No abstract

River Sand is one of the basic ingredients used in the production of concrete. Consequently, continuous consumption of sand in construction industry contributes significantly to depletion of natural resources. To achieve more sustainable construction materials, this paper reports the use of iron ore tailings (IOT) as replacement for river sand in concrete production. IOT is a waste product generated from the production of iron ore and disposed to land fill without any economic value. Concrete mixtures containing different amount of IOT were designed for grade C30 with water to cement ratio of 0.60. The percentage ratios of the river sand replacements by IOT were 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. Concrete microstructure test namely, XRD and Field Emission Scanned Electron Microscopic/Energy dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (FESEM/EDX) were conducted for control and IOT concretes in order to determine the interaction and performance of the concrete containing IOT. Test results indicated that the slump values of 130 mm and 80 to 110 mm were recorded for the control and IOT concretes respectively. The concrete sample of 50% IOT recorded the highest compressive strength of 37.7 MPa at 28 days, and the highest flexural strength of 5.5 MPa compared to 4.7 MPa for reference concrete. The texture of the IOT is rough and angular which was able to improve the strength of the concrete.

No abstract

Quality of Life (QOL) issues have increasingly been the area of attention in cities of newly developing countries including Malaysia. To improve QOL for people of absolute poverty in Malaysia, the Malaysian government have carried out a program known as Agropolitan in the East Coast Economic Region. The three Agropolitan project locations selected for this study are Batu 8 Lepar and Runchang in Pekan, Pahang and Gua Musang in Kelantan. This study carried out a field survey on 254 samples to investigate their experiences throughout the project. This study found that Agropolitan project had remarkably improved the QOL of participants.

No abstract