determination of strategies is essential to ensure effective cost management in construction projects. This study attempts to identify strategies for current construction industry in dealing with cost overrun issues. Literature review and quantitative approach were employed to achieve objectives of the study. Questionnaires were distributed to three key construction stakeholders that are client, contractor and consultant in Penang state, Malaysia. The data obtained from the respondents were analyzed by using Relative Importance Index (RII) method. The findings indicate that the current industry stakeholders have different point of view and opinion in dealing with cost overrun issues. In conclusion, the result of this study serves as a guideline in dealing with the issue of cost overrun.

Construction waste generation is a common problem in the construction industry of Malaysia. This generation of construction waste is occurred due to several factors. Each factor has a different level of risk on the construction performance which is important to determine for effective waste management. Hence, this study is conducted to determine the risk level of various factors contributing to waste generation in the construction phase. A total of 32 factors identified from the literature review were investigated through questionnaire survey. Survey was done using Delphi technique with 2 rounds. Delphi round 1 aimed to determine the risk level of each factor while round 2 focused on confirming the findings of round 1. The panel of expert participating in round one of data collection consisted of 15 experts while, in round two, 11 experts participated. Data collected for probability of occurrence and severity level during round 1, was analyzed with Average Index (AI) formula. Calculated AI values were further analyzed with a risk matrix. Results showed that 14 factors have high risk level while 18 factors have medium risk level. Analysis of round 2 highlighted that the experts agreed with the determined risk level of all the factors except 2 factors i.e. equipment failure and supplier errors. Results also indicate that the factors in the category Human Resource/Manpower are the most severe factors contributing to the generation of construction waste on site. These findings will help the practitioners to prepare an effective strategy to control the waste problem.

Maintenance management is a combination of all technical and administrative actions, including supervision actions, intended to retain an item in or restore it to a state in which it can perform a required function. Value management is a proactive, creative, problem-solving service, utilizing a multi-disciplinary team-oriented plan of attack to make explicit the client’s value system using functional analysis to discover the relationship between time, cost and quality with the aim of maximizing the overall operation of an establishment. Both of them are interrelated with each other for improving building performance. Alas, lack of a thorough review of design and specification has thus created so many faults and defects during the conception and construction stages in which resulted later in high upkeep costs. For overcoming that issue, this paper will explore the potential of VM approach during the conception phase of bringing on a perfect (fewer defects) design specification of a building. The standard procedure of VM methodology practice which has involved a multidisciplinary project stakeholders in order to avoid the issue over design and unnecessary maintenance costs will be concluded as well.

Over the decades, Malaysia construction industry is experienced continuous soar growth all over the nation. In retain the property condition, it is essential to understand and well inform in upkeep management. Without a proper upkeep, degradation will gradually develop and directing to unfit property. However, to preserve a property is a tough task as the awareness of upkeep is still premature particularly in adapting upkeep on residential building. This is due to inadequate guidance and regulation for homeowner to execute and perform upkeep. Hence, to provide instructor and assistance for homeowner, a handbook of maintenance manual is needed in order them to practice upkeep accordingly. Thus, in implementing the home maintenance manual for homeowner, this paper establish a study on homeowners prevalence upkeep behaviours to understand factors that influence homeowners upkeep their dwelling.

The paper aims to identify end users perception towards benefits offered by green roofs at Malaysia high rise residential buildings. The perception is crucial in determining potential of green roofs, as it offers many benefits mainly in providing sustainable residential building. The study was conducted through questionnaire surveys to the end user at selected five case study buildings at Shah Alam and Subang Jaya. Survey results found that end users mostly agree with the benefits offered by green roofs particularly in the aspect of social and aesthetic value benefits. It reveals good potential of green roofs towards providing sustainable highrise residential building in Malaysia.

Construction activities must conserved energy, land, water and material to successfully implementing green construction, while planning and managing the work regarding the minimisation of environmental impacts related to the construction process. Notwithstanding this, many arguments and discrepancies between the ideal form of green construction and existing construction due to the practical difficulties in realizing the concept of green construction. This paper critically reviews the existing green building assessment tools, theoretical framework and the critical success factors based on literature review search. Investigating the existing green building assessment tools, theoretical framework and critical success factors are fundamental in determining the successful implementation of green construction in the Malaysian construction environment.

The construction industry is starting to gain momentum as Malaysia is becoming a fully industrialised country by the year 2020. Due to the complexity and dynamic nature of a construction project, specifically on high rise building, various hazards and risks are already in place at any stage of a project lifecycle. Safety and health risk assessment is the core of any safety practices in any industry. Risk at the construction site should be assessed prior to manage or mitigate it. Therefore, this paper intends to recognize the theoretical aspects of the likelihood and severity of the hazards in the high rise building construction project and to recognize a theoretical aspects in formulating a high rise building construction safety and health risk model. The methodology employed f or this paper includes the secondary data collection from journals, articles and government statistics. The successful investigations will lead to the development of safety and health risk model in the construction industry particularly for high rise building construction. This model has prospect to be commercialized through the intellectual property (IP). The health and safety risk model will promote safety climate in the construction site and hence, enhancing the performance of human capital.

Buildability refers to the integration of construction knowledge during the design stage to enhance the ease of construction while meeting all requirements of the owner/client. Insufficient buildability in design could result in design rework, low site productivity, increased cost, and changes in the contract. Many previous studies have explored the buildability factors. However, these buildability factors might vary across the countries due to the differences in site conditions, current construction technologies, and availability of materials, equipment and experiences. This research aims to evaluate the importance level of buildability factors of building construction projects in Cambodia. The questionnaires with five-point Likert scale were distributed to project managers and engineers of building contractors in Cambodia. The analysis of one-sample

t

test showed that there are twelve significant buildability factors. The top five important factors to evaluate buildability were: (1) standardization; (2) completion of design documents; (3) clear specifications; (4) labour skills and (5) design to suit with site conditions. The ranking of the factors and factor categories provides useful information for designers to improve buildability of their designs. The important factors of this research were used for the development of buildability assessment model for building construction projects in Cambodia.

Undoubtedly Malaysian construction industry contributes enormously towards Malaysia’s nation economic growth. Despite the significant role of the construction industry plays in the country’s development and its heavy contribution towards economic growth and employment, the statistics show a high prevalence of accidents and injuries in the industry, resulting in non-permanent or permanent disabilities, fatalities and damage or loss of property. Past research suggests that on- site construction accidents can be prevented by identifying the root causes, thereby making such predictions based on knowledge and resources on accident causation possible. The aim of this study is to develop an Accident Causation for Accident Prevention (ACfAP) model for key management parties at Malaysia building construction sites. At this stage, this paper will present the initial stage of study (the information gathering phase) by presents the significant groups of accident causations factors for accident prevention. In overall, this ongoing research will be divided into three phases; (i) the information gathering phase;; (ii) the model development phase; and (iii) the model analysis phase. First, previous studies on safety, accident causation and prevention of accidents at construction sites are briefly reviewed from books, theses and journal articles in order to provide a global perspective on the subject. Second, a comprehensive ACfAP will be developed based on the attributes of accident causation obtained from expert surveys. Third, the hypothesised relationships are tested using partial least squares (PLS) path modelling approach. Finally the ACfAP Model for key management at building construction sites will be developed.

Competitive positioning and sustaining the gained international operations are difficult challenges that international construction firms commonly face. The aim of this study is to assess the level of Malaysian contractors’ sustained international operations (CSIO). The measurement scales for the CSIO were developed from secondary data provided by Construction Industry Development Board (CDIB) Malaysia on seventeen construction firms that have been operating in international market until 2013 together with the awarded project values, completed projects, countries of operation and diversity of projects. In this paper, a set of dimensions of CSIO were identified and the measures for each dimension were also established using a five-point scale. The findings reveal that the elements in the order of importance to determine the level of CSIO are the consecutive year sustained international operation, value of projects awarded, number of countries, diversity of projects undertaken, international experience and number of projects completed. The measurement tool developed in this study has enabled the identification and ranking of the most experienced and sustained international contractors in Malaysia. Further, the CSIO dimensions will be considered as independent variables as part of future research.

Delay to progress of a construction project is a major source of claims and disputes in the construction industry. At the heart of the matter in dispute often the subject of the degree of each contracting party’s responsibility for the delayed project completion. Therefore, various delay analysis methodologies have been developed over the years as aids to answering this question. However, to date lack of research on the extent of use of these methodologies in practice to have been done in Malaysia although it has many studies done in this subject area. This paper is an attempt to fill that gap. The aim of this paper is to identify the problems affecting the use of these methodologies in practice. A survey approach using questionnaire as an instrument was employed to achieve the aim of this study. An extensive of the literature review was conducted. The study only involves the contractors and the clients’ consultants. The findings from the survey revealed that “poorly updated programmes”, “lack of familiarity with the techniques”, “lack of skills in using technique”, “unrealistic baseline programme”, and “baseline programme without CPM network” were the top five (5) problems on the use of delay analysis methodologies. This seems to suggest that the sophisticated methodologies are not widely used mainly due to a number of problems related to improper programming and lack of skills and familiarity in using the methodologies.

Construction delay is a common problem in the construction industry. It is important to study this problem by investigating the overview of previous study on the issue of project delays and potential solutions to overcome it. Review of literatures shows the causes and necessary suggestions in project delays which is plaguing the construction industry in different nations. Various causes have been identified and suggestions have been poured out to minimize the problem as much as possible. Delay in projects is something that couldn’t be avoided looking at the situation of the construction industry especially in developing countries. Delay in projects happen somewhere during the construction process, and some even at the point of completion of a construction project. The delivery of a construction project on time and according to the expected budget is very much needed. The unsuccessfulness on doing so, has invited many research on this issue to determine and investigate the causes and as well the effect of project delays in the construction industry. There are sectors in Malaysia that contributes to the country’s economy, and the construction industry is one of it. This paper is an overview of the issue of a project delay, where the seriousness of this issue could be understood and may help to invite some researchers to proffer solution to this situation in the coming future.

The function of safety is to locate and define an operational error that allows accident to occur. Previous research suggested that this function could essentially be achieved in two ways—by studying both the causes of accidents and the effectiveness of known controls being utilized. This research draws from the successful experiences of accident prevention key elements worldwide. There are many available theories on the accident accusation. The earliest models of accident causation were simple where subsequence event from the initiation of the chain to its conclusion in the accident. Lack of study was found in Malaysian environment. Thus, this research aims to create proactive measure for accident prevention in construction sites through the adaptive of accident causation theories, which signifies the identification on how hazard in construction sites causes losses. The objectives of the research are to investigate the essential elements from the available theories of the accident causation and to generate adaptive theories for accident prevention. The reviewed on accident accusation theories revealed that the shift in emphasis on the role of the management, and considered the causes of accidents are provoked among others, by actions of contractors. Thus the constraint includes the influence of management, the organisational and the environment factors that demand to be addressed to reduce the causes of an accident. The findings will contribute to the ongoing research for the development of an adaptive prevention theory for construction workplace environment. This is also directly matched to the Strategic Trust No. 3 Construction Industry Master Plan (CIMP 2006–2015), strive for the highest standard of quality, occupational safety and health and environmental practices.

Air Handling Units in mechanical ventilation system possess a high degree of potential to circulate contaminants within occupied spaces of a building which often results in sick building syndrome (SBS), building related illness (BRI) and other indoor air quality (IAQ) related issues. This happens despite the expected role of ventilation systems to create a balance of thermal comfort and indoor air quality to the building occupants as well as the stored components. In the hot and humid climate mechanical ventilation systems play an important role of controlling the indoor hygrothermal conditions. Inadequate performance of the mechanical ventilation systems result in several issues ranging from human occupants discomfort, mechanical damages to archival materials and mould problem amongst others. This study presents the measurement and analysis of the mechanical ventilation systems’ performance and its effect on various indoor spaces in an academic building in Malaysia. Measurement of airflow, thermal and hygric conditions of the facility together with the aero-biological sampling were executed. The ventilation performance assessment revealed that the AHU fails in its cooling and dehumidification capacities as most of the occupied zones witnessed elevated humidity and low temperature and hence poor hygrothermal performance. On the other hand, results of bio-aerosol assessment indicates that the AHU performs well in its decontamination capacities by reducing the microbial level between the AHU and the occupied zones. The dominant species of mould in the assessed spaces are

Penicillium

sp.,

Yeast

,

Cladosporium

sp., and

Chaetomium

sp. with 100 % occurrence in all the assessed space. On the other hand, Black Mold,

Syntalidium

sp., and zygomycetes are the least species in spaces with 25 % occurrence. The presence of black mould portends a great danger to the occupants’ health and therefore requires urgent attention.

Textile industry produces wastewater that has been adversely affected in quality. Theanthropogenic influence of this industry has inevitably caused negative impact to the environment. It consumes considerably high amount of processed water that eventually yield highly polluted wastewater. The bovine rectal bacterium (BRB) is used in this study as an alternative for green technology method for treating the textile wastewater without causing any serious unacceptable damage to the natural environment and human health. This paper presents the BRB that consumed selected nutrients in the textile wastewater. The chosen nutrients used to study the optimum growth of BRB are magnesium sulphate (MgSO

4

), ferric chloride (FeCl

3

), calcium chloride (CaCl

2

) and phosphate buffer. The BRB growth rate in textile wastewater in different types of nutrients and incubation time were evaluated in both; aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Consequently, this study provides the knowledge of suitable nutrient for the growth of BRB. These BRB can be further employed at large scale of effluent textile wastewater treatment systems for effective green remediation.

This paper reports on the evaluation of feed forward back-propagation (FFBP) network, radial basis function network (RBFN), and generalized regression neural network (GRNN) for hydrological modeling of Kemaman watershed in Terengganu. Thirteen (13) meteorological parameters are considered in the input, which includes rainfall, temperature, mean relative humidity and evaporation. The outputs are water levels at four river gauging station. The models were developed and the training results compared in terms of the correlation coefficient and normalized root mean square error. It is shown that the RBFN model is superior over the FFBP and GRNN models, and the performance is sensitive to the various input parameters considered.

Large-scale coastal reclamation at Pulau Tekong Singapore, which is situated at the confluence of Johor River estuary and Straits of Johor, inevitably alters the local hydrodynamics. Meanwhile, in order to prevent saline intrusion from reaching the Johor River Waterworks (JRWW) operated by PUB Singapore, the government of Malaysia has recently proposed to build a tidal barrage at Kota Tinggi across Johor River. The scheme is expected to reduce the need of salinity flushing from the Linggiu Dam further upstream, thus lowering the average riverine discharge into Johor River estuary. The coupled effect of the above is likely to affect the advection and diffusion of pollutants in Johor River estuary. In the present study, we simulate the flow field in Johor River estuary using a set of hyperbolic shallow water equations on an adaptive quadtree grid system. Our objective is to understand the environmental flow in the study area after the completion of the above-proposed developments.

Sumatra-Andaman tsunami was categorized as the third worst tsunami by the United State Geology Survey (USGS). The tsunami was triggered at 00:58:53 UTC by a massive earthquake with recorded moment magnitude of 9.1 at the west coast of North Sumatera. Malaysia is one of the countries affected by the 26th December 2004 tsunami. Others countries also affected by this event include Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Somalia, Tanzania, Kenya and Yemen. The earthquake epicenter is located where the Indian Plate subducted under the Burma Plate. This tsunami event has raised the awareness of many people. Today, several tsunami numerical models have been developed to model and forecast tsunami events in the future. This paper reviews five tsunami numerical models namely TUNA, TUNAMI, COMCOT, MOST and ANN Tsunami Forecast. Most of these models have been used by other researchers to perform tsunami simulation based on Sumatera-Andaman tsunami event. Each model have their own similarities, differences and limitations. A non-mathematically intensive approach is employed to choose a suitable tsunami numerical model for the case study in Malaysian offshore areas. Future studies will be conducted using one of the tsunami numerical models.

Recently, Constructed Wetlands (CWs) has become an option of low-cost and alternative treatment for removing heavy metal such as lead, copper and cadmium in wastewater. In this study, the aim was to determine the feasibility of

Cabomba Caroliniana

as a submerged vegetation species used in the CWs system in removing of copper from this kind of wastewater. A laboratory scale of Subsurface Flow System (SSF) as one of CWs types was set up outdoor and all the experiments had been run for consecutive 40 days. An artificial pollutant used was copper sulphate aqueous (CuSO

4

·5H

2

O) with the concentration of 5 ppm. Meanwhile, five parameters had been studied which were pH, biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total solids and copper ion concentration. The results showed that the

Cabomba Caroliniana

in SFF of CWs system had a great potential in heavy metal removal from the decrease pattern shown in BOD, COD, total solid and copper ion concentrations (Cu

2+

).

Riverbank Filtration System (RBF) is regarded as the pre-treatment technology to treat surface water and ground water resources. RBF technology is used for pre-treatment existing raw surface water supplies but also develop sustainable water supplies for demand. However, riverbank filtration system needs to be maintained regularly because filter media is being clogged as the solids are trapped. When the solid particles are trapped, the water will not be able to flow easily. The clogging may decrease the sustainability of ground water abstraction. The results of this effect, it will charge of additional costs of monitoring, replacement and rehabilitation of wells. The location of this study is located at Damansara River, Seksyen 13, Shah Alam. The river are primarily comes from Klang River which most of its water comes from the industrial activities that discharged into the river. The objective of this study is to assess the effect of hydraulic conductivity (

K

) due soil clogging. Besides that, the study also intended to identify whether the vibration method is an effective method for clogging dispersion in soil. Throughout the study, tests that have been conducted are Falling Head test and vibration method by using sieve shaker. The average of hydraulic conductivity before vibration is 0.000319 cm/s while after vibration is 0.000201 cm/s. The frequency of vibration for soil sample is 50 Hz for 10 min. The duration of study was conducted within 2 months.

This paper discussed effects of temperature, pressure salinity and presence of rock and pH behavior of the system and formation of carbonates. Experiments are conducted in a high pressure high temperature reactor and effluents were collected, weighed and photographed using SEM. The aim of this research was to enhance the knowledge about mineralization mechanisms of CO

2

sequestration in saline aquifers.

Dredging is the operation of removing material from one part of the water environment and relocating it to another. Generally, the purpose of dredging is to relocate underwater sediments and soils for the offshore construction, maintenance of waterways and reclamation. Dredging produces a very large amount of dislodged materials known as dredged soils, which are commonly considered a waste. Generally, dredged soil is dumped into open sea and causes environmental problems. On the other hand, steel slag is an industrial waste resulting from the process of steelmaking. However, for the last 3 decades, almost 35 % of the steel slag produced was dumped in landfills. As such, this study is about the mixing of a dredged marine soil with activated steel slag, with the aim of determining the effectiveness of the slag in solidifying the soil. The dredged soil was collected from Marina Melaka and categorized as a high plasticity silt (MH). It has a natural moisture content of 130. 7 %, specific gravity 2.53, liquid limit 66 % and plastic limit 51.6 %. The steel slag was first ground to particles smaller than 2 mm for mixing with the soil. It was activated with 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 mol of natrium hydroxide (NaOH), with only the optimum molarity resulting in maximum improvement of the soil being used throughout the study. 3 predetermined ratios of clay: activated steel slag were examined, i.e. 3:7, 5:5 and 7:3, and the soil-slag specimens were left to cure for 3, 7, 14 and 28 days. The solidified specimens were subjected to the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test, the vane shear test as well as the bender element test at the respective ages. It was found that greater strength and stiffness improvement were produced by higher steel slag content. Longer curing periods resulted in more significant improvement of the engineering properties too. The steel slag addition also helped reduce moisture in the originally wet soil. Overall it can be concluded that activated steel slag from Malaysian steel-making industry can be potentially used to solidify the otherwise waste dredged marine soils for reuse as a sound geomaterial.

This paper presents findings on the soft soil stabilization using waste paper sludge ash (WPSA). A laboratories testing was conducted to determine the compressive strength, total shear strength and effective shear strength on soft soil subgrade stabilized using WPSA mixtures. Instead, the microstructure of soft soil and stabilized soft soil was investigated to evaluate the role of WPSA to the strength of stabilized soft soil. The soft soil subgrade sample, categorized as slightly sandy CLAY of intermediate plasticity used in this study was stabilized using Class-C of WPSA. The first objective is to determine the maximum compressive strength and optimum percentages of WPSA mixtures. The second objective is to determine the total shear strength and effective shear strength of soft soil stabilized with optimum percentage of WPSA. The third objective is to investigate the effect of WPSA to the strength of stabilized soft soil by microstructure testing by scanning electron microscopic test (SEM). This study involved three main testing. First testing was unconfined compression test to determine the compressive strength. Second testing was consolidated undrained test to determine the total shear strength and third testing was consolidated drained test to determine the effective shear strength. Third testing was microstructure testing by scanning electron microscopic test (SEM). The result shows, the addition of 10 % WPSA were giving the highest compressive strength about 737 kPa and improved the total strength and effective strength to stabilize the soft soil due to the crystal formation from the pozzolanic reaction.

Inundation settlement is triggered due to the rise of the groundwater table. In designs, it is usually ignored since the analysis assumes that the foundation soil is fully saturated at the base of shallow foundations. The problem that arises from this scenario is that when the construction was done in dry season, and when wet season comes, the groundwater table rises causing the partially saturated soil to be fully saturated, hence causing a reduction to the shear strength of the soil and followed by wetting collapse. The concept of effective stress and shear strength interaction demonstrates the soil behaviour to resist settlement in two conditions, which are due to loading and wetting. The latter is simulated in a modified Rowe cell to measure settlements due to suction loss under lateral pressures exerted to the wall of the cell at k

o

condition. The complexity of this behaviour will be explained applying the Rotational Multiple Yield Surface Framework and verified by the test data observed. The ability of the framework to predict inundation settlement will be presented.

The Geophysical surveys, including electrical resistivity tomography, are an ideal for many environmental and engineering geophysical studies about the Earth’s subsurface characterizations. This paper present application of electrical resistivity tomography method in two different sites condition and sites investigation purpose. The first investigation site is located in Penang Island and the second investigation site in Perak, Malaysia. There are two different optimized arrays used in our data acquisition, which are wenner-schlumberger array and pole-dipole array. In this study, we are using single channel for the wenner-schlumberger array and multi-channel system for the pole-dipole array. Interestingly, we have used merge data level technique for these two arrays in order to aim for better improvement in electrical resistivity tomography resolution results known as inverse modeling models. As we are considering electrical resistivity tomography results with the geological reference such as borehole record, it shows that the technique is applicable and has their technical merit. The accuracy and their technical viability can be assured by the electrical resistivity tomography result models and thus it is applicable in environmental and engineering geophysical studies.

Road makes a very huge contribution for the development of economic and also to the social benefits. Poorly maintenance of the roads may reduce the efficiency of the business and trading. There are few non-destructive methods have been introduced and developed to measure the strength and deformation properties of layer that made up the pavement structure. The properties are either used to design new pavement structures or to diagnose the causes of existing problem so that appropriate rehabilitation strategies can be chosen. This study is about determining the ground profile of defect and non-defect pavement using electrical resistivity method. The purpose of this study is to investigate subsurface condition under the defect and non-defect of road pavement using electrical resistivity on actual field. Since the testing was conducted on pavement, the actual electrodes of one and half (1.5) foot steel were changed to 4 inches nails. The resistivity was measured by injecting current to the ground through electrodes and the resultant voltage difference was measured at two potential electrodes. In this study, 3 locations with different damages were selected and the resistivity value of defect and non-defect pavement were measured and profiled. Three types of defects which are crocodile cracking at the parking bay for busses, rutting and potholes at access road and transverse cracking located at car park area were investigated. The finding of this study shows that the value of electrical resistivity varies from one defect to another. This is because of influence of few factors during the early construction and the types of defect on the pavement. The advantage of using electrical resistivity method in determining the defect and non-defect pavement is its one of the non-destructive method that can be applied without making and leave major damage to the pavement surface.

This paper was briefed about difficulty in seismic refraction during data acquisition on peat soils. Seismic refraction is commonly used for subsurface characterization. This method can determine the subsoil profile by differentiate its soil velocity. Peat is known with high compressibility and more 75 % of organic content that give challenges is seismic refraction. Challenges of seismic refraction such as attenuation of seismic wave, poor signal to noise ratio (S/N) and seismic source energy explained in this paper. This problem is common for geophysicist but technical purposes for engineering community is good to have better data acquisition. The purpose of this paper is to shown proper data acquisition for seismic refraction on peat soil. The raw data of seismic wave taken from seismograph for takeout spacing of 1, 3 and 5 m are shown in results and discussion for comparison of seismic data quality.

Peat soils impose special problems in Geotechnical Engineering design as well as Civil Engineering and constructions. Most of researchers conducted investigations on the dynamic loading of soft soils such as sand and clay, but only a few had discovered the behaviour of peat in terms of static and dynamic loadings. Hence, this paper presents the behaviour of peat soil located in Pontian, Johor as well as to obtain the dynamic parameters of peat soil such as shear modulus and damping ratio by using different frequencies. The index properties test, static test and cyclic test have been performed to determine the characteristics and also the parameters required by using stress-controlled cyclic triaxial test of 1 and 2 Hz loading frequencies. All tests were conducted in RECESS, UTHM. The findings explained that Pontian peat behaves differently during the frequencies of 1 and 2 Hz. The shear modulus behaviour on the Pontian peat increase as the loading frequency and effective stresses increased. The results show that the maximum shear modulus of Pontian peat was 1.19 MPa for the frequency of 1 Hz and 1.4 MPa for 2 Hz. Both at effective stress of 100 kPa. Meanwhile, damping ratios show a reduction in the increasing of effective stress and loading frequency applied. The maximum damping ratio in 1 Hz frequency was noted at 44 % and the maximum value for 2 Hz was 35 %. Both at effective stress of 13 kPa. For further research, the cyclic loading can be conducted with different frequencies to show clearly the behaviour of peat in terms of dynamic loading and the cause of frequency influences should also be stated as it would affect the results pattern.

Riverbank failure is a common issue whereby almost every year riverbanks are prone with problems, such as erosion, breaching or retirements. Among the major causes are due to the use of geotechnical unstable materials, seepage and sliding of soil. Therefore, the main issue to be tackled is to evaluate riverbank soil properties. Soil properties evaluation is significant for riverbank assessment and this paper gives better justification for problem arise. This study focuses on the characterization of soil properties and the identification of the physical and mechanical soil properties of undisturbed soil sample. This is seen as an opportunity to overcome any issues related to the riverbank failure. The location of this study is located at Damansara River, Seksyen 13, Shah Alam, Selangor. Laboratory experiments that have been conducted are Moisture Content Test, Specific Gravity Test, Atterberg Limit Test, Particle Distribution Test, Compaction Test, Permeability Test and also Shear Strength Test. The soil at Damansara River riverbank is classified as well graded silty sand. Moisture content for both samples is 33 and 39 %. The specific gravity for both samples recorded as 2.27 and 2.61. Furthermore, plastic limit for each sample is 31 and 35 % while liquid limit is 42 and 50 %. Dry density for Sample 1 is 1.85 Mg/m

3

while Sample 2 is 1.70 Mg/m

3

. The permeability of the soil is range of 10

−3

to 10

−5

. The strength of riverbank soil is low due to the condition of soil properties which is sand where the value of cohesion, c′, recorded is 8 kPa while internal friction, Ø, value is 20.4°.

Stress can produce a deformation because real material is not rigid, the deformation will measure the strain. Stress-strain is important in determining peat behaviour. Peat cannot support too much load on it because of peat have very low strength, high compressibility and long-term settlement. The objective of this study is to determine the behaviour of stress-strain characteristic using different test. The undisturbed samples were collected at Parit Nipah, Batu Pahat, Johore, Malaysia. The tests are direct simple shear and direct shear box. These methods cover the determination of the stress-strain relationship of peat and to investigate the behaviour of peat. Normal stresses are 12.5, 25, 50 and 100 kPa with 0.1 mm/min rate of shear. This study is to know the stress-strain between direct simple shear test and direct shear test based on peat specimens of hemic. The test results will contribute and establish the drained shear characteristic of testing peat. It shows that direct simple shear test stress-strain is increasing clearly than direct shear test. Besides that, direct simple shear is suitable to use on peat soil rather than direct shear box. This research can help the geotechnical engineers and can be used in the development of foundation and as well as constructions.

Recent empirical observations reveal that not only the clean sand is susceptible to liquefaction hazard, both silty sand and clayed sand are also liquefiable. This paper presents the cyclic behaviour of sand-fines mixtures at various fines content. The sand-fines specimens were reconstituted by mixing clean sand with different percentages of plastic fines (kaolin) by weight to a constant relative density of 20 % using dry tamping method. The specimen had been tested with stress controlled cyclic triaxial test under consolidated undrained condition with effective confining pressure of 100 kPa, cyclic load of 0.1 kN and cyclic frequency of 0.5 Hz. The results show that the liquefaction resistance of sand matrix soils increased as fines content increased from 0 to 25 %, whereas this trend was reversed for value of fines content greater than 25 %. In fact, the 25 % of kaolin by weight is also the threshold fines content of sand-kaolin mixtures. Hence this finding justifies that the concept of fines threshold content could be used to significantly explain the influence of fines content on the liquefaction susceptibility of sand-fines mixtures.

Peat soils occur in many countries and naturally formed by the decomposition of plant matter. It will give rise to an extreme of challenging ground conditions and peat soils also are known as a very problematic soft soil. For peat soil condition, shrinkage effect is one of the factors that can affect the strength and moisture content of soils. The aim of the study is to evaluate the shrinkage measurement of peat soils with modified techniques to compare with the British Standard method. Peat samples were collected from Parit Nipah (PPN) and Pontian (PP). Linear shrinkage of undisturbed peat soil is observed every hour until there are no volume changes. Linear measurement for modified method that using undisturbed sample is extremely different and higher than British standard method which is using reconstituted soil sample that had been sieve passing 425 μm. Sieve process will disrupt the composition of actual peat soil because it will remove any decomposed plants. The shrinkage measurements during the drying process influenced the volume of peat soils as the volume decreases when the soil is shrunk.

As a tropical country, Malaysia is in the region of residual unsaturated soil. The prolonged and high intensity of rainfall will affect the parameters such as pore water pressure and moisture content of soil. This paper presents the experimental test result of rain water infiltration into soil column for unsaturated soil. The main objectives were to study the effect of rainfall intensity and duration to water infiltration into the soil. In this study, two types of soils were used; gravelly sand and kaolin. Rainfall with designated intensities and durations were applied to the soil column apparatus. The soil column apparatus system involved three component; water supply system, soil column and instrumentation, and effluent system. The result showed that during wetting process, the value of pore water pressure was gradually increased until the rainfall stopped and drying process took place. The top section of soil column responds earlier than middle and bottom for both during wetting and drying process. The changes from high to low intensity give smaller value of pore water pressure for intensity type 2 for both soils. The result also shows that different length of tensiometer affect to small changes for both type of soil. Result of volumetric water content for both soil have a good agreement with the responds to pore water pressure. These shows that the middle section of soil column has the ponding condition where water infiltrates and stay longer at this section before its continue to infiltrate to bottom section.

In engineering practice particularly in measuring strength properties of rock, uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) is considered as one of the key in characterizing rock material. However, sometime it is quite difficult or impossible to full fill the test requirement especially when dealing with rock that consists of discontinuities or fractures. Samples that were sent to laboratory for UCS test sometime have not enough length due to breakage during coring process in drilling activities or during transportation. In order to overcome this problem, a study was carried out to use simple method of testing as an alternative to predict the strength. Bulk density test of rock sample is one of the simple measurements that can be used to predict the UCS. The values of UCS can be correlated with the corresponding bulk density of the rock. In this study a total of 73 samples consisted of 29 granite and 44 limestone were used for UCS and bulk density test. The significant of the bulk density as variable in the correlation was evaluated in the T-test responding by P-value. Both P-value and least squares regression (R

2

) showed the strong relation between UCS and bulk density of granite and limestone sample. The finding from experimental works and statistical analysis showed that, this study preceded a reliable method to predict the UCS of rock using bulk density.

The shear strength of an unsaturated soil is controlled by two variables; net stress and suction. The conventional triaxial machine which is used for obtaining the shear strength of saturated soils cannot be used for unsaturated soil conditions due to weakness in suction control during the consolidation and shearing stages. In the view of this, the standard triaxial apparatus needs to modify and develop for unsaturated conditions. The main aim of this paper is devoted to give a description of current methods and techniques using triaxial apparatus for obtaining data to interpret the accurate shear strength behavior of unsaturated soils. In additional some of the key aspects related to air diffusion and volume change measurement are highlighted.

The purpose of this research is to focus on the interface shear strength between geotextiles and soil with different percentage of sodium bentonite. Firstly, the physical properties of the soil samples must be identified in order to determine the soil classification. The laboratory tests include atterberg limit test, shrinkage limit test, specific gravity test, pH test, sieve analysis test and hydrometer test. The soil samples are natural soil sample, soil added with 0 % of sodium bentonite, soil added with 2.5 % of sodium bentonite, soil added with 5.0 % of sodium bentonite, soil added with 7.5 % of sodium bentonite and soil added with 10 % of sodium bentonite. Based on the test results, the added percentages of sodium bentonite did not appear to have any effect on the properties of the soil samples such as the liquid limit, plastic limit and specific gravity. This is because the values obtained were approximately the same and no apparent changes were detected. However, the shrinkage limit and pH test results shows an increasing trend with the increase of sodium bentonite percentage. The natural soil can be classified as Sandy SILT of Intermediate Plasticity (

MI

). After classifying the soil samples, compaction tests were performed to get the values of optimum moisture content required during direct shear box test. As with liquid limit plastic limit and specific gravity tests, the results for compaction and direct shear test also did not give good results, as the values of optimum moisture content, cohesion and friction angle were also quite similar to each other. Thus, it can be clearly said that, as an admixture, sodium bentonite did not affect the soil samples, therefore not suitable for this type of soil.

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) is a material suitable for strengthening the reinforced concrete (RC) beams. Although many in situ RC beams are of continuous constructions, there has been very limited research on the behavior of such beams with externally applied FRP laminate. In addition, most design guidelines were developed for simply supported beams with external FRP laminates. This paper presents the results of a test program for shear strengthening characteristics of strips bidirectional flexible carbon-fiber polymer sheets bonded to reinforced concrete (RC) continuous beams. A total of three beams with size of 150 × 320 × 3650 mm, flange width = 400 mm and flange thickness = 120 mm concrete beams were tested and various sheet configurations and layouts were studied to determine their effects on the ultimate shear strength and shear capacity of the beams. From the test results, it was found that all schemes were found to be effective in enhancing the shear strength of RC beams. It was observed that the strength increases with the number of sheet layers, which provided the most effective strengthening for RC continuous T-beam. Beam strengthened using this scheme showed a 23.21 % increase in shear capacity as compared to the control beam. Two prediction models available in the literature were used for computing the contribution of CFRP strips and compared with the experimental results.

This paper presents a preliminary study on bending strength of pre-tensioned (PRT) concrete beam as the experiment result can be used in maintenance planning. The production of beam was according to BS8110, BS4449:2005 and BS5896 for concrete, reinforcement bar and strand, respectively. For the bending test, theoretically and practically was conducted in accordance to BS5400 standard. The result showed cracked beam retrofitted with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) plate and carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets are able to increase the bending strength of beam up to 43 and 42 %, respectively.

It is widely recognized that the ingress of chlorides into concrete can initiate reinforcement corrosion and ultimately result in deterioration of the concrete structure. Chloride permeability of concrete has been recognized as a critical intrinsic property affecting the durability of reinforced concrete. From the previous research, the use of nano clay (NC) in cement mortar due to chloride permeability has been well-documented. In this paper, the ability of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) to withstand the action of chloride penetration were investigated. An experimental research was carried out in order to investigate the influence of incorporating NC material as cement replacement into ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC-NC) on chloride-related transport characteristic. The workability, compressive strength and charge passed in rapid chloride permeability test (RCPT) of UHPC-NC were reported. Those parameters were also determined for normal strength concrete (NPC) and plain without nano clay ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) as comparison. Three (3) series of UHPC-NC mixes were produced incorporating 1 % (UHPC-NC1), 3 % (UHPC-NC3) and 5 % (UHPC-NC5) of NC replacing cement (OPC). The results showed that incorporating NC in concrete mixes causes a reduction in the workability. It was also found that replacing of OPC with NC improved the strength of UHPC-NC as compared to those mixes without NC material. The optimum NC replacement level recorded at 3 % (UHPC-NC3) from the total weight of OPC. For the chloride permeability, it is clearly shown that the presence of NC has important benefit in terms of chloride resistance.

One of new innovation in modified concrete is foamed concrete containing rubber bars. The function of rubber on foamed concrete is to improve the strength and enhance the resistance toward high strain rate loadings. The production of foamed concrete containing rubber bars, therefore, leads to the heterogeneous material condition or so-called composite. Mostly, the investigations of strength and material properties of modified concrete are conducted using experimental approaches with various parametric and proportions. This study, however, intends to numerically analyse the strength and elastic properties of foamed concrete containing rubber bars through multi-scale simulation. The unit cell consists of foamed concrete and rubber bar was modelled using the hybrid finite-discrete element method. The damage model of rotating crack was defined on foamed concrete, while rubber bar remain as elastic. It was revealed that foamed concrete containing 5 mm diameter of rubber bars with proportion below that 3 % produces optimum strength. Results that obtained from multi-scale simulation show a favourable agreement with that obtained from experimental study and rule of mixtures.

Due to a large number of bridges to monitor which contribute to the issue on the cost of inspection and maintenance that must be given priorities in the future maintenance process, it is important to have a comprehensive system in managing the bridge performance assessment by proposing the framework of structural integrity management system for reinforced concrete highway bridge in Malaysia. This new proposes system is using risk-based approach which may be emulated from SIMS of offshore platform structure. In general, the objectives of this study are to identify the bridge performance indicator in term of cause-consequence scenario in order to develop the framework of risk-based bridge management system and to create the risk matrix for prioritizing the inspection for maintenance. However, this paper only focuses on the evaluation part of the system which concentrates on the development of qualitative bridge defect model by using fault tree and event tree method. Fault tree method is used to identify the possible causes of bridge defect by considering the mechanism of bridge failure with referring to the failure mechanism classification from the existing practiced bridge management system and also based on literature review. While, event tree model is developed to determine what is the consequences of the bridge defect are and based on the developed event tree model, the consequences are divided into five condition of bridge failure known as disastrous, severe, medium, minor and good. Both models are significant for probability quantification and thus to determine the risk of bridge defect.

Cold formed steel (CFS) is the popular structural material used in the building nowadays due to a variety of advantages in its manufacturing, fabrication and erection. The main objective of the study is to study the properties of the CFS at post elevated temperature. When this material is exposed to fire the steel material properties are degraded. Therefore, it is important to predict the degradation of material properties of CFS after exposed to elevated temperatures. The microstructure test was found that after exposing to 1,000 °C temperature compared to normal CFS, the composition of eight elements in CFS has increased as Carbon, C is the highest at 129.7 %, meanwhile, thirteen elements are decreasing as Silicon, Si is the highest at 80.6 %. Results from tensile coupon test of post elevated temperature CFS shows that the cold formed steel that expose to fire may regain its yield strength within 10–60 % for range temperature 400–1,000 °C when compared to the Class 4 steel in EC3-1-2. The pattern of the reduction factor of CFS is similar to the hot rolled steel S460.

Composite material has played important role as an alternative material to metal in many industries. However as the growing of environmental concern throughout the world becomes so high, the interest on the green or bio-composite as to replace fossil based composite has also increased. Bio-composite, a type of composite materials that constitutes of natural fibres and bio-polymers, comes with the environmental advantages of being renewable, biodegradable and sustainable. However green composites also come with several disadvantages such as low in mechanical properties, low in thermal stability and high in water absorption. The level of these disadvantages vary from one bio-composite to another since there are lots of factors that determine these properties. Due to this, a large number of researches have been conducted to improve these properties with the aim of applying bio-composites as structural components. In this paper, a review is made on the thermal stability property of the bio-composites. The review includes the discussion on tests conducted to study the instability behavior of the bio-composites and factors that will improve the thermal stability of bio-composites. It was found that the addition of the high volume fraction of fibres to the bio-composites may not increase the thermal stability of the bio-composite. However, thermal stability can be improved by giving chemical treatments to the bio-composites that improves the compatibility of the fibres and the polymers of the bio-composites.

Improvement in the design of staggered couple micro resonant structure based on closed loop butterfly shape spring design in fixed beam resonator has been made previously [

1

]. To further improve its performance in electronic applications especially in sensor design, finite element analysis (FEA) was used to determine the performance of the single resonator used including its natural frequency, mass, and frequency response in terms of the length of its sleeve,

Ls

, where the performance of the structure of the sensor mainly depends on the displacement of the sensor along its excitation axis. In this work, COMSOL Multiphysics software was used.

The aim of this paper is to examine the impact response of reinforced concrete (RC) beam with artificial aggregate concrete block infill (RCAI) through experimental study and to propose the innovations of lightweight reinforced concrete utilizing polyethylene (PE) waste materials as an artificial aggregate. The study consists of the determination of optimum percentage of PE waste material as coarse aggregate replacements in the concrete mix and dynamic testing where an approximately 100 kg of impact weight dropped onto several beam specimens. Four concrete cube mixes with 0, 3, 6 and 9 % PE aggregate for 14 and 28 days respectively were prepared and tested under compression tests. Meanwhile, eight beam specimens categorized as normal reinforced concrete (NRC), RCAI and beam specimen that consists 6 % polyethylene waste material as a coarse aggregate (RC6A) were prepared and tested under low velocity impact loads under 1.54 m drop height of impact weight (5.5 m/s velocity). The behavior of the beam specimens are studied in terms of crack patterns (shear and flexural), crushing beneath the impact region and residual displacement at the mid-span. As results, it is observed that the 6 % of PE waste material in the concrete mix influence the strength of concrete about 10 %. Based on the failure mode results, all the beams are failed under drop height of 1.54 m. In addition, it is found that the residual displacement of RCAI is significantly lower than those of NRC and RC6A.

This paper researches a measurement of thermal conductivity of crushed recycled glass concrete using Unitherm

TM

Model 6000 Guarded Hot Plate Thermal Conductivity Instrument. Thirty six (36) samples of recycled glass concrete was produced with two types of water to cement ratio (0.4 and 0.5). Recycled glass was used to replace fine aggregate in proportions of 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 %. In addition, the microstructure behavior of recycled glass concrete was observed using the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX). According to experimental results water cement ratio, moisture condition and percentage of crushed recycled glass of the specimen revealed as affecting factors on the conductivity of concrete.

The consideration of Rayleigh damping coefficients of α and β are an important aspect to determine damping matric in dynamic analysis. In this paper, finite element modal analysis is used on square natural damping rubber plate with various boundary conditions to determine its dynamic properties and damping coefficients α and β. Based on the finding, Rayleigh damping coefficient can be computed and different boundary conditions show different value of Rayleigh damping coefficient.

Rapid and economical construction are among numerous advantages of the construction of roller compacted concrete (RCC) dam compared to conventional dam. However, the complex process of RCC dam construction is facing difficulties due to lack of understanding and involvement from the local construction industry player since this type of construction in Malaysia is still new. Therefore, this paper presents the process of RCC dam construction in Malaysia. Site observation and the review on literature of RCC dam construction was conducted to get the real view on the construction process of such project. The expert panel interview was conducted to get the view on RCC dam construction. Panel interview result was analysed and supported with the literature to gather the process of RCC dam construction. From the result analysis, the construction processes which consist of determination of mix design, RCC production and RCC placement is presented.

Waste plantation can be utilized as a raw material in the production of construction materials such as bricks and cement board in order to achieve sustainable technologies. This study investigated the potential of waste kenaf bast fiber from decortications extraction method as the glass fibre replacement in the manufacturing of cement board. These boards were made from waste kenaf bast fiber, cement and water at a cement:fibre:water ratio of 2:1:2. Six (6) series of mixtures with different kenaf replacement; Series 1 (100 % kenaf), Series 2 (80 % kenaf fiber and 20 % glass fiber), Series 3 (60 % kenaf fiber and 40 % glass fiber), Series 4 (40 % kenaf fiber and 60 % glass fiber), Series 5 (20 % kenaf fiber and 80 % glass fiber) and Series 6 (100 % glass fiber) were prepared and and 460 mm × 460 mm size of boards were cast. The target board density was 650 kg/m

3

. The effects of using different percentages replacement of kenaf waste on internal bond and bending strength of the resulted cement boards were investigated after 28 days curing process. The mechanical and physical properties of the boards were evaluated based on MS 934 (1986). The results showed that boards Series 4 achieved the highest bending strength and internal bond (IB) strength compared to other boards and satisfied the requirement for lightweight board as stipulated in Malaysian Standard MS 934.

All vessels must have bilge water. The bilge is referred as water come from rough seas, rain, leaks in the hull or other interior spillage. The water that collects in the bilge must be pumped out to prevent the bilge from becoming too full and threatening to sink the ship. Depending on the design of the ship and function, bilge water may contain water, oil, urine, detergents, solvents, chemicals, particles, and other materials. Absorption process is widely being used by various treatment plants, either for treating water or wastewater. The main function of absorption is to remove any contaminants such as heavy metals, organic and inorganic chemicals from it. One of the components of absorption is rice husk ash. The aim of this study is to investigate the suitability of rice husk ash as an absorbent, specifically to absorb oil in bilge water. Zinc chloride was added to the rice husk ash since an activated carbon enhanced absorption capacity. It was found that oil was removed from the water and clear water was produced after the absorption process. Thus, the use of rice husk ash water has proven to be one of the best options for ship-owner in oily water treatment.

This paper reviews the relationship of the effect of different fillers used in the natural and nitrile rubber compounds on the tensile properties. The use of fillers in the rubber compounds is well known in order to modify and improve their properties. Thus, four different grades of carbon black and non-carbon black fillers were used to achieve the aim of the study. A comparison between carbon black and calcium carbonate system leads to further scientific findings for the understanding of the tensile properties of filled rubber compounds. The tensile properties of the five samples were investigated by using a Tensile Instron Machine. Five test pieces were tested for every sample at a stretching rate of 500 mm/min at standard laboratory temperature. Then, median values of the five test pieces of each sample were calculated. As the conclusion, different types of fillers results to different properties of the elastomers. Carbon black fillers can be proved to have better tensile properties compared to non-carbon black fillers. The best filler with the highest tensile properties was N220 with 23.63 MPa and elongation at break at 638.63 %.

Tensile tests are commonly used to provide information on the tensile properties of materials. However, limited tests have been done on the orientation angles of material for the same properties. Thus, the present paper discusses the effect of three different angles to the tensile properties of aluminium alloy AA5083 dog-bone specimens based on the original rolling direction. For this purpose, the angles chosen and tested were 0°, 45° and 90°. It is found that, as the orientation angle increases, the ultimate tensile strength also increases. In contrast, the Young’s Modulus decreases as the angle increases. It is also observed that the material is much more ductile when the work hardening increases. Thus, the rolling directions give a significant effect on the tensile properties of AA5083 specimens tested.

The main objective of this study was to prioritize the criteria for the inspection of civil and structure facilities in onshore process plants based on asset integrity management theory framework. A pairwise comparison of criteria against the alternatives was done using Delphi Technique. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to rank the criteria. The judgment was acceptable with a consistence Index of (CI) of 0.01. Impact on safety was ranked the most important criteria in the inspection of civil and structure facilities based on the experts’ judgment. While impact on asset and impact on production are of equal importance. Finally, impact on reputation is less important to all the criteria studied. The ranking technique may be used in making maintenance decision for any type of structure if the design and maintenance data cannot be reached. However, it is recommended to add sub criteria in future study.

The replacement of the British standards by the Eurocode, and the Malaysian decision to adopt this change has raised some concerns with regards to the effects it may have on design and construction. Among these effects are the aspects of the structural reliability management introduced in EN 1990 and the respective Malaysian National Annex. In this respect the code introduced measures and procedures to enable engineers to assess the probability of failure of a particular structure and to estimate the partial factors for actions and materials. As such it will be mandatory for engineers, designing in accordance with Eurocodes, to follow the recommendations stipulated in these codes. Furthermore the code introduces specific measures, depending on the class of the building, to be considered for quality management. This will minimize human errors and enhance safety and quality of the structure. Applying all these measures should produce structures with high level of safety, durability and economy. The objectives of the paper are to study the aspects related to structural reliability with respect to probability of failure and quality management measures proposed by the Eurocode. It is also intended to highlight the limitations of the procedure and values given in the code. Accordingly comments have been given on the validity of the partial factors introduced in the code, and new values of probability of failure for reference periods 25, 75 and 100 years have been calculated. Furthermore the procedure to calculate the reliability index β illustrated. It is concluded that in order to produce durable structure with reasonable level of probability of failure, and considering economical aspects, all requirements of the Eurocode must be considered. In addition, Engineers should asses carefully the class of building to be designed and to estimate the probability of failure for that particular building. This should be carried out in agreement with the client. It is proposed that steps towards building a national reliability model, takes into consideration local conditions, should be considered. It is also hoped that this study will open up further investigation and research in this area.

Synthetic hydroxyapatite ceramics have been used for bone repair, implants coating and as fillers. However, hydroxyapatite ceramics have low resorption rate. In order to increase resorption rate, researchers suggested that adding another calcium phosphates phase would overcome this problem. Combining β-tricalcium phophates (β-TCP) with hydroxyapatite (HA) would increase resorption rate without compromising other properties. The mixture containing β-TCP with HA is known as biphasic calcium phosphates (BCP) ceramics and existed at various ratios depending on processing conditions. BCP is obtained by heating calcium apatite at temperature above 750 °C. Calcium apatite is influenced by preparation synthesis particularly on reaction temperature and reaction pH. The ratio of HA/β-TCP is depending on calcium phosphates ratio of synthesized apatite and heat treatment temperature. Biphasic calcium phosphate ceramic have been used as biomaterial in bone defects reconstruction applications. Furthermore, recent advancements in nanotechnology have increase investigation on nanosized BCP. By producing nanosized BCP, the material properties could be improved particularly in mechanical properties. It is known that micrometer sized calcium phosphates have poor mechanical properties. Thus cannot be used in load bearing applications. It is suggested that by reducing particles size into nanometer, better properties of calcium phosphates can be obtained particularly in sinterability, biocompatibility and mechanical properties. Furthermore, these properties can be altered by substituting various ions. In this review, the synthesis methods and characteristics of calcium phosphates were studied. Numerous properties of calcium phosphates are improved compared to micro meter sized structured by doping with various ions. Moreover, mechanical properties and phase stability of ion doped calcium phosphates after heat treatment should be investigated in more detail.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are hollow cylinders of molecular-scale tubes of graphitic carbon with outstanding properties. They are possessed high strength, high stiffness and good electrical conductivity depending on their structure and diameter. This review outlines the performance of carbon nanotubes based on results of the author’s research, essentially composites and describes the properties of carbon nanotube elastomeric composites. The Functionalization of CNTs and the applications of these materials are also discussed. The capability of carbon nanotubes to impart the conductivity to insulating elastomeric matrices has been clearly shown. Most markedly, this work has illustrated the performance encountered with the properties of CNT based Natural Rubber.

This paper described the effect of reinforcement of an inorganic nano filler in intumescent fire retardant coating (IFRC). In this study, intumescent coating contained phosphorous, nitrogen and boron based compounds. Four formulations were developed in order to determine the thermal protective performance of coating. Furnace test was conducted to find out the intumescent factor. Bunsen burner test was conducted according to ASTM E-119 for thermal insulation of the coating. Further, char morphology and microstructure of char was examined by using field emission scanning electron microscopy. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was performed to confirm the chemical functional groups present in the char. Thermogravimetric analysis was carried out to determine the residual weight/thermal stability of coating. Tests revealed that coating containing 1.0 wt% of nano alumina as an inorganic filler provides better fire protection, char morphology and anti-oxidation property as compared to coating without containing nano alumina.

The purpose of this research are to investigate the deposition behavior of different sized nanoparticle using pulse DC in EPD and to study the effect of particle size reduction on crack formation of TiO

2

deposited layer. EPD is one of the electrokinetics phenomenons acted as the motion of charged particles in a liquid medium under the influence of an electric field and the deposition on the surface of a substrate with an opposite charge (Naim et al. in Colloids Surf A 360:13–19, 2010 [

1

]). EPD can be prepared in aqueous or non-aqueous solutions. Four different sizes of TiO

2

nanoparticle suspension were used in order to observe the effect of particles size on deposition. The zeta potential was measured with Zetasizer-NanoSeries, Malvern. Increasing the suspensions concentration influence the zeta potential values to change as well. The deposited layer upon drying was observed by FESEM.

Corn starch nanocrystals were found to serve as an effective reinforcing agent for natural rubber (NR). Starch nanocrystals were obtained by the sulfuric acid hydrolysis of starch granules. After mixing the latex and the starch nanocrystals, the resulting aqueous suspension was made into coagulum and then it is mixed with the dry NR and cross linking agents, in two roll mill followed by compression molding. The composite samples were prepared by varying filler loadings, using a colloidal suspension of starch nanocrystals and NR latex and dry rubber. The morphology of the nanocomposites prepared was analyzed by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and FESEM analysis revealed the size and shape of the crystal and their homogeneity dispersion in the composites. The crystallinity of the nanocomposites was studied using XRD analysis which indicated an overall increase in crystallinity with increased in filler content. The mechanical properties of the nanocomposites such as stress-strain behaviour, tensile strength, tensile modulus and elongation at break were measured according to ASTM standards. The tensile strength and modulus of the composites were found to improve tremendously with increasing nanocrystal content. This dramatic increase observed in the modulus and the tensile strength can be attributed to the formation of starch nanocrystal network. This network immobilizes the polymer chains leading to an increase in the modulus and other mechanical properties. The DMA studies of the composites were carried out and it reveals the effective reinforcing mechanism of starch nanocrystal on NR matrix.

This work was aimed to develop chemoresistive base sensor on silicon platform. Carbon nanotube (CNT) with low density was grown on passive interdigitated (IDE) based sensor which later can be functionalized with other material for the selectivity of the targeted goals. Low dense CNT will provide a bigger area of the functionalities element adhered to the wall hence increase the sensitivity of the sensor. In situ CNT growth was achieved using a PECVD machine with the time parameter was varied targeting for low dense CNT grow in-between the IDE fingers. SEM analysis reveals that low dense CNT was evidence for growth time as short as 30 s and as the time increase, the density was also increasing. Resistive probing of the grown CNT samples shows a drop in resistance compared to non-grown CNT which confirmed that the CNT successfully conducting the electron. CO

2

gas testing shows that the low dense sensor shows better detection performance compared to high dense sensor. However, further study needs to be conducted to measure the level of amorphous carbon which determine the purity of the such CNT nanostructure.

Striping one of the most common pavement failure usually occurs in pavement structures. This failure reduced the service life of the pavement, reduced driver safety and increase cost of maintenance. Polymer modified binder has been conducted previously to find an alternative material in pavement construction that can be used as new improvement for asphalt mix design. This paper presents the stripping potential benefits of natural rubber (NR) for the asphalt mixtures used on pavement. This research evaluates the physical properties and stripping performance of dense graded Superpave-designed HMA mix. Two different types of dense graded Superpave HMA mix were developed consists of unmodified binder asphalt mix (UMB) and natural rubber polymer modified binder asphalt mix (NRMB). Natural rubber polymer modified binder was prepared from addition of 8 % of NR into asphalt binder. Stripping results from Modified Lottman test and Boiling Water test were determined to evaluate the performance of these mixtures. Results showed that all the mixes passed the Superpave volumetric properties criteria which indicate that these mixtures were good with respect to durability and flexibility. The Stripping result of NPMB demonstrates better resistance to stripping than those prepared using UMB mix. Addition of NR to the binder has certainly improved the binder properties significantly and hence increase the resistant to stripping of the asphalt mixture. The results also shows that the optimum NR obtained is 8 % by weight of asphalt binder is the most effective proportion that having potential to improve physical properties and the performance of polymer modified asphalt binder. Therefore, it can be concluded that the NR polymer is suitable to be used as a modifier to modified binder in order to enhance the properties of the binder and thus improves the performance of asphalt mixes.

The structure and dielectric properties of Barium Zinc Tantalate (BZT) doped by vanadium pentoxide (V

2

O

5

) with a variety of values of mol% doping from 0, 0.1, 0.25, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.5 were prepared using a solid state method. The addition of V

2

O

5

did not disturb the 1:2 ordering structure of the BZT ceramic. The grain size increased when the addition of doping increased. A small amount of doping elements increased the relative density. The dielectric constant (ɛ

r

) value of the BZT significantly improved with the addition of the V

2

O

5

for the specimens sintered at 1,300 °C and it could be explained by the increase of the relative density. The tan δ of the V

2

O

5

doped with BZT ceramics is lower than pure BZT ceramics, and decreases as the V

2

O

5

content increases. Meanwhile, for the minimum return loss (dB), it is shown that the best result is produced when it is doped with 0.5 mol% V

2

O

5

and sintered at 1,250 °C. The best microwave dielectric properties obtained are ɛ

r

= 66.81, tan δ = 0.035, minimum return loss = −50.23 which occur for the 0.5 mol% doped V

2

O

5

and when sintered at 1,300 °C/4 h.

Boron doped amorphous carbon (a-C:B) film for heterojunction carbon-based photovoltaic solar cells were successfully fabricated on n-type silicon using palm oil precursor by the influenced of low positive bias voltage in the range of 0–50 V. The rectifying curve were found for all samples under dark measurement revealed that those samples were p-type semiconductor. The +30 V was found the optimized of the electronic properties with the open circuit voltage, current density, fill factor and efficiency were approximately 0.259034 V, 1.299456 mA/cm

2

, 0.240011 and 0.080788 %, respectively. The conversion efficiency of a-C:B has been improved under the influenced of low positive bias.

The effectiveness of using nanoclay in soft soil stabilization was investigated by mean of laboratory testing to evaluate the compressive strength, effective shear strength and Atterberg limit test parameters. The soft soil sample, classified as slightly sandy CLAY of intermediate plasticity was used in this studies. The nanoclay was produced from pulverizing soft soil sample into nano sized using ball milling process. From the scanning electron microscopic (SEM) test and nano size analysis, it was found that the nanoclay particles were obtained from the milling process. However, only 3 % nanoclay was used in this study due to the limited samples produced from milling process. The first objective of this study was to determine the compressive strength of 3 % nanoclay mixed with soft soil and the second objective was to determine the effective shear strength of 3 % nanoclay mixed with soft soil. Meanwhile, the third objective of this study was to determine the Atterberg limit parameter: liquid limit (LL), plastic limit (PL) and plastic index (PI) of 3 % nanoclay mixed with soft soil. This study involved three main testing such as unconfined compression strength to determine the compressive strength and consolidated drained test to determine the effective shear strength. Meanwhile, the Atterberg limit test were conduct to determine the liquid limit (LL) and plastic limit (PL). The result showed that the mixing of 3 % nanoclay with soft soil was improved the soil strength and effectiveness of the shear strength.

This paper present a part of research study conducted to investigate the effect of compatibility of polymer bitumen blend on the performance behavior of the well graded bituminous concrete mixture. Bituminous mixture was prepared by using 80/100 Pen bitumen for control mix, while polyethylene modified mixture was prepared by blending linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) with 80/100 Pen bitumen. The concentration of polymer in the blend was kept at 1, 2 and 3 % by weight of bitumen content. The compatibility of polymer bitumen blend as revealed by morphological analysis using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) shows that as the concentration of polymer in bitumen increases the formation of polymer network was observed. It was found that at higher polymer concentration formation of polymer bitumen network considered responsible for improved performance which was also confirmed by dynamic creep results of the modified bituminous samples.

Powder injection molding (PIM) offers an attractive method for producing smart and intricate shapes components. PIM process is cost effective and equally applicable for metals and ceramics. Debinding process is the most critical step among all PIM steps and any residual during debinding can change the composition of sintered product resulting change in final properties. In this research work, the injection molded samples were thermally debound and sintered in various atmospheres. The results showed that the sintered samples with improper thermal debinding resulted the carbide formation at the surface and across the grain boundaries that caused to increase the roughness value.

In this work, the Sn-doped ZnO thin films were prepared by Sol gel Spin coating technique on glass substrates at different concentrations of Sn 0, 0.5, 1.5, 1, 2.0 and 3 at.%. The surface morphology reveals that the average particle size of nano-structured Sn-doped ZnO thin films become smaller as the Sn concentrations increased as well as decreasing of average roughness. The optical band gaps were increased, while the resistivity of Sn-doped ZnO thin films were decreased when the Sn concentrations increased. The films doped with 2 at.% exhibited the best properties of average transmittance; RMS average roughness and resistivity were 96 %, 1.850 nm and 7.7 × 10

2

Ω cm, respectively.

Malaysia construction sector has been known to be a sector that pollutes the environment through its land clearing process to its harvesting of raw material from the environment to be used in construction process. Part of this construction process involves building the energy sectors. Mega power plant projects are important to sustain the Malaysian businesses and operations. However, it cannot be halted totally due to the inevitable necessity to meet the needs of the population. Therefore, the Malaysian government has shown effort to balanced sustainable environment and human advancement through exploration of renewable energy through the introduction and renewable energy (RE) policies and Feed-in-Tariff (FiT). Malaysia’s strategic locality in the equator proves prospective for untapped solar energy, in which can be harnessed though Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV). However, the BIPV implement is relatively slow although it has been introduced for more than 10 years although it has so much potential. To address this problem, this paper identifies the five major BIPV stakeholders in Malaysia which are the Government, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), Developers, Consumers and Research and Development (R&D) together with the problem that these stakeholders face in BIPV implementation. The objective of this research is to suggest focus adding value to rectify the developers’ setback that will help expedite BIPV implementation in Malaysia using the Iskandar Region, Johor as case study.

This paper addressed the potential use of microwave incinerated rice husk ash (MIRHA) as an adsorbent for the treatment of oily wastewater generated from an oil and gas industry. Presence of total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) in oil and gas wastewaters hinders the potential reuse of such wastewaters. The adsorbent MIRHA was produced by burning rice husk at two temperatures of 500 and 800 °C, designated as MIRHA500 and MIRHA800, respectively. The adsorbent was found to be highly porous, light weight with a very high external surface area and consist of 87–97 % silica. Adsorption of oil onto MIRHA500 and MIRHA800 was investigated in this study. Effect of contact time, adsorbent dose and concentration of MIRHA on adsorption process was determined by means of column adsorption study. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to determine the physical properties of MIRHA. MIRHA800 was found to be more effective with a removal ratio of 0.94 as compared with MIRHA500 (0.74) and higher throughput volume to exhaustion and breakthrough at increasing bed depth due to its larger surface area. Theoretically, contact time, adsorbent dose and concentration of MIRHA affect the adsorption process.

Low cost adsorbents have become a major area of consideration to many researchers due to the expense nature of the available activated carbon. Although commercial activated carbon is the most sufficient and efficiently used carbon for the removal of heavy metals ions coming from wastewater, it is faced with a lot of setback such as; the higher the quality of the activated carbon the more expensive it is, the regeneration of the used carbon tends to be very difficult especially in large volume. Due to this different biomass from agricultural by-products have been investigated to replace the commercial activated carbon and most of the findings have indicated a significant removal in terms of heavy metals in synthetic aqueous solution. This study have looked into and reviewed the various low cost adsorbents that have been employed for the treatment of wastewater laden with heavy metals.

The removal of ammonia-nitrogen from aqueous solution by using partly decomposed oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) fibers has been investigated in this study. The unmodified EFB fiber was superior than highly concentrated sodium hydroxide (1.25 M) modified EFB for ammonia-nitrogen removal. The biosorption isotherm data for ammonia-nitrogen on unmodified EFB fibers were well fitted by Freundlich isotherm model that suggesting the heterogeneous adsorption behavior of the adsorption process (R

2

= 0.991). The adsorption kinetic modeling of the adsorption data indicated pseudo-second-order model is the better to describe the predicting a chemisorption process (R

2

= 0.9875).

Hexavalent Chromium (Cr(IV)) is found in industrial discharges and must be removed before being discharged into receiving waters. Removing Cr(VI) means removing risk of cancer and other ill-health effects associated with it. This research describe column experiment in laboratory which quantify the rate of Cr(VI) removal by zero valence Ion (ZVI) reactor and sand filter from an artificial Cr(VI) waste-water using electrochemical reduction process. The main goal for this study are to study the effectiveness of ZVI in removing Cr(VI) and sand filter for polishing Cr(VI) remaining in ZVI reactor. Test of Cr(VI) were conducted under the following conditions: Cr(VI) concentration for experiments 1, 2, 3 and 4 for feed solution in 1–10 mg/l range; 3 cases of column experiment; The flow rate decided is 2 ml/min and pH adjusted at 7.7 for the feed solution. Three cases of column experiment are column ZVI (1 column), Column ZVI and Sand Filter (2 columns) and Column ZVI mixed with sand (1 column). The result indicate ZVI reduces Cr(VI) to Cr(III) under alkaline conditions. The removal rate efficiencies for all of cases in range 80.33–100 %. The most effective experiment column (individually or in combination) has been chosen for removing Cr(VI) is Column ZVI and sand filter in two columns which is satisfied all of parameters (Cr(VI), iron total and pH) with standard of drinking and river water. The Cr(VI) removal attained for this two columns case is range from 99.8 to 100 %. In conclusion, All of the results in this case were found that the concentration of Cr(VI) effluent lower than the threshold limit 0.05 mg/l except for case of ZVI mixed with sand in one column.

The rapid growth of shrimp farm activities began since last 40 years. It is due to high demands and can generate economy to the country. In Malaysia, thousands tonnes of shrimp were produced every year for local demand and export as well. However high demand in this industry, causes problem of water pollution in shrimp ponds which subsequently contaminated discharge from the pond due to presence of bacteria. In this study, it was found that shrimp farm water and effluent containing pathogenic bacteria which is resistant to certain antibiotic. These antibiotic resistance bacteria could be harmful to human.

Vibrio alginolyticus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Shigella flexneri

and

E. coli

were detected in the water and effluent from the shrimp farm. Total of

Vibrio

in 3 and 6 months pond were higher than allowable limit, which is 1625 and 2650 cfu/ml, respectively.

E. coli

in this study was recorded at low concentration, however dramatically increased in 4 months pond (438 cfu/ml) before plunging to 13 cfu/ml in 6 months pond. It can be concluded that the higher number of pathogenic bacteria (>1000 cfu/ml of

Vibrio

) were detected in shrimp pond water and effluent can cause illness to human health.

Global attention to carbon emissions that are perturbing the environment causing grievous global warming and associated consequences is turning to an individual’s contribution or “carbon footprint”. Carbon footprint is commonly expressed as the total amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) produced directly or indirectly as a result of an activity. It has become an indicator for sustainable development in numerous sectors including the construction industry. Several literatures studied the calculators estimating the carbon footprint of individual sectors. But, there are limited calculators for estimation of carbon footprint in construction activities. This paper presents assessment and reduction of carbon emission in a construction site via carbon calculator developed by the Environment Agency. The carbon calculator has been utilized to be fed by primary data collected from an actual construction activity dealing with demolition and reconstruction of building. Based on the outcomes from the calculator, the selection of appropriate Best Management Practices (BMPs) have been implemented to reduce the carbon emission in at the mentioned construction activity.

pH plays a very critical role in kenaf retting process. The aim of this study was to observe the changes in the pH of the retting water with and without the use of

Bacillus macerans

ATCC 843. The duration for retting period was set to one week. The changes of pH was taken daily in both tank. Both of the reading was then compared.

Storm water ponds are a common feature of the urban landscape in many countries with storm water management. Built to control the impacts of urbanisation in the form of increased runoff flows, volumes and pollution loads, storm water ponds are exposed to strong anthropogenic pressures. This paper presents the ability of storm water pond to self-purify the runoff water. In this study, selected chemical parameters (pH, BOD5, COD, zinc and lead) and physical parameters (turbidity, colour and suspended solid) of the inlet and outlet runoff waters were measured. From this study, the percentage of reduction in BOD

5

, COD, zinc and lead were 15, 16, 15 and 8 % respectively. The percentage of reduction in turbidity, colour and suspended solid was 11, 19 and 11 % respectively. Storm water pond has a greater capacity to remove soluble nutrients and biochemical compounds from storm water runoff. Overall, storm water pond has the ability to purify water contained.

Removal of nitrate (NO

3

−

) by

Eichhornia crassipes

sp. in landfill leachate was investigated in this study. Characterization study on the leachates collected from Jeram Sanitary Landfill (young landfill) and Ayer Hitam Sanitary Landfill (old landfill) show interesting pattern in concentration of NO

3

−

. This study shows that concentration of NO

3

−

was higher in young landfill (27 mg/L) than that in old landfill (9 mg/L) at neutral pH. Finding of these results indicate that

Eichhornia crassipes

sp. has the ability to remove NO

3

−

at different concentrations in three days. Approximately 69 and 64 % of NO

3

−

that present in leachate from young landfill was removed in sample without dilution and 50 % dilution, respectively. While approximately 28 and 33.6 % of NO

3

−

present in leachate collected from old landfill was removed in similar dilution samples. This study is very significant to identify the capability of

Eichhornia crassipes

sp. to remove NO

3

−

in landfill leachate.

The number of children diagnosed with autism has been increasing since 1980s. Generally, autistic children having difficulties with both social interactions and verbal communication skills. All the difficulties that they are facing will give an impact to their daily life especially on their learning process where they cannot concentrate or focus on their learning. Therefore, appropriate building facilities and design can reduce a negative impact to the autistic children where they will be more focus as well as imitate so as to have better development. The aim of this research is to identify the gap in guidelines in providing facilities needed for autistic children in order to enhance their daily life as well as their learning process; from there, guidelines of building facilities for autistic children will be formulated. This paper represents the detail about the relationship between building facilities and Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) through a literature review.

Microwave Incinerated Rice Husk Ash (MIRHA), produced from the rice husk was proven as one of the low-cost materials that can be used as an adsorbent for heavy metal in aqueous solution. Used engine oil is one of the wastes that contain heavy metals, metals and other contaminants. Most are non- biodegradable and can harm living creatures and human being if not properly disposed. The aim of this research was to study the feasibility of using MIRHA as adsorbent for the removal of heavy metal, metals and other contaminants from used engine oil. The chemical composition of the used engine oil was determined based on ASTM D6595. A series of jar tests were conducted by varying the contact time at fixed concentration of MIRHA and varying the concentration of MIRHA at specified contact time. All the samples were conducted in triplicates. It was observed that the optimum contact time for zinc, calcium and boron removals at fixed concentration of adsorbent of 625,000 mg/L of MIRHA were found to be 4, 4 and 24 h, respectively. The percentage removals of zinc, calcium, and boron were found to be 38.24, 29.39 and 52.27 %, respectively. It was also observed that the optimum adsorbent dosage for Zn, Ca and B removals were at 450,000 mg/L of MIRHA with percentage removals of 55.12, 29.33 and 62.11 %, respectively.

Indoor mould contamination portends grave consequence to the stored components as well as inhabitants of infested dwellings. Such defilement, which is due to favourable growth environment for micro-organisms, is often associated with Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) and other Building Related Illness (BRI). As the economic development of Malaysia continues, increase numbers of air-tight, fully air conditioned buildings are evolving. Currently limited guidelines exists on Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in Malaysia and its knowledge amongst the public is lacking. Hence, diagnosing the aggravating factors favouring indoor mould becomes beneficial as earlier detection is often difficult until growth has advanced. The study aimed at investigating mould infestation in a mechanically ventilated library building in Malaysia. Microclimate parameter and mould sampling were carried out. The microbial investigation results in 72 isolates whose distribution were 86 % mould, 13 % yeast and 1 % bacterial. It is found that Aspegillus sp. and Onychocola sp. were most common. The library internal microclimate distribution is characterised by uneven hygrothermal profile which results in high level of cellulolytic mould species that are highly detrimental to books and other archival materials. It is recommended that the HVAC system operations and set-points be critiqued to bring the ambient to the preservation requirements. In addition, load balancing for thermal and hygric distribution analysis should be executed to eliminate dead-spots in temperature and moisture distributions.

Palm oil fuel ash (POFA) and ceramic sludge (CS) are waste materials that found produced abundantly in the palm oil and the porcelain industrial sectors respectively. However, these waste materials are improperly managed that proved can give adverse impacts to the environment and human’s health. This research was carried out in order to identify the potential of POFA and CS as partial cement replacement materials in cement paste. POFA was prepared at 10, 20, 30 and 40 % replacement of Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and CS was prepared at 60 % substitution of the cement paste. The effects of POFA and CS in the cement paste in term of compressive strength at 1, 3, 7, and 28 days of curing were also determined. The results indicated that the optimum compressive strength of cement paste was achieved by P2 containing 10 % POFA: 30 % OPC: 60 % CS. As a result, the utilisation of POFA and CS as partial cement replacement materials can significantly reduce the high amount of OPC usage apart of reducing the environmental problems and human’s health problems.

Pre-fabricated timber roof truss made of glued laminated timber (glulam) may deem more efficient in supporting the load compared to similar truss made of solid timber. An analysis was conducted on single and double Fink trusses made of solid and glulam timber from selected Malaysian tropical timber with similar configurations. For solid timber truss, the timber used was Kempas from strength grouping SG2 whilst glulam, Mengkulang from SG5 was used since the glulam technology enhanced the strength properties of solid timber into two grades higher. Comparisons were made on the optimum sections designed for the trusses to support similar loadings. Various load patterns were also applied to the trusses to observe the worst-case scenario that resulted in the selection of the optimum sizes of each truss elements. The different combinations of load patterns, namely load applied on member and on node, with and without wind loads, and, symmetric and asymmetric loadings were analyzed. Two significant findings were observed in this analysis. First, glulam truss from a lower stress grade material can be of comparable structural performance to a solid truss from a higher-grade material. This can provide a cost-effective measure as alternative to solid truss since the differences in volume are small. Second, the worst-case scenario of load pattern for the truss for designed consideration is when the truss is symmetrically loaded on both nodes and members of the top chords and without the inclusion of wind load.

Besides strengths requirement for safety, fire resistance is also an important factor for safety of timber structure. During the exposure to fire, a charred layer forms on the external part of the timber element that protects the underlying layers against the action of fire. Charring rate value is required in the design of timber structures. Currently the charring rate for glued laminated timber (glulam) made from Malaysian tropical timber is not available. Malaysian standard, MS 544 Part 9 only provides the charring rate value for solid timbers. Therefore a series of glulam were made and have been exposed to fire in accordance with BS EN 1363-1:2012 in order to determine the charring rate values. The results indicate that the charring rate of glulam is smaller than the charring rate of solid timber.

The strength data for timbers established in British and European standards (BSEN 5268 and EC5 respectively) are based on large size specimens. However the strength data of Malaysian timbers are based on small clear specimens. This study attempts to compare data on the bending strength properties of timbers in structural size and small clear specimens. Eight selected Malaysian timbers from different strength groupings were used in this study. The results of bending strength from small clear specimens were statistically correlated with the results from the structural size specimens. Based on large size specimens, the strength groupings of some of the timbers are not in the same strength groupings based on small clear specimens.

This paper presents an experimental research aimed in increasing the bending strength performance of selected timber members made from Yellow Meranti and Bintangor species. A series of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) strips are glued on the timber face with different pattern alignment, which is diagonal (45°) and straight (90°) that is bonded using epoxy resins in order to increase the bending strength. The bending strength test under three-point loading was conducted for solid timber member for the respective species accordance to ASTM D143-09: 1992. The results shown the timber member reinforced with the GFRP strips slightly improved by 2 and 5 % of the bending strength. The failure modes of the selected timber specimen were also observed. Both controlled specimens shown visible damage that is cracking at mid-span for Yellow Meranti specimen and shear failure for Bintangor specimen. While, for reinforced specimens, some of the specimens possess no visible damage and some possess the shear failure.

Timber and composite material connection are currently a popular combination in construction industry. Although composite timber connection has been studied previously, it was based on traditional experimental laboratory work, which led to a higher cost and more time consuming. Therefore, this paper studies the tensile load carrying capacity of the composite connections by using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) which has the capability of finding optimal solutions. From the results, it can be concluded that even though the PSO fitness functions has not exactly matched the brittle behavior of the load-displacement response for both single and double shear connections, their overall tensile performance and capacity of the connections are well predicted. Therefore, the findings from this research will be benefited by timber engineers in predicting the timber composite connections behavior and capacity, particularly single and double shear connections.

Glued laminated timber also known as glulam had been widely used as construction materials. As the demands are increasing, the research to optimize the strength of glulam timber also increasing. It is known from previous study that glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) is significantly increased the strength of timber. It could be also an essential material in rehabilitation process of glulam timber in terms of cost reducing. This paper mainly review on the previous study in determining the flexural performances of timber by using GFRP which clearly indicates from the results that GFRP is one of the favor materials in enhancing the timber strength. Overall, most of the study focusing on the application of GFRP together with connectors in glulam timber. There is also significant value of timber strength in the review researches that only layered or wrapped by GFRP and timber strength that used together with GFRP and strengthened with connector. Hence further research should be focus on finding flexural performances of glulam timber with GFRP strengthened with connector.

The use of timber as structural member have come under serious review and study recently as good quality logs are alarmingly becoming scarce besides the chronic problems of traditional sawn timber. Many researches regarding the use of timber are needed to strengthen or repair old timber structures as well as to improve the mechanical properties of new timber structures. Connection is one of the important parts in wood-based products. It can help the structure to increase their strength performance. A detailed and proper connection must be designed properly in order to make sure that the structure can transfer design loads to and from a structural glulam without causing localized stress concentrations that can cause any failure at the joint. This paper reviewed about the performance of glulam with connection, glulam as a replacement of solid timber since it have been proved by some researchers that it give better strength compared to solid timber and the best connection type that can be used to strengthen the structural glulam member.

Pavement distress is one of the main issues currently faced by the Road Authorities in this country that often being raised by the public due to the unsatisfactory condition of the road and continuously deteriorate without addressing the issues effectively. Many road authorities especially in the municipality area which have less number of road expertise to conduct a proper maintenance program are not equipped with available indicator to identify when is the time a road will start to deteriorate or when is the right time to do the road rehabilitation without having problem to deal with insufficient allocation. There are several types of pavement distress encountered on a flexible pavement in this country and some of them have very significant relation with the contributing factors which are frequently affecting the pavement condition. One of the main contributing factors that are commonly known to the public is the impact of traffic volume with regards to heavy vehicle. However this issue will have no further to debate if there is no evidence to show the relationship between the pavement distress and the contributing factors and to proof the impact of heavy vehicle due to heavily using the road. It is difficult to explain the relationship between pavement distress and all the contributing factors without having a strong supporting analysis. In this study, there are many types of pavement distress occurred on flexible pavement however patching road defect was selected to be analyzed in order to find a relationship with the combination of few significant factors. The relation between pavement performance due to patching and the reaction towards it can clearly be described based on soil and pavement parameter equation. These parameters are the factors used in developing intensity patching road defect. Calculating the intensity patch can determine the category of patching degree. The findings are hoped to be a bench marked towards a proper way of road maintenance using established models as an indicator to predict the pavement deterioration and the contributing factors.

High temperature for producing reclaimed asphalt mixture becomes the main concern in recycling as this will further age the reclaimed asphalt binder. Highly stiff binder causes workability and compatibility problems, hence affects the desirable performance of pavement. Warm mix asphalt additive is able to decrease the production temperature by reducing the binder viscosity. The synergy of warm mix asphalt and reclaimed asphalt mixtures resulted in a more environmental and energy savings benefits. The effects of a warm mix additive on the rheological properties of conventional asphalt binder containing a high proportion of recovered reclaimed asphalt binder were evaluated. Reclaimed asphalt were obtained from two sources and modified with a warm mix additive named RH. The recovered binders were blended with conventional binder at proportion of 0, 30 and 40 % and then tested for viscosity, stiffness and frequency dependency. Fuel usage and greenhouse gas emission were estimated based on the required fuel to heat up the aggregate and binder from ambient temperature up to the mixing temperature. The addition of RH improves the flow of binders by reducing the viscosity, thus decreases the construction temperature. The initial stiffness of reclaimed asphalt binders influences the effects of RH on the complex modulus and phase angle. The complex modulus increases while the phase angle decreases as the frequency increases, which indicates the binders have become stiffer. The differences in the magnitude of complex modulus are more noticeable at lower frequency and it gets close to each other at the higher frequency. This indicates that in the long run, the performance of modified reclaimed asphalt binders will be slightly better than the conventional hot mix asphalt. The warm mix additive and reclaimed asphalt composite in this study has the potential to reduce the fuel usage and green house gas (GHG) emission by 21 %.

Currently, the cost of production of stone mastic asphalt (SMA) is relatively high for paving roads and highways. One means of reducing the cost is to use relatively low cost by-products as aggregates and fillers. The main purpose of this study is to appraise the effect of aging on resilient modulus of SMA incorporating electric arc furnace (EAF) steel slag and copper mine tailing (CMT) as binary industrial waste materials. To achieve this aim, four mix designs consisting of EAF steel slag and CMT at various percentages were investigated. Marshall stability, drain down and indirect tensile resilient modulus tests were conducted. The indirect tensile resilient modulus test was carried out to assess the stiffness of SMA mixture at 25 and 40 °C. Stiffness variation in asphalt mixtures play a vital role in inflicting cracking and rutting in pavement. While some samples were unaged, equal numbers of samples were subjected to short term and long term oven aging. The results show that incorporating EAF steel slag and CMT into SMA mixture has a substantial positive effect on the drain down and resilient modulus of SMA. Thus, the study has contributed to the reuse of economical and environmentally friendly metallurgical and mining by-products in roads and highway industries.

The exclusive motorcycle lane (EML) at merging section in Federal Highway heading towards Kuala Lumpur at KM 28.4 has been segregated into two lanes via road marking. This study researches on the effect of the road marking by comparing the speed and gap of the exclusive motorcycle lane before and after road marking installation by using a TruSpeed Laser Speed Gun, a TDC Ultra Hand-held Traffic Data Collector and a Sony Hdr Videocam. The results show that there have been significant differences in the speed and gap of motorcyclists in the exclusive motorcycle lane after the installation of road marking. These differences can make a difference in the safety and health of motorcyclists using the exclusive motorcycle lane. The need for further research regarding motorcyclists and exclusive motorcycle lane in Malaysia may help the community with a design standard for exclusive motorcycle lanes.

Good, safe and well maintained pedestrian sidewalk facilities that are comfortable to be used by all groups of pedestrians could encourage people to travel by walking. However, due to lack of information on the pedestrian travel trends or pedestrian profile’s pattern local authorities have to face many challenges in providing facilities that are suitable to be used by each group of pedestrians. Pedestrians’ characteristics such as gender, age and abilities usually influence the pedestrian preference and affect the pedestrian volume. Since each pedestrian have different characteristics, Level of Service (LOS) of a sidewalk may be affected by different pedestrian profile composition, pattern or volume during weekday and weekends. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to look on how does the pedestrian profile pattern differs by number of trips made during weekdays and weekends in one of the Central business district within Kuala Lumpur City Center that are known to have highest pedestrian volume with adequate pedestrian facilities. The objective is achieved through pedestrian classification count on afternoon peak-hour for one whole week in two different locations within Central Business District in Kuala Lumpur City Centre. In overall, similar pedestrian profile pattern for afternoon peak period were observed during a weekend which is on Monday to Thursday for both count location and the number of trips made increased on weekends.

This paper reviews the overall performance tests for porous asphalt from the material properties until the field evaluation. The material properties are consisting of both aggregate and binder tests. Those tests are the same with material properties evaluation for dense graded asphalt. The tests for binder involved a latest technology for evaluating the rheological properties and microstructural structures such as dynamic shear modulus, rotational viscosity, atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction. To evaluate the performance of porous asphalt in lab, the mechanical tests of mixture are very crucial and effective. Among the tests are stability test, indirect tensile strength test, permeability test, rutting resistance, resilient modulus, compression test and imaging analysis. Then, to further monitor the performance of porous asphalt during service life, the field tests are conducted. Among the tests are grain size analysis, hydrometer analysis, compaction parameter, skid resistance, sound adsorption test and flow characterization test. Thus, in order to evaluate the overall performance of PA, the evaluation is done at the initial stage which is the material properties evaluation, the mixture tests and lastly the final stage which is the field tests. The recommendations are also given on the new potential areas to be explored for this topic.

An Increasing amount of literature is devoted to discuss about the pedestrian movement pattern in indoor or outdoor environment. A better understanding of human behavior is the key to plan and manage the pedestrian flow especially in a transit terminal. Pedestrians visiting a public space have different motivations and therefore may behave differently. In order to determine the pedestrian behavior, some parameters should be measured such as walking speed, spatial use and person counts. The planners have generated a need to understand the pedestrian movement which behavior could be represented in collective form. A comprehensive review of the existing method in looking at the influencing parameters of the pedestrian behavior to the routes choice and pedestrians flow in relation to the level of service (LOS) and interaction of pedestrian in rail transit terminal is still lacking. Therefore, this paper aims to review the pedestrian movement characteristic in a rail transit terminal. Considering the differences of space requirements among different types of pedestrians and owing to the diverse characteristics of their stature, behavior and surroundings, immediate action on planning the rail based infrastructure is needed.

The pedestrian walking speed is prime importance in a study of design, function and provision of pedestrian facilities. It is quite difficult for the designers to understand the relationship between pedestrian flow characteristic and pedestrian movement by only using their experience and senses. The interactions between pedestrian is hard to understand. Therefore, this paper to review studies from others to better understand the pedestrian flow characteristic, focusing on the pedestrian behavior at stairways and escalator at public transport terminal. This paper addressed the pedestrian movement which includes the walking speed and the relationship between their demographic variables such as age, pedestrian characteristics and also physical characteristic of stairways and escalator.

In Malaysia, the application of Mechanistic-Empirical approach in pavement design guide is still in early stage of introduction and many more researches need to improve it. One of the task needs is generating road profile model to evaluate the dynamic axle loads from vehicles. Therefore, this study aims to generate a few models of road profiles based on the real road profile data called reference road profiles model using mathematical method. The reference road profiles data are a measurement of new paved federal road in Malaysia. A profiles of two section roads (300 m length each) measured by road scanner were determined from Malaysia Public Work Institute (IKRAM). The Profile Viewing and Analysis software (ProVAL) was used to filter unwanted wavelength, visualized the measured road profile data and obtained the road profile International Roughness Index (IRI). Meanwhile, Matrix Laboratory software (MATLAB) was used to generate road profiles based on Dodds and Robson Power Spectral Density (PSD) approximation equation. The calibration between generated and reference road profiles were examined by correlation coefficient value. From the results, all generated road profiles with correlation coefficient value ranges between −1 < ρ < −0.7 or 0.7 < ρ < 1, gives different IRI values with the reference road profile. However, the differences of IRI values are acceptable (less than 5 %). Therefore, all 56 models of generated road profiles are applicable for long term pavement performance. Although, a road profile model with the same IRI value with a reference profile is the most applicable for long term pavement performance.