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Four reinforced concrete rooms are used in this study, with varying floor areas, openings, and fuel loads. These rooms are office, Classroom, computer, and chemical laboratories of institutional buildings. The time versus Eurocode (EC) parametric fire relationship is determined and compared with ISO 834 and ASTM 119. The performance of the slab is evaluated based on the EC target reliability index of 3.8 for 50 years design period using the First Order Reliability Method (FORM). The probability of failure and structural reliability of each fire compartment at different fire duration is determined. Variables used were concrete compressive strength, a reduction factor of concrete compressive strength, steel yield strength, concrete cover, slab depth, unit width, and area of steel reinforcement provided. The reliability is determined at each 30 minutes fire duration for all fire compartments. The starting point is ambient temperature, then after every thirty minutes until the time when the maximum gas temperature is reached. The fire compartments were able to show fire resistance for two hours and then started to drop over time. Yield strength reduction factor, concrete cover, and area of reinforcement respectively were the most significant variables to determine the reliability index. The structure was able to withhold fire until two hours with a reliability of more than 3.8after that, the slab reliability was less than the target reliability and will need a repair.

Floods are one of the most damaging natural disasters which occur frequently in the world. They occur every year in Malaysia due to higher precipitation rates, river meandering, and heavily populated suburban areas. Monsoon rains are the major cause of floods and occur two times per year. The heavy floods in the Kelantan River Basin have shown an increasing trend in recent years. Terrain characteristics of the land and meteorological properties of the region are the main natural factors for this disaster. In this study, the Kuala Krai district of the Kelantan River is selected to be reviewed as the case study for flood risk analysis. Geographical Information System (GIS) integrated with Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) can be used to evaluate the potential flood risk areas. Historically flooded areas can be extracted from the satellite images to determine flood causing factors for the analysis. At the end of the study, a map of flood risk areas can be generated and validated to assist decisionmakers on the menace posed by the disaster. The expected results obtained from the study will help the guidance city planners and administrators to choose safe sites for construction and development. This study will also help to provide flood mitigation and quick relief response for the red zone areas which are more likely to hit badly from flood hazards. The study will help the Malaysian government to reduce natural flood risks in Malaysia which are one of the top causes of damage.

Models required in a large eddy simulation of natural river flows which are influenced by the complex bed geometry and the vegetation are proposed. First the model and the calculation method have been applied to a laboratory flow in a curved channel with artificial vegetation. The effects of vegetation on the secondary flow are confirmed to be reproduced correctly. The method is then used to simulate the flow around a real meandering river with vegetation along the banks and on the bars. The results appear reasonable and important characteristics around the bends such as varying flow velocity and the bed shear are also reproduced.

Most of the residential buildings in Malaysia are not designed to withstand the seismic forces, while the high-rise buildings. However, since the Sumatra 2004 earthquake, there had been increasing concerns about the structure vulnerability in our country to earthquakes. Several recent studies had also revealed that Malaysia had the possibility to be influenced by both local and far field earthquakes. This study is conducted to analyze the vulnerability of a high rise building to local and far field earthquakes using Scia Engineer. Modal Response Spectrum method of Scia Engineer is used. The model is a 12 story hotel building from Ipoh, Perak. The designing code is the Eurocode with Malaysia Annex. Different Peak Ground Accelerations (PGA) that represents the local and far field earthquakes is acted on the model to obtain the seismic performance. The deformation of the building by the seismic combinations is compared to the ASCE-7 design to evaluate the vulnerability. Research of seismic performance of the flat slab system is also conducted along with beam frame system. The result shows that the building is in a safe condition in terms of deformation and the seismic performance of the flat slab system is advantageous.

The analysis of stresses imposed on structures by offshore environments is critical for their safety and smooth operation. Physical model testing for structural responses on offshore platforms is time-consuming and expensive. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be used to predict hydrodynamic loads induced by fluid flow around an offshore platform. In CFD, model validation and verification are performed before model testing. A two-dimensional rectangular wave tank is developed using ANSYS Fluent for the validation, verification, and fluid-structure interaction modelling. Stokes waves are generated in the wave tank. The validation and verification of the wave tank are performed by comparing the free surface elevation of simulated waves with the ideal and experimental wave. After successful model testing, a rectangular deck is introduced in the tank to determine the wave-in-deck loads. It is concluded from the study that CFD results agree well with analytical and experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was conducted to analyze the lipid compositions of barophilic bacterial strains which contained docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) as well as to investigate the adaptive changes of these compositions in response to growth pressure. In the barophilic strain 16C1, phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylglycerol (PG) were major components which had the same fatty acid chains. In PG, DHA accounted to 29.6% of the total fatty acids while in PE, DHA accounted for only 3.7% of the total fatty acids. Saturated fatty acids in PE were reduced in response to an increase in growth pressure.

The distribution of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in bacteria present in intestines of deep-sea fish and shallow-sea poikilothermic animals was examined to prove the presence of PUFAs in obligate and facultative barophiles. Fatty acid analyses reveal that all obligately and facultatively barophilic bacteria contained docossahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid in the lipids. Aside from the large amounts of PUFAs, fatty acid compositions were typical in shallow sea environments.

The intestines of deep-sea fish contain a large number of bacteria which are mainly barophilic. The size of the bacteria populational and number of culturable cells is more at in situ pressures than atmospheric pressure. The facultative and obligate barophilic bacteria play a major role in the intestinal microfloras while barotolerant bacteria have a minor role. The intestines of deep-sea fish probably supply sufficient nutrients to maintain significant bacterial growth in the deep sea.