The effect of FRCA and WPSA on the strength properties of foamed concrete / Siti Shahidah Sharipudin, Ahmad Ruslan Mohd Ridzuan and Hamidah Mohd Saman

In view of the escalating environmental problems faced in this millennium with consideration to the rapid depletion of natural resources, the use of by-products or waste materials from different industries are highly desirable. One such alternative is waste paper sludge ash (WPSA), a local by-product produced abundantly by the paper newsprint industry. It has been observed through previous studies that WPSA possesses pozzolanic characteristics in enhancing concrete properties. On the other hand, progressive development in the construction sector recently has contributed as the main producer of construction wastes, particularly concrete wastes. Therefore, the present paper investigates the strength development of lightweight foamed concrete produced with various replacements level of WPSA and ultrafine recycled concrete aggregate (FRCA) to the cement and sand content respectively. The cube specimens were casted in size 100 mm x 100 mm x 100 mm and water cured. The compressive strengths were evaluated at 3, 7, 28 and 60 days. The results of this study showed that the inclusion of WPSA and FRCA have significant influence on the development of strength properties of foamed concrete

Mechanical properties of rice husk ash as a mineral addition in concrete / Kartini Kamaruddin and Hamidah Mohd Saman

It is shown that some of the wastes have properties that would improve the quality of concrete produced. One such waste is agricultural waste rice husk, which constitutes about one-fifth of 600 million tones of rice produced annually in the world. The performance of RHA concrete was found to be varied among those of researchers and most of the studies encompassed for the utilisation of high grade concrete. This paper reported the investigation carried out on the mechanical properties of normal strength concrete of grade 30 N/mm2 with various partial replacement level of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) with Rice Husk Ash (RHA). Two(2) batches of same grade of concrete with and without use of superplasticiser (Sp) were adopted. The mechanical properties evaluated are in terms of compressive strength, flexural strength and tensile splitting strength of RHA concrete with and without superplasticiser (Sp). The results show that the optimum replacement level of RHA was 20 % and with the addition of Sp the replacement of RHA was taken as 40 %. However, the results of the study show that the performance in term of flexural strength and tensile splitting strength does not significantly improved with the replacement of cement with RHA

Water Treatment Sludge Stabilizer Binder by Waste Paper Sludge Ash for Solidification/Stabilisation Technique

Waste Paper Sludge Ash (WPSA) used as stabilizer binder to treat water treatment sludge (WTS). This study was conducted to treat WTS by using WPSA in Solidification/Stabilisation (S/S) technique. 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% of WPSA was utilized to treat 200g of WTS. 100% of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) was used as control specimen. For testing, compressive strength and leaching test on WTS treated with WPSA at specified percentage were performed. It was experimentally done on sample cured at 1, 3, 7 and 28 ages for the compressive strength and at 28 ages for leaching test. Results showed that compressive strength decreases with increasing WPSA content. The immobilization of cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu) and chromium (Cr) were monitored. The concentration of metals decreases with respect to percentage of WPSA added. The optimum content of WPSA to treat WTS was 50%

The combined effects of Polyethylene Terephthalate and rubber crumb as fine aggregate in concrete / Norhana Abdul Rahman

Currently, the need to incorporate recycled materials such as plastics and rubbers as replacements to raw materials is becoming more important than ever before. In this study, the combined effects of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and rubber crumb (RC) as fine aggregate replacement in concrete are investigated. This study evaluated the mechanical (compressive strength and flexural strength) and durability properties (electrical resistivity and water absorption) of the concrete. The fine aggregate was replaced at 10%, 20% and 30% by weight of binder and tested for 7, 28, 60 and 90 days of curing. The results showed that by increasing the replacement of PET in higher proportion (up to 20%) and RC (up to 10%) the compressive strength of concretes did decrease. The same trend followed for the flexural strength in which strength was reduced as the replacements level increased. The electrical resistivity increased with the increased of PET and RC replacement in concrete. Meanwhile, the water absorption of concretes increased with the increased of PET and RC replacement. Overall, the PET and rubber crumb can be utilized up to certain percentages in replacing fine aggregates in concrete

Entry Location and Entry Timing (ELET) Decision Model for International Construction Firms

This paper proposes a model for entry location (EL) and entry timing (ET) decisions to guide construction firms in accessing targeted international markets.  Neglecting to properly choose the right combination of the entry location and entry timing (ELET) decisions can lead to poor performance of the firms’ international ventures.  The sampling frame was from the Malaysian construction firms that have undertaken and completed projects abroad.  Survey questionnaires sent to 115 firms registered with Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) Malaysia, operating in more than 50 countries, achieved a 39.1 per cent response rate. Based on a comprehensive statistical analysis of survey data it was found that the mutually inclusive significant factors that influenced the firms’ ELET decisions were: the firm’s ability to assess market signals and opportunities, international experience, financial capacity, competencies and capabilities (project management, specialist expertise and technology), resources (level of knowledge based on research and development), experience in similar works, financial support from the home country banks, technical complexities of projects and availability of funds for projects.  Hence, the present research builds on and extends the literature on the ELET decisions in a more integrated way. Keywords: Entry location, entry timing, resource-based view, international markets, Malaysian construction firms

Strategies for international market expansion: Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat (SWOT) attributes of Malaysian construction firms / Che Maznah Mat Isa, Hamidah Mohd Saman and Christopher Nigel Preece

The competitive and saturated construction industry has led many domestic firms to expand internationally. Therefore, in today’s global industry, the construction firms must adopt a superior and an effective strategy to endure the increasing dynamics and uncertainties in the foreign markets. In the early stage of strategic planning, one of the basic but important steps is the need for firms to identify their strength, weakness, opportunity and threat (SWOT) attributes before they expand internationally. The aim of this study is to identify the important SWOT attributes to help the firms to manage and ease the inherent complexities and difficulties within international market domain. Survey questionnaires were sent to 115 Malaysian construction firms listed under Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia 2013 record resulted in 48.7 percent response rate. The relative importance index (RII) was used to rank the SWOT attributes. The findings revealed the following highest ranking of SWOT attributes: the ability to produce good quality products/services (strength), lack of research and development (weakness), mergers (opportunity), and policies, laws and regulations of host country (threat). The correlation analysis reveals a strong positive relationship between the opportunity and the threat attributes which indicates that the abundant opportunities are also accompanied by the inherent threats in the international markets. Thus, this study illustrates the identification of the most significant SWOT attributes related to the firms’ international operations. It is hoped that the findings would offer valuable information and practical guidance to construction firms in their preparatory works to internationalize

Development of OLI+S Entry Decision Model for Construction Firms in International Markets

The paper aims to provide a holistic approach to address how construction firms make decisions covering all three domains (location, timing and mode) across country, market, firm and project factors within the Ownership, Locational and Internalisation plus Specialty (OLI+S) paradigm. Questionnaires were administered to 62 project managers based on a sampling frame provided by the Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia. The findings provide empirical and theoretical insights on how the OLI+S model addresses firms’ entry decisions to penetrate international markets. It suggests that the ownership-entry decision factors focus on firms’ internal transferable advantages. The locational-entry decision factors emphasise attractiveness of certain locations where firms decided to invest and operate. The internalisation– entry decision factors emphasise the extent to which firms were able to manipulate their internal competitive assets (firm’s resources and capabilities). Finally, the specialty-entry decision factors emphasise on firms’ competency in project management and specialist expertise to handle complex projects based on their previous project experience. An example of construction firms’ unique characteristics, namely, specialty advantages based on the original Dunning’s OLI eclectic paradigm has been adopted. The established OLI+S entry decision model could be investigated to further refine other related internationalisation theory

Strength performance of sustainable mortar containing recycle sewage sludge ash (SSA) / Nurul Nazierah Mohd Yusri … [et al.]

Sewage sludge is a by-product generated within the wastewater treatment process. Severe concern arised as the sludge are massively been dumped to the landfill and it may affect the environment. Many studies had been conducted in reusing the sewage sludge as construction material, where it is one of the optional ways to solve the issue. In this study, dried sewage sludge was incinerated with two different temperatures in order to produce sewage sludge ash (SSA), which are 800°C and 1000°C. After few processes, this SSA then reused in mortar as cement replacement with the replacement percentage of 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% by weight. The strength performance of mortar specimens was investigated after 7, 28, 60 and 90 days of curing. From the results, it is clearly showed that the compressive strength of all mortar specimens increased when the period of curing was prolonged. Moreover, almost all compressive strength of SSA mortars was higher than the control mortar. Therefore, there is potential to reuse this waste material as part of construction materials and hence, its plays an important role for future researches in minimisation of waste

Flexural behaviour of plain concrete prism strengthened by textile fine grained mortar

This paper presents a flexural strength study of concrete incorporated with textile fine grained mortar (TFGM) as a strengthening laminate. TFGM is a combination of fine grained mortar (FGM) with alkali resistant glass fabric (AR glass). Fine grained sand with 600 m maximum size was used in FGM and fly ash (FA) or rice husk ash (RHA) has been used as a partial substitute for ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The potential of TFGM as strengthening laminate was tested under monolithic load with three point flexure loading. The TFGM were laid in layers of two, four, six, and eight. Results shown a promising flexure enhancement of up to three times of unstrengthened concrete when eight layers of both RHA and FA were laid. Load bearing capacity and ductility of the samples increased about 200% and 61%, respectively, compared to control samples as well. The outcome shows a highly potential use of agro-waste as cement replacement to produce load bearing structural component

Determining Significant Factors Influencing Malaysian Construction Business Performance in International Markets

Market expansion into foreign markets has become increasingly important for construction businesses, including Malaysian contractors. It is therefore imperative that these firms are able to sustain performance in international markets. This paper aims to determine the significant factors influencing the Malaysian contractors' performance in international markets. This study adopts a mixed method using questionnaires that were sent to 115 construction firms as a sampling frame. The quantitative findings were further validated through in-depth interviews with five firms currently operating at the international level. It was found that the firms' profit targets based on return on investment and revenues supported by the firms' competitive advantages due to employees' capabilities and competencies have significantly influenced the firms' performance. However, further insights disclosed that having strong and stable human relationships were very important to enhancing the firms' performance in international markets. The findings build further understanding of international strategies for construction in developing countries. Finally, the study identifies the need to develop a suitable tool to measure firms' performance by taking into consideration the complex elements within the identified significant influencing factors