Construction of Buildings on Peat: Case Studies and Lessons Learned

Abstract

Abstract. Building construction on soft soils including on peat has many challenges and difficulties. The failed and deteriorated buildings have a big impact on the community. The IConCEES International Workshop 2015 which was conducted on October 2015 convened as a joint venture between Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) and the University College of Technology Sarawak (UCTS). The aim was to invite regional experts from academia and the industry to formally present and discuss the various construction problems encountered when working with peat. The discussions were divided into two divisions; infrastructure and building construction. This paper discusses the outcomes of the workshop and focuses on the factors and relevant challenges when constructing buildings on peat. The experts have discussed regulatory and construction issues including: drainage issues, site investigation practices, monitoring and construction guidelines. A few suggestions were outlined as a remedy to these problems and to better assist the peat practitioner at work.

Joint Ventures and Sustainable Development. A Bibliometric Analysis

“…Nevertheless, the main publication area is related to developing countries. We would like to highlight the absence of South America in the sources studied, whereas there exists a predominance of Asia in the publications that are related with Malaysia ( [61,110]), Vietnam and Laos) followed by Africa ( [50,51,59,69,86,89] and the Middle East ( [48,51,69]).…”

“…The second most studied area is sustainable development, which contains 23 publications. The publications can be split into tech transfer [45,96], growth [103,105,124], innovation [60,61,71,91], business strategies [83] and financing [62,99]. It is remarkable to note the number of publications related with cities' development [61,63,88,88], followed by different types of development: Subcontracting [45], financing [62], innovation [60], ownership [67] and labour [96], among others.…”

“…When JVs are public (Figure 12), scholars focus on sustainable development linked to three sectors: construction [61], energy/electric [62] and telecommunication [60]. On the contrary, if we center on inner company JVs (Figure 9), publications are related to production sustainability, paying attention to the activity sectors of mining [90], chemical/biotechnology [87] or the car industry [49].…”

Suspended Road System on Peat A Case Study in Sibu, Malaysia

“…It is brownish-black in colour and has distinctive odours [3]. The organic and moisture contents in peat are extremely high [4]; [5]. It is predominantly made up of decayed organic matter (≥65%) and mineral substances (≥35%) [6].…”

“…Peat has high compressibility (compression index, Cc = 1.045 to 1.64) and low shear strength (undrained shear strength Cu ≤ 10 kPa) [4]; [5]; [7]. The groundwater level in peat is rather high, which is normally near the ground surface [7].…”