SOKET 'SENGET'

This photo show how poor our supervision team. Again it was workers that decide the outcome of product and this is what happened. What made me mad with my supervisor was he still accept this shoddy work and still think it was right to do so. The socket arrangement show that they not event border to use any tools to make the arrangement of socket nice and neat.

senget = tilt ( in malay language )

earth cutting

Cutting of earth or hills are one of important element in construction of highway or in above photo, railway track.
Earth or suitable material use to fill at excavated area which above ground water level and building of embankment.
Proper filling of earth or suitable materials called controlled filling which mean thickness of fill specified and compaction to be done using certain weight of machine such as roller with vibration. Density test to be carried out every thickness of filling. Normally filling height recomended are 300mm and roller must be with vibration.
Cutting of hills will involved cut of top soil, earth or rock.
As i involved in photo above, top soil are more than 100mm thick. when we carried out test for earth materials, it didnt pass to be suitable material for filling and we had to dump somewhere and it was costly for contractors as rate are normally very low.
For rock or hard materials, we had to arrange rock blaster to remove it for embankment. Process fro blasting more tedious since it involve dynamite which are controlled item which we need special permit to get it. Blater also must be a qualified with authorities.

And lastly dont forget to carry out surface drain silmutanously when cutting operation been carried out.

poor bridge

                             

Today i saw this old photo during my involvement in maintaining of roads and it was the first time i was on the newspaper.

The existing old bridge was partly damage during flood and been consider no longer safe to use by public. With the  initiative of state head of public works dept,  we bring state works exco to visit site which we are constructing new approach for Bailey bridge and   hope to get assistance for funding for permanent bridge in future. At that time we almost finish removal of unsuitable material and doing sand replacement.
Few weeks later the temporary Baily bridge was completed and been open to use until permanent bridge available.

To my surprised today five years later , there are no news regarding the permanent bridge and nobody have any idea when it will be constructed and that temporary still serving the traffic. Looks like it will be there for long time.

What a shame !!!!

differential settlement

Last weekend when sending my sons to Nilai and Bangi, i choose to use toll highway which entrance and exit at Teluk Panglima Garang / Banting.

The differential settlement at some spot of this highway getting very bad as our Jazz car hit the gound many times when i didnt slow down. It was bad riding surface at certain area compare to other toll highway in the country. Few years ago i saw major repair near bridge area but looks like it was a continous problems for them.
For me, its too late to repair until satisfactory. They can only minimize settlemet by overlaying or topping premix regulary.

Only contractor and consultant know what happened during design and construction.

Few question always come to my mind when i travel using this highway.
1. What kind of design for ground treatment been used in this marine clay area.
2. Did geotechnical designer have enough site experiance when they proposed the design?
    Of course they have licenced to design as permit by laws but results not encouraging so far
3. Did contractor follow recomendation made by geotechnical designer? or bulldozing all the way
4. Did contractor have good site engineer with geotechnical knowledge?
5. Did the settlement monitoring being done accurately?

Finaly did highway open in rush due to financial reason? based on my experiance, i dont think so.

Meanwhile, user had to swallow when using this highway and becarefull at few location.

dynamic compaction

Dynamic compaction

with Menard Geosystems bos, mr Michel

In this kerteh railway project i had opportunity to experiance this ground treatment. it was the only project i came across of this kind of treatment and understand how it had been done to improve soil conditions.

however i feel that this kind of treatment  not suitable to majority condition in malaysia except area which have sand especially near coastal area.

Anyhow i gained valuabe experiance from my specialist contractor head there, a frenchmen mr michel.

Below some write-up  on dynamic compaction taken from internet.

Dynamic compaction is a method that is used to increase the density of the soil when certain subsurface constraints make other methods inappropriate. It is a method that is used to increase the density of soil deposits. The process involves of dropping a heavy weight repeatedly on the ground at regularly spaced intervals. The weight and the height determine the amount of compaction that would occur. The weight that is used, depends on the degree of compaction desired and is between 8 tonne to 36 tonne. The height varies from 1m to 30m.

The impact of the free fall creates stress waves that help in the densification of the soil. These stress waves can penetrate up to 10m. In cohesionless soils, these waves create liquefaction that is followed by the compaction of the soil, and in cohesive soils, they create an increased amount of pore water pressure that is followed by the compaction of the soil. Pore water pressure is the pressure of water that is trapped within the particles of rocks and soils.

The degree of compaction depends on the weight of the hammer, the height from which the hammer is dropped, and the spacing of the locations at which the hammer is dropped. The initial weight dropping has the most impact, and penetrates up to a greater depth. The following drops, if spaced closer to one another, compact the shallower layers and the process is completed by compacting the soil at the surface.

Most soil types can be improved with dynamic compaction. Old fills and granular soils are most often treated. The soils that are below the water table have to be treated carefully to permit emission of the excess pore water pressure that is created when the weight is dropped onto the surface.

survey

Photo taken at Cameron Highland during survey camp.

It was compulsory for civil and structural to graduate from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia egineering course.
I miss the camp together with my batch due to personal reason and had to complete it with our juniors.

Later when i start working at highway PLUS project i realise how important was the survey for engineers like me. It not only about levels. Its about the entire highway network, bridges and culverts positions.
During study and early working time, the equipments for surveying are manual and we had to master many things before we get setting out and levels compare to nowdays which more advance.

landslide at roadway

few years ago photo that i just kept for self reminding on what will happened if we didint do construction properly.

this kind of landslide at roadway happened during rainy season for few reasons.

1. no or not enough size of culvert across the road
2. embankmenk of road was not properly compacted during construction of road.
    not properly means during earthfilling, the builders didint use latest technique of filling such as
    controlled filling layer by layer 300mm thich with checking of compaction every layer.
3. road was constructed in hurry. limited time to complete or rushing for certain event.
4. no slope protection. minimum had to be closed turfing.
5. no side drain at both side of premix to control run off water.
6. soft gound underneath didint been treated properly.
    embankment straight away build of existing ground after site clearing.

But doing first time right will save a lot of money, energy  and time later.

This is Not renovation works

First look at this photo like you see a renovation works but actual fact is was a new building.

why its become like this?

First it happened because client not consistance on what they want after they approved all the design and their needs.
Second when they come to meeting every month, they never really looks and monitor what had contractor done at site. They just come to meeting, round site and have free lunch.

What they comments actually can be accomodate if its had been highlight earlier eventhought it was contracdict to contract that had been bind earlier. And contractor can easly plan during construction to avoid any hacking works to newly completed building.

Sad story is mentality client always right been implemented here.

ground treatment with surcharge

Back to my last poject with my second company in Kerteh.

I arrive at this project at early stage when site clearing and part of railway track start doing ground treatment works.

Many ground treatment design for this project since the track running at many soft gound area.

This photo was taken near site which w are doing ground treatment works. There also an electrical pylon which yet to relocate. Excavator still removing top soil while front part we already lay geotextile and sand blanket.

This location is at section after Kerteh river  near road to kerteh airport.
The treatment was just to remove top soft layer and laying geotextile separator. After sandfilling completed, earthfill  was carried out until surcharge level and leave for six month for settlement monitoring.
Base on settlement reading, geotechnical engineer will decide weather to continue surcharge time or surcharge can be remove.

Talk about geotechnical, here i had to deal with expert from India Dr Karibasapa. Since there are so many discrepencies between design and site condition, we had  proposed for trial pit to recomfirm design or decide depth or changing of treatment type specified. it was very troublesome since the stretch are about 30 kilometre and some not accessibly by jeep or car. we had to depend on excavator track to be at actual site.
I learn a lot about geotech here but not many photos taken. At that time handphone with camera was not available compare like today.

why i am here

This photo was taken during my travel to terengganu few years ago. We stop at small town near oil industry area, Paka.

Amazingly this red pili for fire brigade was in the middle of acess and  parking area with yellow marking. That was very poor coordination of design, construction and compliance to authority.

How is it end-up like this? Its trully puzzle me as construction man and looks like now been accepted by everybody or people already tired to complaint.

Just for guessing, it might be after parking widening done, owner of the red pili didnt come to relocate. Relocation was not on original plan or contract.

Next question, how come designer left this in the middle of acess road without relocate it? Its impossible they didint notice before work start.

Looks like it will be like this forever.

Sadly that's happened in Malaysia and nobody bother.

where is your measurement tape?

This is also my favourite photo on what sometimes can happened at site especially when our engineer or supervisor dont use their brain to think.

We first seen this photo at meeting with our client  and it appear during their presentation. Eventhough they didnt mentioned from where and which concession  company but i can recognize from shirt that the guy wear.
My bos and i got mad with again our head of state Negeri Sembilan for his brainless staff. Poor Hj Razak got screw for nothing.

Listen from their explaination later was more sickfull.

According to them during visit from client at site to check defects of roads, they want to measure deppression of undulating section of pavement near the shoulder. Since nobody bring together measurement tape, one of client ask our supervisor to get small piece of tree branch to put like photo above. Nobody thought that it will be big issue later.
people who see this picture will interprate many things like why dont bring tape? why supervisor dont bring together measurement tape? how the measure any distance etc.
A lot of question mark on the supervisor or site engineer at site.

Worst part for me are why must  follow stupid instruction?

Illegal workers

This event finally happened after i had been more than twenty years  in construction industry.

i never been caught in any case involved foreign workers before but here because only one women from indonesia come to malaysia with visit visa to meet her husband and quietly working with one of my sub contractor.  my team also lack of monitoring at site and resulted that i almost sleep in jail.

this rushing by imegresen trigger when one of our vietnam workers go out and do part time repair house in town and have fight with local people and he' visa not fully completed.

i had bad time to explain to officer which take more that six hours.

Case was resolve later but i still got warning letter from department for let them work and protect at site.

road marking

i never expect a mistake from simple road marking work.
neither i came across of mistake like this during my twenty years of woking.

i dont know how to describe how poor my supervisor or engineer when i see this during one of my site visit. The only thing come to my mind are quickly take photo for evidence and immediately bombard our head of state of  maintainance team and get them to immediately repair before our client notice.

this is an example how poor or no proper supervision will lead to bad outcome of work. i am very sure that our supervisor here didint event bother to monitor the work. he just tell our workers to carry out the work without given correct instruction and the workers that had no brain just draw the line without thinking to match the line with the existing one.

i dont want to listen to my team explaination on this case i as i told they are lucky not to be sack by me.