Precast C-Channel using Oil Palm Shell (OPS) Concrete as Sustainable Floor Panels

Abstract

The need to provide affordable housing to ever-growing population nowadays has been continuously in great demand. In Malaysia, there have been frequent emphasises and allocations to provide sufficient housing from the Malaysian Plan to another. The more housing to be provided, the more concrete as one of the main building materials is inevitably to be used directly causing serious depletion of non-renewable natural stones in the concrete production. Tapping on the oil palm industry which has grown in a rapid pace over the past 20 years, using the oil palm shell (OPS) as one of the by-products for construction industry is a sustainable approach. Malaysia being one of the largest oil palm producers in the world generates more than 4 million tonnes of OPS annually, from which about 1.5 million tonnes come from Sabah. The OPS is used as aggregate in concrete production forming OPS concrete which is lightweight and its engineering properties fulfil the requirement as a lightweight concrete. In a typical building made with concrete, floor slab being the largest element compared to other structural members consumes up to 44% of concrete volume. Due to the low elasticity of OPS concrete, conventional crushed granite was added to OPS concrete mix, as 30% replacement to OPS, to produce concrete known as OPS hybrid concrete to fabricate structural floor panels. This paper discusses the performance of precast concrete floor panel namely C-Channel made with oil palm shell (OPS) concrete with regards to construction tolerances, stacking, and erecting. The result of the water leaking tests revealed that C-Channel floor panels can act monolithically under load application.