Dura Technology Sdn. Bhd. welcomes yet again 20 international as far as Middle East and local postgraduates from the School of Civil Engineering of University Putra Malaysia (UPM) to our plant in Chemor, Perak. UPM being one of the universities in Malaysia that have a leading engineering faculty jointly organized a study trip to the one and only Ultra-High Performance ‘ductile’ Concrete (UHPdC) manufacturing plant in Malaysia.

 

Dr. Voo Yen Lei being their part time lecturer for the semester has been introducing the theories and philosophy of this new-age material to the postgraduates and with this trip, they finally see and feel the material in existent. They were astounded by the properties and the behaviors of the material of which Dr. Voo demonstrated through a series of testing, experiment, and the casting of UHPdC element.

 

The postgraduates were introduced to the plant and the facilities that are available for the research and development of UHPdC. Then they were brought to see the L-shape retaining wall, which is considered as an engineering breakthrough because of its efficient functionality despite its slenderness. A simple load test was also carried out using an excavator as dynamic surcharge load against the retaining wall. This demonstrated that even with the thin wall panel of the wall, there were no issues with the load that it can bear. They commented that this is a very innovative design and innovation as it can save time in constructions, save tremendous amount of raw material and still perform exceeding the maximum requirements of the standards. The benefits are comprehensive of what are needed in the constructions and technology point of view.

 

It was a worthy study trip for all the postgraduates as there took a lot of knowledge back and realized how far engineering can go with today’s technology.