Polyurethane (PU) foam is a lightweight material that can be used efficiently as a ground improvement method in solving excessive and differential settlement of soil foundation mainly for infrastructures such as road, highway and parking spaces. The ground improvement method is done by excavation and removal of soft soil at shallow depth and replacement with lightweight PU foam slab. This study is done to simulate the model of marine clay soil integrated with polyurethane foam using finite element method (FEM) PLAXIS 2D for prediction of settlement behavior and uplift effect due to polyurethane foam mitigation method. Model of soft clay foundation stabilized with PU foam slab with variation in thickness and overburden loads were analyzed. Results from FEM exhibited the same trend as the results of the analytical method whereby PU foam has successfully reduced the amount of settlement significantly. With the increase in PU foam thickness, the settlement is reduced, nonetheless the uplift pressure starts to increase beyond the line of effective thickness. PU foam design chart has been produced for practical application in order to adopt the effective thickness of PU foam within tolerable settlement value and uplift pressure with respect to different overburden loads for ground improvement works.

Due to the spread of the COVID-19, many universities throughout the world are experiencing partial or complete disruptions to their academic programmes. As a result, more and more institutions are making the essential changes to their instruction in teaching and learning processes, including laboratory classes from face to face into a hybrid or online delivery format. Regardless of the actions done, lecturers must keep up their rigorous academic standards and offer a top-notch student as necessary for delivering the learning outcomes linked to courses especially laboratory courses that normally being conducted face to face in the laboratory or workshop to online or open distance learning (ODL). This transformation will present a challenge to academicians across the higher education sector, forcing them to switch from normal class delivery to online instruction and various laboratory delivery strategies. Students as a result will not receiving direct instruction from lecturers, and they have limited or no access at all to laboratory resources that necessary for delivering the learning outcomes linked to each programme courses. This paper reviews approaches taken by Faculty of Civil Engineering, UiTM and lecturers to deliver teaching and laboratory practices remotely, in consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic. This review is primarily focused on implementation on teaching delivery and laboratory assessments given to Civil Engineering Diploma Students in Soil Engineering Laboratory Course during COVID outbreaks. The findings of this study may be used to improve online engineering education during and after pandemics in other institutions or courses with a similar demographic.

No abstract

An industrial talk program that includes participation and cooperation from the industry has been introduced in an endeavor to produce professional and competent engineers. The Diploma in Civil Engineering Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) student program has recommended the implementation of industrial talks and site visits. One of the course codes that has been designed with industry involvement is Geology (ECG253). The programme outcomes (PO7) component related to sustainability and the environment is the major focus of this course's industrial talk. In order to validate the suggested event has achieved the targeted POs, a survey was conducted to the student who attended this industrial talk. The purpose of the survey is to study the effectiveness of the industrial talk towards the advancement of knowledge of the students related to the exposure of the industry. A total number of 180 students took the survey, and a qualitative analysis was done. The outcome of this study showed that 97 percent of the student participated in the survey agreed that the industrial talk give a positive impact to the student development. It can be said that the implementation of the industrial talk to the students give a good impact to their lifelong learning experiences and nurture them on the preparation of work environment.

The buoyancy of lightweight polyurethane (PU) foam as a ground improvement is of important aspect to be investigated to ensure the stability of the founded structure. Constant Rate Strain test (CRS) was carried out to evaluate the buoyancy behavior of PU foam in water and to determine the effect of different water content of the marine clay to the settlement and uplift in short term undrained condition. The percentage thickness of PU foam to soft clay layer and water varies from 10% to 80%. The buoyant force of PU foam to immerse at the water surface depends on the thickness of PU foam that displaces the water. On top of that, water content in the soil has a crucial effect on the buoyancy of PU foam. For PU foam partial replacement on water, the downward displacement is very less compared to the settlement for PU foam partial replacement on marine clay soil due to higher buoyant force produced in the earlier condition. However, the settlement for improved condition of marine clay reduces significantly compared to the condition of existing condition. In addition, the reduction in soil weight as part of the soil is replaced with lightweight PU foam assist to reduce the overburden load imposed on the soil. Therefore, settlement reduces significantly with the increase in PU foam thickness. The verification of the buoyancy test results was done using finite element model PLAXIS 2D.