Browsing by Author "Kiberu, Faisal"

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    An assessment of the impact of construction activities on the environment in Uganda : a case Study of Iganga Municipality
    (Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management., 2012-11-15) Muhwezi, Lawrence; Kiberu, Faisal; Kyakula, Michael; Batambuze, Alex O.
    Construction while being an economic activity that provides facilities and infrastructure, it is beneficial to man in some aspects and detrimental in others. There have been environmental concerns related to construction activities globally which mainly focus on atmospheric emissions, depletion of natural resources and energy issues. This study was carried out to assess the impacts of construction activities on the environment in Iganga Municipality and to propose measures for their mitigation. The methodology included: review of relevant literature, observations of the general environmental effects of construction activities, focus groups and a survey conducted among construction industry role players to determine their perceptions and opinions regarding environmental impact of construction activities. The collected data was presented in tabular form and analysed by description of responses to questions. The study revealed that forests were the most greatly degraded due to high demand of timber for construction followed by wetlands degradation. The findings of this study will be useful to architects, designers and builders in order to carefully design buildings and other infrastructure that are environmentally friendly and sustainable. Construction materials and their mode of acquisition are harmful threats to the environment. There is need to reduce the consumption of these materials through recycling and reusing wastes to reduce on waste generation, use of virgin materials and the subsequent waste of energy used in new material production.
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    Performance of burnt clay hollow block slab under seismic action in Uganda
    (Kyambogo University (unpublished work), 2018-09) Kiberu, Faisal
    A storeyed building has different structural elements each working to complement the other in resisting seismic actions. Since most of the building mass is present at floor levels, earthquake induced inertia forces primarily develop at the floor levels due to ground vibrations from which they travel horizontally through the slabs and beams to columns and wa11s, and then to the foundations where they are dispersed to the ground. Ninety five percent (95%) of storeyed buildings in Kampala the capital city of Uganda have their slabs constructed with burnt clay ho11ow block reinforced concrete slabs. Slabs containing hollow blocks are constructed with the hollow side of blocks end to end running in one direction, with a rib between rows of blocks in which steel reinforcement is laid. This constrains the slab to act as one-way spanning. For a structure subjected to seismic loading, the requirement for a diaphragm is that the slab should have equal strength in both horizontal directions. This is because horizontal seismic action is described by two orthogonal components considered as independent and represented by the same response spectrum. According to EN 1998, (Euro Code 8), one of the guiding principles governing conceptual design against seismic hazard is the bi-directional resistance and stiffness at storey level. Seismic load is applied to the slab as a compressive load in the plane of the slab. This study determined the load capacity of hollow blocks parallel and perpendicular to the boles in the plane of the slab. Hollow block slabs measuring 750 x 800mm were produced. These were cured for 28days and loaded parallel and perpendicular to the direction of hollow blocks and ribs. Also, the hollow blocks were loaded parallel and perpendicular to the direction of holes. It was found that the load capacity of burnt clay hollow blocks when loaded parallel to holes varied from I 03.35kN - l 23.93kN giving a compressive stress of 2.3 /mm2 - 2.8N/mm2 , whereas the load capacity, perpendicular to the direction of holes ranged from 45.6kN - 47.4kN giving a compressive strength of I .ON/mm2 - l.05N/rnm2• For the slab, the failure load varied from 3 I 5kN - 375kN when loaded parallel to the rib, giving a stress of l .97N/mm2 - 2.34N/mm2 and the failure stress perpendicular to ribs varied from l.04N/nun2 - l.2N/mm2.