Speakers

Assoc. Prof. MOHAMMADREZA VAFAEI

School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Personal introduction

Dr. Mohammadreza Vafaei is currently an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). He received his Bachelor and Master’s degree from Iran in 2000 and 2004, respectively, and obtained his PhD from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia in 2013. He is a member of American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) and Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI, USA). As a professional engineer that has served several consultant companies, he has led seismic design of many structures including tall residential and office buildings, airport terminals, air traffic control towers, lattice telecommunication towers, bridges, water reservoirs and monumental structures. During past years, Dr. Vafaei has served as the scientific committee of many international conferences and has been the member of editorial boards of scientific journals like The Open Civil Engineering Journal. He has been selected as the keynote speaker for several international conferences and has been invited as the speaker for many national seminars and workshops. Dr. Vafaei has more than 45 peer-reviewed publications in the referred journals and conferences.  

Title: Seismic Evaluation and Design Challenges of Air Traffic Control (ATC) Towers

Abstract: Air Traffic Control (ATC) towers play an essential role in airports' functionality during and soon after strong earthquakes. Therefore, their seismic design and performance are of great importance for structural engineers. However, there is limited information in the literature regarding their seismic performance and design. At first, this presentation provides a review of seismic-induced damage to some ATC towers during past earthquakes. Then, seismic fragility curves of three in-service ATC towers designed and constructed based on an old version of a seismic code will be presented and discussed. Besides, a comparison will be made between their response modification and over-strength factors. This presentation also illustrates the shear force distribution along the height and between the ATC towers' concrete core walls. Finally, the presentation will end with some suggestions for more research on the seismic design of ATC towers.

Assoc. Prof. Felix Ling Ngee Leh

Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

Personal introduction

Dr Felix Ling started his career as a tutor at Kolej Universiti Teknologi Tun Hussein Onn (KUiTTHO), after graduating with First Class Honours from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia in 2001. Later in 2003, he was appointed as Lecturer in KUiTTHO after obtaining his master degree in civil engineering with majoring in Geotechnics. In 2010, he was promoted as Senior Lecturer in Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM). He served the university for more than 10 years before pursuing his PhD degree and subsequently obtained his PhD degree in Civil Engineering in the year 2016. He is currently serving as Associate Professor in UTHM. He is also actively involved in research and was appointed as a senior researcher of the Research Center of Soft Soil (RECESS) since 2013 and associate researcher of ICOE-REL since 2018. His research interests are soil characterization, organic soil stabilization and numerical modelling of geotechnics. He is also actively involved in the engineering community and served as secretary of the Graduate & Student Section of IEM Southern Branch in the year of 2008-2009. He is currently a Professional Technologist (Ts.) of the Malaysian Board of Technologist (MBOT).

Title: Peat Soil and Organic Soil Study at UTHM

Abstract: Malaysia is reported as the ninth largest peat soil land in the world. The largest peat soil deposit in Malaysia is in the state of Sarawak, East Malaysia. Whereas the largest peat soil deposit of peninsular Malaysia is found in Johor, the southern state of peninsular Malaysia. Pontian, Muar and Batu Pahat (home of Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia) are some of the districts that rich in peat soil. Hence, it is significantly in need of UTHM to focus on the study of peat soil and organic soil as part of the social responsibility to the community. Peat soil is defined as the soil with high organic content that will significantly influence the soil properties. Peat soil is categorized as problematic soil as the soil is low in shear strength, and experience excessive settlement over a long period after loaded. Besides that, the presence of organic matter in the peat soil also has the potential to disrupt the soil stabilization process that normally used to strengthen the soil. Thus, the studies of peat soil and organic soil at UTHM are focused on the investigation of its physical, chemical, microstructural characteristics, the potential use of different stabilization materials in strengthen it and also the use of artificial organic soil. Artificial organic soil is used to control the inconsistency of test result which may obtain due to the complexity of soil characteristic of natural organic soils. The research works are not only limited in laboratory scale, some pilot-scale field studies were also carried out at few test sites around UTHM. All the research works on peat soil and organic soil study are facilitated by Research Center for Soft Soils (one of the excellent centre of UTHM) and some other research collaborators such as Public Works of Malaysia (JKR), University College of Technology Sarawak (UCTS) etc.