Now showing 1 - 10 of 25
  • Publication
    Structural Characteristics and Microstructure Analysis of Soft Soil Stabilised with Fine Ground Tile Waste
    ( 2023-08-01)
    Md Isa M.H.
    ;
    Koting S.
    ;
    Hashim H.
    ;
    Aziz S.A.
    ;
    Using ceramic tile waste as a soil stabiliser in road construction is a potential solution to dispose of the waste material while providing a cost-effective alternative to traditional stabilising agents. The ceramic tile waste, when crushed and mixed with soil, helps to improve the strength and durability of the road base. However, the effectiveness of the ceramic tile waste as a soil stabiliser depends on the type and size of ceramic tiles used and the soil properties being stabilised. This study investigated the effect of ground tile waste on the plasticity, compatibility, and mechanical properties such as the unconfined compressive strength (UCS), indirect tensile test (IDT), flexural test (FS), and microstructural analysis. A range of soil mixtures was prepared by adding the different percentages of fine tile waste (TW): 5% to 40%. Including tile waste in the soil led to a decrease in its water-holding capacity, reducing the optimum moisture content required for optimal compaction. Meanwhile, the maximum dry density increased. The UCS, IDT, and FS improved when the optimum 15% of TW was used in the mixes. However, the strength decreased after 20% of the TW addition. This effect was particularly pronounced in the presence of excessive TW contents in soil samples without a pozzolanic reaction. Reusing tile waste as a soil stabiliser can significantly reduce the costs of purchasing new materials and helps to conserve natural resources and reduce the environmental impact of waste disposal.
  • Publication
    Effect of palm oil clinker (POC) aggregate on the mechanical properties of stone mastic asphalt (SMA) mixtures
    ( 2020-04-01)
    Babalghaith A.M.
    ;
    Koting S.
    ;
    Ramli Sulong N.H.
    ;
    Karim M.R.
    ;
    ;
    Ibrahim M.R.
    Aggregate composition has a pivotal role in ensuring the quality of pavement materials. The use of waste materials to replace the aggregate composition of asphalt pavement leads to green, sustainable, and environmentally friendly construction, which ultimately preserves nature by reducing the need to harvest materials from natural sources. Using the Marshall mix design, the main objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of waste palm oil clinker (POC) as fine aggregates replacement on the properties of stone mastic asphalt (SMA) mixture. Six groups of asphalt mixtures were prepared using different percentages of palm oil clinker content (0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100%). To determine the Marshall properties and select the optimum binder content, asphalt mixture samples with different percentages of asphalt binder content (5.0%, 5.5%, 6.0%, 6.5%, and 7.0%) were prepared for each group. The results showed that the palm oil clinker was appropriate for use as a fine aggregate replacement up to 100% in SMA mixture and could satisfy the mix design requirements in terms of Marshall stability, flow, quotient, and volumetric properties. However, the percentage of palm oil clinker replacement as fine aggregate has merely influenced the optimum binder content. Furthermore, there were improvements in the drain down, resilient modulus and indirect tensile fatigue performances of the SMA mixture. In conclusion, the use of POC as fine aggregates replacement in SMA mixture indicates a good potential to be commercialized in flexible pavement construction.
  • Publication
    Early Detection of Diabetic Foot Ulcers through Wearable Shoe Design
    Diabetes Mellitus is categorized as a chronic metabolic disease where blood glucose levels are abnormal. Diabetic foot ulcer is a complication often associated with this disease. Diabetes foot ulcer is also commonly known as diabetes foot pain. It is a type of foot damage medical condition that progresses from diabetes mellitus. According to scientific data, almost 15% of diabetes patients may develop diabetes foot ulcer in their lifetime [1]. A foot ulcer is an open wound that commonly found under the feet, it can be a shallow open wound on the surface of the skin (less severe) or it can be a deep wound which exposes bones, tendons and joints [2]. However, if early prevention is carried out, diabetes patients might be able to avoid problems from diabetes foot ulcer. Thus, in this study, a wearable shoe prototype for early detection of foot ulcers is proposed to be used in home. The developed device will be associated with temperature sensor, vibration motor and pressure sensor. This device enables diabetes patients to carry out evaluation on their foot in daily life. With this device, early symptoms of foot ulcer can be detected and the seriousness of foot ulcer can be monitored.
  • Publication
    Bio-Char And Bio-Oil Production From Pyrolysis of Palm Kernel Shell And Polyethylene
    In recent years, palm kernel shell (PKS) has become a viable feedstock for making biofuels and value-added commodities using a variety of thermal conversion routes. Therefore, significant conservation is required for PKS as a resource for fuel production in biofuel facilities. Thus, this research was intended to elucidate the effects on PKS as a solid fuel through torrefaction and the production of bio-char and bio-oil by single and co-pyrolysis of PKS and polyethylene (PE). The PKS was treated through torrefaction at different temperatures and holding times. The optimum parameters for torrefaction were a temperature of 250 oC and a holding time of 60 min. Then the PKS and PE were pyrolyzed in a fixed-bed reactor at different temperatures and ratios. The product yield was analysed for single and co-pyrolysis of PKS and PE for pyrolysis. The properties of the product composition for single and co-pyrolysis of the PKS and PE were determined by proximate analysis, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The optimum parameter obtained for biochar and bio-oil production from co-pyrolysis of PKS and PE was at temperature of 500 oC at a ratio of 1:2 (PKS: PE). The ester and phenol compounds were increased around 19.02 to 23.18% and 32.51 to 34.80 %, respectively, while amide and amine decreased around 4.94 to 18.87% and 0.63 to 32.39 %, respectively, compared to the single pyrolysis of PKS. Therefore, the PKS and PE co-pyrolysis significantly increased the amount of phenol and ester compounds while slightly reducing the amount of amide and amine compounds in the bio-oil product. As a conclusion, biomass conservation enables the manufacturing of value-added chemicals.
  • Publication
    Predictive Maintenance System Design for Infant Intensive Phototherapy Lamp
    Planned-Preventive maintenance (PPM) is an essential part of clinical engineering to ensure correct functionality of the medial equipment. PPM involves the extension of equipment's life and reducing failure by performing selective substitution of its components in contrast to the "fix it when it fails"concept. However, this strategy often leads to un-necessary downtime and increased costs, especially in hospital environment. Therefore, a maintenance system for predictive preventive maintenance that can monitor the usage of medical equipment is much preferred option. In this regards, a predictive maintenance system design is proposed that focuses on the LED Infant Intensive Phototherapy Lamp. In order to improve the weakness arise from the schedule Planned-Preventive Maintenance (PPM), the predictive maintenance system will be real time performance based in which the performance of the LED Infant Intensive Phototherapy Lamp will be monitored. The purpose of this monitoring system is to ensure that the light intensity, which is measured in irradiance level, can be delivered in sufficient amount for the baby with jaundice. In order to monitor the performances of LED infant intensive phototherapy lamp, a cloud based webpage has been implemented for real time monitoring of LED infant intensive phototherapy lamp which can be accessed by authorized personals.
  • Publication
    Influence of pretreated coconut shell on gasification product yield
    Gasification of untreated and pretreated coconut shell (CS) was carried out in a fixed-bed reactor to assess the effect of temperature (600, 650, 700, 750, and 800 C) and holding time (30 and 40 min) on gases composition. The untreated CS was first torrefied in a fixed-bed reactor at different temperatures (200 â 300 C) and holding times (30 min, 60 min and 90 min). Pretreated CS at the optimal torrefaction temperature (275 C and 60 min) was used for gasification. Under optimal conditions of 750 C and 30 min holding time, gasification contributed the most gas production. At this optimum condition, the gas composition of pretreated CS was 35.03 % of CH4, 24.43 % of CO2, and 40.54 % of H2 + CO. Untreated CS contains 37.63 % of CH4, 24.03 % of CO2, and 38.34 % of H2 + CO gases. The production of CH4 gas was higher when untreated CS was used for gasification rather than pretreated CS. Moreover, when untreated CS was used for gasification, the amount of CO2, H2, and CO produced was minimal. Therefore, for high H2 production, pretreatment prior to gasification is appropriate.
  • Publication
    Potential of pretreated palm kernel shell on pyrolysis
    The impact of pretreatment on palm kernel shell (PKS) with torrefaction for the possibility of pyrolysis is discussed in this study. PKS samples were torrefied at different holding times of 30 and 60 minutes at temperatures of 200, 225, 250, 275, and 300 °C. In a fixed-bed reactor with a constant nitrogen flow rate of 500 ml/min, torrefaction pretreatment was carried out. The elemental composition, mass, and energy yield, as well as proximate analysis, were all performed on the pretreated PKS. The optimised pretreated PKS was pyrolyzed next at a temperature of 400 to 550 °C in a fixed-bed reactor. The outcomes demonstrated that the pretreated PKS had a significant mass and energy yield at a temperature of 250 °C and a holding time of 30 min. PKS's calorific value and carbon content both rose after pretreatment. However, the oxygen and moisture content decreased for pretreated PKS. The maximum bio-oil production of 58% was achieved during the pyrolysis of pretreated PKS at a temperature of 500 °C. At higher temperature of 550 ℃, the bio-oil decreased due to secondary cracking reaction. Consequently, the pretreated PKS has greater potential as effective feedstock for successive proses particularly pyrolysis for bio-oil production.
  • Publication
    Identification of habitual smokers through speech signal
    Smoking is an addictive behavior and can result major health complications. Nowadays, many young adults tend to pick up this unhealthy habits which could potentially harm their health and affects the future workforce of the nation. Most of the habitual smokers have difficulties in ceasing this habit and require external assistance in the form of group therapy, medical interventions to quit smoking. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to investigate the speech signals of the subjects in an effort to identify the habitual smokers non-invasively. Through this detection, young smokers could be identified. Voice samples from VOice ICar fEDerico II from PhysioNet database were used for this study. Wavelet Packet Transform was used to extract non-linear features from the signals. Due to uneven data, ADASYN algorithm was used to produce a balanced dataset through synthetic data sampling. Subspace KNN and SVM classifiers were used for the investigations and classification accuracies up to 83.7% and 94% of AUC curve were observed from the analysis. The results suggests that the proposed method is effective in detecting habitual smokers, and can be considered as an early screening for smoking habits in young adults for targeted rehabilitation strategies.
  • Publication
    Preservation of Natural Resources by Utilizing Combustion Ash In Concrete and Determination of Its Engineering Properties
    ( 2023-01-01) ; ; ; ;
    Rahim M.A.
    ;
    Zailani W.W.A.
    ;
    Laslo L.
    ;
    Muhamad N.
    Due to the large amount of combustion ash being thrown into landfills, which can lead to environmental pollution, new alternatives to construction materials can be developed by utilising this combustion ash as a part of the main raw materials, while at the same time helping to preserve natural resources in the concrete manufacturing industry. Generally, using new waste materials will eventually affect the engineering properties of concrete. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to analyse the engineering properties of concrete containing combustion ash as a partial replacement for ordinary Portland cement (OPC). CA can be classified as combustion bottom ash (CBA) and combustion fly ash (CFA). CA is tested for its chemical compositions using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), and its four main compositions, which are silica, alumina, iron, and calcium, are examined and discussed extensively. Other testing for the property of CA includes Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM) and specific gravity testing for coarse aggregate. To produce sustainable concrete from waste, several tests have been conducted to determine the engineering properties of the concrete, such as compressive strength, flexural strength, and splitting tensile strength. Results show that CA, which consists mainly of silica dioxide, contributed to the strength of concrete. SEM images show that CBA has a porous structure with an angular and rough texture, whereas CFA has more rounded particles, which influence the overall compressive strength. Furthermore, it was discovered that as the proportion of CBA utilised increased, the compressive strength, flexural strength, and splitting tensile strength of the concrete improved. Based on the results of the testing, CBA is suggested for use as a supplementary cementitious material in concrete.
  • Publication
    Comparing the Physical Properties of Coal Bottom Ash (CBA) Waste and Natural Aggregate
    ( 2022-01-01) ;
    Mohamed Reyad Alhadi Ahmad
    ;
    ; ; ;
    Samsudin S.
    Coal bottom ash (CBA) is a co-combustion product material, which may cause hazards to human health and the environment. Rapid growth in technology causes the increase of CBA waste and this situation led to a waste disposal crisis. Reuse waste material as an alternative material instead of natural materials can led to sustainable and environmentally friendly construction. The main objective of this study is to determine the physical properties of CBA and its suitability to be used as replacement material in civil construction. The physical properties test conducted in this research were aggregate impact value test, aggregate crushed value test, flakiness and elongation test. The results show that the ability of CBA to resist sudden shock and repeated load was lesser than natural aggregate (NA). The differences of aggregate impact value (AIV) and aggregate crushing value (ACV), between NA and CBA were 50.4% and 48.9%, respectively. In addition, CBA has higher amount of flaky and elongated particles compared to NA. The flakiness index value for NA and CBA were 7.12% and 26.10%, respectively while the difference value of elongation index between NA and CBA was 37%. However, even though the properties of CBA were not as good as NA, the results for ACV and the flakiness index of CBA meet the minimum requirement of Jabatan Kerja Raya (JKR) Standard Specification which indicates that CBA has potential to be used in civil construction.
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