Sarawak Peat Characteristics and Heat Treatment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33736/jcest.139.2014Abstract
Peat layer is extensively scattered over the land of Malaysia. In Sarawak alone, peatland represents 13 percent (about 1.66 million hectares) of Sarawak’s total land area. They are present, mostly in low-lying areas; with in some areas, peat exceeding 10 m in depth. During past few decades, the demands on development of land were expanded into the swamp and deep peat areas which cannot be avoided. Thus proper management and construction practices should be emphasized, in order to overcome consequential occurrence of ground subsidence problems. The objectives of this study are to determine the characteristics of Sarawak peat, their empirical correlations as well as the effect of heat treatment on peat. The samples were taken from Matang, Batu Kawa, and Kota Samarahan sites, in Sarawak. The characteristic tests consist of degree of humidification, loss on ignition, Atterberg limit, particle density, moisture content and pH value. The results recorded high moisture content and organic content of Sarawak peat. It is also being categorized under the hemic group with pH values ranging from 3 to 4. The heat treatments with temperatures ranging from 100°C to 400°C were used on the peat samples. Samples collected were undergoing heat treatment and changes to its physical characteristic were compared with the original Sarawak peat. It was found that the heat treatments do influence the physical properties of Sarawak peat and have shown significant reduction in the compression index determined through the empirical correlations.
References
Melling, L., Ryusuke, H. and Mitsuru, O. (2002). Sustainable agriculture development on tropical peatland. 17th WCSS, 14-21 August, Thailand.
Mutallib, A.A., Lim J.S., Wong M.H. And Koonvai, L. (1991). Characterisation, distribution and utilisation of Peat in Malaysia. Proceedings of the International Symposium of Tropical Peatland. 6-10 May 1991. Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.
Singh H and Bujang B. K. Huat (2003), "Tropical peat and its geotechnics", 2nd International Conference on Advances in Soft Soil Engineering and Technology, 2 - 4 July 2003, Putrajaya, Malaysia.
Tai, L.Y., Lee, K.W., and Ting, W.H. (2003), "Some interesting aspects of peat formations in Sibu Town and related engineering issues.", 2nd International Conference on Advances in Soft Soil Engineering and Technology, 2 - 4 July 2003, Putrajaya, Malaysia.
Bujang B.K.Huat and Bahia, H.M. (editors) (1997). Proceedings of International Conference on Recent Advances in Soft Soil Engineering. pp.510.
Huat, B.K., Asadi, A. and Kazemian, S. (2009). Experimental investigation on geomechanical properties of tropical organic soils and peat. American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 2(1); pp. 184-188.
https://doi.org/10.3844/ajeas.2009.184.188
Edil T.B. and Fox, P.J. (1994), "Field demonstration of thermal precompression", Settlement 94, Special Conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Geotechnical Engineering Division, College Station, TX, Vol.2, pp.1274-1286.
Fox P.J. (1992), "An analysis of one-dimensional creep behavior of peat", Ph.D Thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, 245p.
Edil T. B. (2003), "Recent advances in geotechnical characterization and construction over peats and organic soils", 2nd International Conference on Advances in Soft Soil Engineering and Technology, 2 - 4 July 2003, Putrajaya, Malaysia.
British Standard 1377: Part 2 (1990). Classification Tests. Soils for Civil Engineering Purposes.
Skempton A. W., And Petley D. J (1970) "Ignition loss and other properties of peat and clays from Avonmouth", King's and Lynn & Cranberry Moss, Geotechnique, Vol.4, pp. 343-356.
https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.1970.20.4.343
Hobbs N. B (1986). "Morphology and the properties and behaviour of some British and foreign peats", Quarterly J. of Engineering Geology, London 19: pp. 7-80.
https://doi.org/10.1144/GSL.QJEG.1986.019.01.02
Al-Raziqi A. A., Bujang B. K. Huat & Munzir H. A (2003), "Shear strength parameter of some organic soil", 2nd International Conference on Advances in Soft Soil Engineering and Technology, 2 - 4 July 2003, Putrajaya, Malaysia.
Ranjan, G and Rao, A.S.R. (2005). "Basic and applied soil mechanics", 2nd ed. New Age International (P) Limited, Publishers, New Delhi, India.
Skempton, A. W. (1944). Notes on the compressibility of clays. Q. J. Geol. Soc. London, 100(1-4), pp. 119-135.
https://doi.org/10.1144/GSL.JGS.1944.100.01-04.08
Terzaghi, K. and Peck, R. B. (1967). Soil mechanics in engineering practice. John Wiley, London.
Wroth, C. P. and Wood, D. M. (1978)."The correlation of index properties with Some Basic Engineering Properties of Soils." Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 15, pp. 137-145.
https://doi.org/10.1139/t78-014
Bowles J.W. (1979) Physical and geotechnical properties of soils, McGraw Hill, New York.
Sridharan A., Nagaraj H. B., 2003, Coefficient of consolidation and its correlation with index properties of remolded soils. Geotechnical Testing Journal, Vol. 27, No. 5 Paper ID GTJ10784. Available online at: www.astm.org.
https://doi.org/10.1520/GTJ10784
Tiwari, B. T. and Ajmera, B. (2012). New correlation equations for compression index of remoulded clays. J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 138(6), pp. 757-762.
https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GT.1943-5606.0000639
Hong, Z. and Onitsuka, K. (1998). A method of correcting yield stress and compression index of Ariake clays for sample disturbance. Soils and Foundations. Vol. 38. No. 2. pp. 211-222.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
During the manuscript submission process, the corresponding author, on behalf of all authors, will be asked to agree to the terms of the Open Access Publishing Agreement by checking the designated agreement box (see Copyright & Licensing for more information).
Open Access Publishing Agreement
1) By agreeing to these terms, the author(s) retain full copyright and grant UNIMAS Publisher the right of first publication. The author(s) also grant UNIMAS Publisher permission to reproduce, recreate, translate, extract, or summarize, and to distribute and display in any forms, formats, and media. The author(s) can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from UNIMAS Publisher, provided that the author(s) acknowledge and refer to the publication in the Journal.
2) The author(s) agree that their articles published under UNIMAS Publisher are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work of the author(s) is properly cited.
3) The author(s) are responsible for ensuring their submitted work is original and does not infringe any existing copyright, trademark, patent, statutory right, or proprietary right of others. The corresponding author has obtained permission from all co-authors prior to submission to the journal. Upon submission of the manuscript, the author(s) agree that no similar work has been or will be submitted or published elsewhere in any language. If the submitted manuscript includes materials from others, the authors have obtained permission from the copyright owners.
4) By agreeing to this statement, the author(s) declare that the research which they have conducted complies with the current laws of the respective country and UNIMAS Journal Publication Ethics Policy. Any experimentation or research involving humans or the use of animal samples must obtain approval from the Human or Animal Ethics Committee in their respective institutions. The author(s) agree and understand that UNIMAS Publisher is not responsible for any compensational claims or failure caused by the author(s) in fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements. The author(s) must accept the responsibility for releasing their materials upon request by the Chief Editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
5) The author(s) should have participated sufficiently in the work and ensured the appropriateness of the content of the article. The author(s) should also agree that they have no commercial attachments (e.g., patent or license arrangement, equity interest, consultancies, etc.) that might pose any conflict of interest with the submitted manuscript. The author(s) also agree to make any relevant materials and data available upon request by the editor(s) or UNIMAS Publisher.
