The application of Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) in dam construction / Amalina Amirah Abu Bakar

Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) is a no-slump, dry mix of cement, fine aggregate, coarse aggregate, and fly ash. It is a new technology but develop rapidly in the world. It draws on concepts from the technology of concrete gravity dams and earth- fill embankment dams. On 1982 the first RCC dam was built. The main advantage of the RCC dam is economics due to reduced forming, placement and compaction costs. In Malaysia from years ago until now, it is depending on hydro power plant to generate electric and also as a water resource. The purpose of this study is to give an overview to the application of RCC in dam construction besides to enhance knowledge about dam as a hydraulic structure. It is an effort to produce overview criteria in constructing RCC dam and to compare the design criteria between RCC dams and conventional concrete (CVC) dam. Thus, it is expect that in future, this beneficial study will be continued in finding more details about constructing RCC dam especially to be applied in Malaysia

Cost-benefit analysis for optimum return of flood control mitigation / Nor Azliza Akbar, Amalina Amirah Abu Bakar and Siti Isma Hani Ismail

Flood is a problem caused by precipitation and runoff particularly during periods of excessively high rainfall. Nowadays in Malaysia, flood has become a serious problem to the extent of imposing impact to the environment. This problem may cause damage to properties, loss of life, loss of utility services, loss of trading and others. However, with sophisticated technologies, some flood mitigation measures have been designed by engineers and the government allocates a lot of money for the projects. A study on flood damage assessment is necessary to identify, predict and evaluate the benefits of flood control projects. In this study, a model on flood damage assessment was developed by using Visual Basic language and the data which is used in this calculation is hypothetical data. Besides, this study is important to ensure that floods are controlled by implementing mitigation measures in order to minimize destruction to the environment. From the economic point of view, the best approach to establish the most economical flood control system was selected based on a suitable system that gives the largest benefit-cost ratio analysis or the maximum return of the net benefit. This model will be able to assist engineers in making the best decision during planning for flood control projects before the intended design can be executed

Colour removal from industrial wastewater using bladderwort as adsorption media / Salina Alias, Amalina Amirah Abu Bakar, Nor Azliza Akbar and Siti Normasyarah Muhamed

Adsorption process in wastewater treatment using natural products has become popular due to its low cost and environmentally friendly approach. However, less attention has been focused on the ability of aquatic plant species such as Bladderwort as an adsorption media. This paper discusses the effectiveness of using Bladderwort as a natural adsorbent for the removal of colour from wastewater. Under batch technique, the effect on adsorbent size (75-600 μm), wastewater pH (pH 1-12) and agitation speed (50-250 rpm) was determined. The results indicated that the removal efficiency of colour is in tandem with the size of Bladderwort as higher size particles have more efficiency on removal of colour. Besides, the wastewater pH also plays a major role in the colour removal efficiency where the highest removal was observed in acidic condition compared to alkali. However, the agitation speed is least affected in the removal of colour. The optimum size of Bladderwort and pH to effectively remove the colour was at 600 μm and pH 3

Removal of cu2+ using utricularia aurea as a biosorbent in synthetic industrial wastewater/ Nor Azliza Akbar

Biosorption of copper ions (Cu2+) using Utricularia Aurea has been investigated as a function of pH, contact time and particle size of the biosorbent. A series of batch equilibrium adsorption study was conducted to determine the effect of varied pH from pH 2, 4, 7, and 9, contact time at 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes, biosorbent particle size ranging from 150 µm, 300 µm, 450 µm and 600 µm at an agitation speed of 125 rpm using Utricularia aurea (U. Aurea). Based on the optimization study, it was found that the optimum removal of Cu2+ (>90%) occurred at pH4, contact time of 40 minutes and particle size of 450µm. Atomic Absorption Spectrometer was used to analyse the concentration of Cu2+ in the sample. A kinetic study on Cu2+ adsorption onto U.Aurea was analysed using pseudo-first order and pseudo second order kinetic models. Based on the kinetic study analysis, the adsorption of Cu2+ followed pseudo- second order kinetic which r2 was greater than 0.99 rather than pseudo- first order kinetic models. Thus, Utricularia Aurea can be an alternative as a new adsorbent media in treating heavy metals contaminated for industrial wastewater

Identification of Source Contributions to Air Pollution in Penang Using Factor Analysis

Penang is one of the rapidly developed states in Malaysia with large numbers of population industrial activities, motor vehicles density and development projects.  The concentrations of air pollution parameters in Penang were investigated and analyzed together with meteorological parameters in order to determine their characteristics and contributions to air pollution in Penang using factor analysis (FA).  The air pollution parameters include ground level ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and particulate matters of less than 10 microns in size (PM10) while the meteorological parameters include relative humidity, wind speed and temperature.  The data was obtained from the Department of Environment (DOE) for the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) monitoring station for the period of 10 years from 2004 to 2013.  In this study, concentrations of PM10 was found to be the highest among the air pollutants and the concentrations was at its highest between the months of June to September for almost all years of observation due to the southwest monsoon.  As for the source contributions of air pollutions, O3 and meteorological parameters were found to be the largest contributor to air pollutions in Penang, followed by the traffic emissions and industrial activities

Performance of a rainwater harvesting tank under under varying non-potable demand: case study in Kubang Semang, Penang

Rapid development and climate change has endangered the availability of water resources worldwide. This study look into the potential of the applying a rainwater harvesting system (RWHS) for non- potable water usage in a double-storey residential terrace house using Tangki NAHRIM 2.0 (TN2.0). TN2.0 is a web application that adopt the yield-after-spillage (YAS) convention to identify the optimum rainwater tank size. It is found that for a house of size 86.86 m2, the optimum tank size is 2 m3 with water-saving and storage efficiency values of 51% and 63.2% respectively. Additionally, the performance of the optimum tank size of 2 m3 was further examined under different water demand. It was found that a 2 m3 tank was still able to save water up to 42.1% for a family of 10 persons. Meanwhile, the storage efficiency shows a little increment from 63.2% to 67.8

The Relationship of Stressors and Stress on Injury Incident of Construction Workers in Penang

Construction Workers (CWs) are the main source of manpower that is necessary to every construction project. Non conducive and hazardous working environment at construction site will affect the physiological health of the construction labour. This study is conducted to explore the impact of job stress and emotional stress to the CWs that potentially lead to injuries incident in Penang. Twelve stressors were identified through factor analysis. Then, the stressors are classified into five main categories. Questionnaires were developed according to the stressstressor relationship. The correlation between factors of injury incident (stressor) and stress shows that lack of autonomy and inappropriate safety equipment lead to the emotional stress among the CWs with 0.287 and 0.204 respectively. In addition, poor physical environment causes the job stress among CWs with the correlation of 0.270