M.s. Liew

• PhD
• Deputy Vice Chancellor - Research and Innovation at Universiti Teknologi Petronas

This study develops a model for Total Quality Management (TQM) in Malaysian Industrialized Building System (IBS) projects, examining the impact of critical success factors (CSFs) on TQM application. Within the scope of a survey carried out among construction experts, 371 valid answers were processed, which is regarded as adequate for performing Str...

The construction sector is increasingly shifting towards sustainable and efficient methodologies, with the industrialized building system (IBS) playing a pivotal role in this transformation. Despite this, the adoption of total quality management (TQM) in IBS projects faces significant challenges, including a lack of comprehensive understanding of T...

This paper review addresses the decommissioning legislations, guidelines, and practices within Southeast Asia countries, specifically Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Brunei, along with a comparison of their decommissioning practices. Presently, these countries have no regional regulations specific to decommissioning, relying instead on...

The latest innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) have substantially affected development in numerous industries. The construction industry’s growth is significantly hampered by a variety of complicated difficulties, including cost and schedule overruns, safety and health, production, and lack of labour. Furthermore, the construction sector is...

Due to the increase in extensive disasters worldwide, stakeholders usually initiate reconstruction plans to control the effects of these disasters on the community and the environment; nevertheless, some difficulties would occur during the implementation of reconstruction projects based on capacity and resources. Post-disaster reconstruction (PDR)...

Industry 4.0 is one of the top trending topics among academics and practitioners all over the globe. The term Industry 4.0 denotes a set of technologies that facilitate the growth of the development of construction, leading to shorter production delivery times, higher production quality, and greater organizational performance. In latest years, ther...

Industrialized Building System (IBS) is a construction system in which components are factory-made in a measured atmosphere (on or off-site), placed, conveyed, and collected on site with minimal additional site activities, according to the Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia (CIDB). The application of IBS in construction projects could...

An Autonomous Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) System for Fixed Offshore Structures is a tool used to monitor the state or the health of a structure in terms of its integrity and strength in an automated manner. An SHM system framework comprises of software and hardware integration equipped with IoT capability to collect raw data, online data tra...

In Malaysia, over 400 oil and gas platforms are in operation. In every life cycle of a platform, it undergoes decommissioning. The most used method is by relocating the asset to an onshore fabrication facility. The alternative to onshore decommissioning is by reefing structures in-situ or ex-situ basis. to achieve the environmental assurance of a s...

In the study of structural strength, the reserve strength ratio provides a measure of the ultimate strength capacity of a structure. Under actual site conditions, the reserve strength ratio may vary from its design values with loss of stiffness and changes in structural integrity. Changes in the vibrational response of a structure due to loss of st...

Floating offshore wind turbine foundations are based on platforms operated by the oil and gas industry. However, they are designed and optimized to meet the wind turbines’ operating criteria. Although Malaysia is considered a low-wind-speed country, there are some locations facing the South China Sea that are found to be feasible for wind energy ha...

Total Quality Management (TQM) practices are well-known to encourage the performance of organizations in terms of procedures, services, and products to meet customers' expectations. TQM plays a critical role in developing products as well as other developments in the arena of construction industry organizations. This paper reviews the concept of TQ...

This research work focusing on site ground response analysis of stiff and soft soil from several sites in Peninsular Malaysia Operation based on PETRONAS offshore region classification. The main purpose is to determine how these sites will react under seismic loading in terms of peak surface acceleration, response spectra and soil amplification fac...

Renewable energy generation is given a priority in sustainable development worldwide to decrease the dependency of fossil fuel-based power generation. Wind energy is one of the fast-developing sources of clean energy in the last decades due to the speedy development of wind turbines’ capacity and the possibility of installing them at offshore sites...

This paper is aimed to investigate the engineering properties of high calcium fly ash-based one-part geopolymer concrete using different paste aggregate ratio (0.57, 0.45 and 0.35) and curing conditions (ambient curing, solar curing, and water curing). High calcium fly ash was activated with anhydrous sodium metasilicate powder at 12% of the total...

This paper reports the findings of the effect of elevated temperature on the compressive strength and durability properties of crumb rubber engineered cementitious composite (CR-ECC). The CR-ECC has been tested for its compressive strength and chemical resistance test against acid and sulphate attack. Different proportions of crumb rubber (CR) in p...

Offshore structures are susceptible to damages due to hurricane. The main subject of this research, free standing drilling riser (FSDR), is an innovation to the drilling riser that enables rapid disconnection prior to hurricane conditions. This allows the offshore drilling rig and operator to move away from hurricane path prior to hurricane landing...

The construction industry has been dealing with numerous issues in order to achieve the projects’ objectives. Hence, caused most projects to suffer low performance, particularly in terms of cost and time overrun and poor quality level. Regarding this matter, the last decade has shown a frequent failure of projects which clearly describes the need f...

The force analogy method (FAM) is considered as one of the most time-saving and cost-efficient methods for analyzing frames. Through a set of assumptions and restoring forces, FAM analyzes nonlinear frames responses through Hooke’s law. This study evaluates the effect of element type on FAM through numerical and experimental tests. The conventional...

Twenty-seven large-scale beams with dapped-end have been prepared, cast and tested to failure in the three points loading arrangement. One control beam has been designed in accordance with requirement of standard code while the dapped-end reinforcement scheme of other beams has been derived from the control beam. In selected beams, engineered cemen...

Due to its low carbon footprint and the capacity to be used for in situ applications, cast in-situ geopolymers are recognized as a feasible substitute of Portland cement. One of the limiting factors of using geopolymer in concrete sectors is dealing with viscous and dangerous alkaline alternatives, making it hard to adopt for mass concrete manufact...

In this present experimental study, geopolymer cement is developed using high calcium fly ash and used in the production of one-part alkali-activated binders. At 8–16 percent of the total precursor materials, the HCFA was activated with anhydrous sodium metasilicate powder and cured in ambient condition. Five mixtures of one-part geopolymer paste w...

Purpose – Roller compacted concrete (RCC) pavement is used in areas subjected to heavy impact loads; therefore, higher impact resistance is a desirable property of consideration. This study aims to investigate the effect of partial replacement of fine aggregate with crumb rubber (CR) and the addition of nanosilica (NS) by weight of cementitious mat...

The eminence of climate change and global warming has received considerable international awareness in recent decades. Construction industry sector consumes a substantial amount of natural resources and leads to the emissions of million tonnes of carbon into the environment. Consequently, Malaysia is one of the countries with the highest level of c...

The Malaysian construction industry contributes as an empowerment to the Malaysian economic sector. Even though, the building and construction industry are the key sector for country development, but still they are among the biggest threat to the environment in form of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. The problem of massive emission of carbon dio...

This study investigated the effect of a hybrid of crumb rubber and nano silica on the durability performance (Porosity and Permeability) and skid resistance of high volume fly ash (HVFA) roller compacted concrete (RCC) pavement. The HVFA RCC pavement was developed with 50% cement by volume replaced using fly ash. Crumb rubber was used to partially...

In this article, strength development high calcium fly ash geopolymer mortar cured at ambient temperature was investigated. The outcome of HCFA fly ash geopolymer mortars on the flow ability and strength improvement of geopolymer mortars were predicted by an established statistical models using response surface methodology (RSM). The ambient cured...

Adding granulated crumb rubber from recycled scrap tires in concrete as a partial replacement to fine aggregate in the creation of Rubbercrete has given numerous advantages to not only the environment, but also as its usage of the concrete itself. Numerous properties of Rubbercrete are enhanced compared to conventional concrete when crumb rubber is...

The conventional technique of masonry bricks production has caused severe environmental pollution due to the massive emissions of greenhouse gases which lead to several climate changes such as haze, fog, air pollution, acid rain and global warming. On the other hand, the main ingredient of concrete masonry blocks is cement which consider as environ...

Delays and cost overruns are obviously common problems in the construction industry in several developed and developing nations. The purpose of this study is to identify factors cause delays and cost overruns in the construction of palm oil refinery projects in Malaysia. A questionnaire survey of a randomly selected sample was filled by 89 responde...

Displacements, velocities and accelerations of Six Degree of freedom of a single floating structure was predicted using Time Series NARX feedback neural Networks. The nonlinear autoregressive network with exogenous inputs (NARX) is a recurrent dynamic network, with feedback connections enclosing several layers of the network is based on the linear...

The future of construction industry development is the approach of the component-industrialization, the construction-breakdown, design-identical, construction-assembled, operation-data technique to maximize the life cycle value. This paper presents a general idea of Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0 with the introduction descriptions of important aspe...

In this study, response surface methodology (RSM) was used to evaluate the effect of partial replacement of fine aggregate with crumb rubber and the addition of nano silica by weight of cementitious materials on the durability performance of HVFA RCC pavement. The experiments were designed and analysis executed using the face centered central c...

Conventional bricks are made off from clay with high firing temperature or from cement concrete, but these consume and emit high energy and have environment shortcoming like carbon footprint and raw materials depletion. Researchers have utilized various types of waste materials in the production of bricks to protect the environment and contribute t...

Severe vibrations such as earthquakes threaten to demolish or cause damage to built structures during their lifetime. Mitigation of such damage can be done by using control devices such as actuators. In this paper, an algorithm is proposed to analyze the nonlinear behavior of a portal frame supported by an actuator. The results were compared with t...

Construction projects are delivered in a multidisciplinary environment, which need continues coordination. The aim of this paper is to develop an ANN model to evaluate the influence of coordination factors on construction projects performance. For this purpose, the most effective 16 coordination factors impacting the construction projects performan...

Optimization using the response surface methodology (RSM) for the modulus of elasticity utilizing crumb rubber in partial replacement with the sand along with the incorporation of hybrid fibers such as PVA and tirewire in engineered cementitious composites (ECC). The crumb rubber in ECC ensured the homogeneous dispersion of fibers and also restrict...

Optimization using the response surface methodology (RSM) for the pull-out strength utilizing partial replacement of crumb rubber with the sand along with the incorporation of hybrid fibers such as PVA (Polyvinyl alcohol) and tirewire in engineered cementitious composites (ECC). The crumb rubber in ECC produced the lower pullout strength however en...

Global warming mitigation is used as a requisite key to promote approaches and sustainable policies in developing countries that aim to minimize the level of carbon emission in built environment. In the past few years, energy demand has grown enormously in Malaysia. CO2 emission from energy consumption, mainly from electricity is a stark condemnati...

Roller compacted concrete (RCC) pavement is used mostly for heavy duty vehicle operations such as log sorting yards, intermodal yards for containers, parking areas for military vehicles and trucks and automobiles, and aircraft parking ramps. Therefore, it is subjected to long-term loading which can cause permanent deformation. Therefore in this stu...

Scrap tires consider the current major discarded waste which results in major environmental issues. At the same time, utilization of earth based materials such as clay, sand (soil), and cement in the production of masonry units brought about resource depletion and environmental degradation. Rubberized interlocking bricks was produced by incorporati...

This study deals with the development of an environmentally sustainable roller-compacted concrete (RCC) using high-volume fly ash (HVFA) and crumb rubber as partial replacement for cement and fine aggregate respectively, and nano-silica as an additive to cementitious materials. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to design, develop statisti...

The paradigm change in web structure has turned the world of information systems and data sharing to be a huge and diverse storage. As many oil and gas companies vie for attention due to the downturn, more data management is needed. Therefore, oil and gas industries are hungry to share their information for competitive advantage. The challenge is t...

Interlocking mortarless masonry has numerous benefits over the conventional masonry due to its ease of construction and higher compressive strength by virtue of absence of mortar joints. Dry contacting surfaces between the blocks play a major role on the performance of dry stack masonry. In this paper, Dry joint surface characteristics and close-up...

Amount of vibration received in any location can be analysed by conducting ground response analysis. Even though there are three different methods available in this analysis, One Dimensional ground response analysis method has been widely used. Shear wave velocity is one of the key parameters in this analysis. A lot of correlations have been formul...

Fire accidents are common in oil and gas industry. The application of passive fire protection (PFP) is a costly solution. The PFP is applied only on critical structural members to optimise project cost. In some cases, beams cannot be protected from the top flange in order to accommodate for the placement of pipe supports and grating. It is importan...

Roller compacted concrete (RCC) pavement usage is limited to low-speed roads due to its low skid resistance, caused by the smooth surface texture that makes it unsuitable for use in high-speed traffic pavements. If used in high-speed roadways will lead to increased skid related accidents. In this study, crumb rubber was used as partially replaced w...

A Free Standing Drilling Riser (FSDR) is a modification to drilling risers that enables rapid disconnection in an event of a typhoon. Air cans were installed to keep the drilling riser standing upright at its original location whilst the drilling rig sails away to safety. This mechanism can be used during a typhoon event as pulling back the whole r...

Malaysia has always been considered as a non-earthquake zone. For offshore Malaysia, the only guidance document on earthquake is ISO 19901-2 which put Malaysia as a Zone 0. However, this perception changes after the big earthquake in Acheh, Indonesia (2004), and recently in Sabah, Malaysia (2015). To ensure the safety of its offshore facilities, PE...

All structures built within known seismically active regions are typically designed to endure earthquake forces. Despite advances in earthquake resistant structures, it can be inferred from hindsight that no structure is entirely immune to damage from earthquakes. Active vibration control systems, unlike the traditional methods which enlarge beams...

The major problems related to roller compacted concrete (RCC) pavement are high rigidity, lower tensile strength which causes a tendency of cracking due to thermal or plastic shrinkage, flexural and fatigue loads. Furthermore, RCC pavement does not support the use of dowel bars or reinforcement due to the way it is placed and compacted, these also...

Waste tires contribute badly to the environment on a huge scale as they are bulky, non-biodegradable, and prone to fire and being a shelter for mosquitos and other insects. This paper reports on a novel approach towards the development of rubberized brick by utilizing crumb rubber as the sole fine aggregate in the production of geopolymer interlock...

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of inclusion nano-silica (also known as nano-SiO2) on the properties of pervious concrete containing fly ash (FA) as a partial replacement to cement. It has been found, for cementitious paste, that incorporating NS leads to reduce the cumulative pore volume by 13.4%. While the compressive strength of...

Roller compacted concrete (RCC) pavement is subjected to continues traffic loading from vehicular activities which can results to fatigue cracking. Fatigue is one of the commonest defects affecting pavement which affect the cost of maintenance, and shortens pavement design life. To carter for these factors, higher deformation resistant pavements wi...

Conventional riser protectors, also known as riser-guards, are installed on fixed offshore platforms to protect risers from vessel impact. These space frame structures made of hollow mild steel tubular sections are mainly designed using the approach of boat fenders which may result in over- or under-protection provided to risers. Lack of in-depth s...

Offshore and onshore structures continuously experience hydrocarbon fire accidents almost every year. To secured structure against extreme fire conditions, passive fire protection (PFP) is applied. However, PFP is a costly material which is applied only on critical structural members. Any unprotected surface can cause major structural damages durin...

This study seeks to measure the temperature difference of 3 types of interlocking bricks and 2 types of conventional bricks, all which are available in Malaysian market. The study aims to assist Malaysia’s residential construction dilemma in masonry. This is done by constructing 5 models using different types of bricks with the same dimensions, fin...

This paper presents the reviews of studies with regards to the development of Green Building Index- Residential New Construction (GBI-RNC). GBI-RNC is considered since the development of Residential Construction is expected to increase every year since Malaysia is considered as a developing country. The Carbon Emission of Residential Construction i...

In this study, the seismic performance of a 2D portal frame subjected to the recorded seismic ground motions of the Northridge 1994 earthquake was evaluated by the force analogy method (FAM) with different element types. To increase the accuracy of FAM, Timoshenko (TS) elements were employed instead of the classical Euler Bernoulli (EB) elements, t...

The accomplishment of construction projects is extremely dependent on the integration of several stakeholders; therefore none of them has the control or the ability to accomplish the project alone. Each of them may influence and be influenced by the project management approach. There is no comprehensive theoretical platform for defining Communicati...

Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) composite sheets has been universally used in the construction industry for the last twenty years as a common technique for strengthening, rehabilitation and retrofitting purpose of the RC structures. Five RC beams with different layers of CFRP sheets were prepared and put under four-point load. The aims of th...

While the prediction of spatial distribution of potential landslide occurrences is a primary interest in landslide hazard mitigation, it remains a challenging task. To overcome the scarceness of complete, sufficiently detailed geomorphological attributes and environmental conditions, various machine-learning techniques are increasingly applied to e...

This paper describes the development of a multi-layer feed forward artificial neural network (ANN) to predict rigid heave body motions of a large catenary moored barge subjected to multi-directional irregular waves. The barge is idealized as a rigid plate of finite draft with planar dimensions 160m (length) and 100m (width) which is held on station...

There has been numerous seismic hazard studies so far that includes Malaysian territories. However, there is a need to assess how reliable those studies are. Two main potential contributors to error have been identified: 1) seismic hazard analysis method 2) ground motion prediction equation (GMPE). The amount of variation in predicting erroneous GM...

Extensive research effort has been conducted on the shear strengthening of reinforced concrete (RC) beams with externally bonded FRP systems. However, there are still few aspects on their behaviour that are yet to be fully understood. One of them is the effect of shear interaction between internal transverse shear reinforcement and the external FRP...

Seaquake is a phenomenon where there are water disturbance at the sea, caused by earthquake or submarine eruption. The scope of this study focuses on tsunami simulation due to Manila Trench and Sulu Trench seaquake which is prone to harm Malaysia offshore areas. Manila Trench is a highly potential earthquake source that can generate tsunami in Sout...

Fire is always a greater threat to offshore platform due to the presence of hydrocarbon gases. The temperature of hydrocarbon fire can exceed 1000 °C in less than 10 minutes which cause severe damages to the structure. The average body can get 3rd degree burn immediately as exposed to 72 °C. Past accidents like Piper Alpha and Deep-water Horizon an...

Awareness on far-field seismic effect in Malaysia is increasing; however most of the studies are focusing on the onshore areas. There are still lacks of information on the seismic effect in South East Asia (SEA) offshore where a lot of fixed platforms have been installed. Fixed jacket platforms in Malaysian water have been designed without provisio...

Global warming occurs due to the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere which can occur due to energy consumption from several industries. Although, the building and construction industry are the key sector for sustainable development, but it considered as one of the biggest threat to the environment by producing harmful emissio...

Abstract Background/Objectives: Offshore oil and gas platforms are aging in Asian Pacific Region and requiring a transparent decommissioning framework to address the major environmental impacts and cost pertaining the removal of offshore structures. This paper endeavors to establish a benchmark model to update platform decommissioning cost for four...

Over the past 20 years, commercial polymers have been utilized in oil and gas industries as drag reducing agent (DRA) to minimize the pressure drop and improve the injectivity in water flooding systems. Several studies have been carried out to find an alternative for commercial polymers as drag reducing agents (DRAs) from natural and biodegradable...

Offshore platforms are never 100% secure from fire hazard despite of using advanced technology. Hydrocarbon fire and explosion accidents are among commonly reported incidents in the oil and gas process-related activities. In April, 2015, PEMEX-operated oil platform caught fire—45 injured and four died. Accidents such as Piper Alpha have recorded gr...

The decommissioning process is constantly challenged with indeterminate risks associated with deteriorated structures and the practice of late-life decommissioning planning. The issue is further complicated by the absence of a fit-for-purpose decision framework. This work develops a knowledge based advisory expert system to address the late-life st...

The 'Kuala Lumpur Waterfront' may be unfamiliar to many. Kuala Lumpur is a city that originates at the confluence of two rivers, the Klang and Gombak Rivers. The waterfront used to be very busy with activities when it was once a trading post for the export of tin. This was once the lifeline of the city - its main mode of transportation. The activit...

The aquaculture sector has established itself as a major global source of fish protein. This paper presents a review on the challenges of marine aquaculture and a systematic framework to tackle the issue of robust infrastructure development for open seas. The case is built around the Malaysian context but may be aptly applied to any other regions w...

This work details the simulation of tsunami waves generated by seaquakes in the Manila Trench and their effect on fixed oil and gas jacket platforms in waters offshore North Borneo. For this study, a four-leg living quarter jacket platform located in a water depth of 63m is modelled in SACS v5.3. Malaysia has traditionally been perceived to be safe...

Many aging jacket platforms are being pushed for continued use beyond their design life due to advancement in oil extracting technology and economic reasons. Thus reassessment to determine the platform safety is vital. But no exact guide on methods to assess the safety of the aging platforms is available. Hence, development of reliability analysis...

Construction projects performance requires improvement to fulfil the complexity of the stakeholders’ needs and expectations. Coordination process is proposed as an efficient solution for weak performance of construction projects. Therefore, coordination factors are vital in ensuring a successful implementation of all project phases. This study aime...

Onsite mechanization in construction is characterized by the application of plant, equipment and machineries for carrying out complex construction activities. Although these mechanized equipment are considered essential for achieving high productivity, efficiency and quality of work. But nevertheless, they also impose serious threats to ecological...

Identification of transfer functions from surge motion response of a semisubmersible platform from model test data is presented in this paper. The identification is carried out by estimating the time-varying model coefficients of a time-varying NARX (TVNARX) model. The coefficients are estimated using proposed method, named artificial bee colony-ba...

Construction industry is recognized as high fragmentation, low efficiency, cost and time overruns in contrast with other industries. These peculiarities are the main roots of poor performance facing by the industry. Effective coordination is vital in construction projects success and mitigate the fragmentation dilemma, however it is often difficult...