Noor Zainab Habib

A Qualitative Investigation of Professional Driver Behavior Due to Socio-Economic, Cultural, Religious Factors and Its Impact on Dubai Road Safety

Dubai (UAE) has experienced phenomenal transformation and rapid development recently. Despite high quality roads and transportation infrastructure, improving road safety is a major challenge due to extremely diverse socio-cultural background of Dubai’s population. Smooth urban mobility is very critical to Dubai’s continued economic growth and future development. Safer roads will not only boost investment and business activity but also improve quality of life for residents and visitors. In this regard, the vision of “zero fatality by 2020” is an ambitious government initiative. This research sought to understand the behavior of professional drivers influenced by unique socio-cultural, economic and religious factors and its impact on road safety in fast growing city of Dubai. The study adopted qualitative method involving in-depth interviews with 25 professional drivers of various backgrounds using thematic analysis. The findings show positive correlation between socio-cultural, economic factors and aberrant driver behavior but religious fatalism needs further research.

Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Vege Roofing Tiles: An Innovative Bio-Composite

This paper presents a research study conducted on the usage of vegetable oil for the production of eco-friendly Vege roofing tiles. Conventional roofing tiles which constitute of concrete and clay are considered as environmentally unfriendly because of the significant amount of greenhouse gas emission during their production. An entirely novel methodology of utilizing catalyzed vegetable oil is proposed which can totally replace the use of traditional binders like cement and clay. Limited trails conducted on prototypes samples revealed that when catalyzed vegetable oil mixed with aggregates, properly compacted and heat cured at 190oC for 24 hours, have shown flexural strength up to 9.5 MPa. The superior strength gain of these prototype samples was considered due to the use of the catalyst with vegetable oil, which resulted in the initiation of catalytic oxy-polymerization set of reactions during heat curing, converting vegetable oil to solid, hard polymer which is considered responsible for strength achievement factor for these novel Vege roofing tiles. All prototypes samples were tested for performance indicators like water absorption, permeability, and flexural strength according to ASTM standards. Moreover, the susceptibility of oil leachate from the tiles oil, when tested using electrical conductivity method showed a negligible amount of the electrical conductivity. Moreover, the estimated embodied energy requirements for these tiles were found quite less when compared to conventional tiles.

Utilization of ethyl cellulose polymer and waste materials for roofing tile production

The aim of this study was to utilize ethyl cellulose, mixture of waste engine oil and waste vegetable oil as a binder in the environmental friendly roofing tile production. The waste engine-vegetable oil wasmix together with ethyl cellulose, fly ash, coarse aggregates, fine aggregatesand a catalyst. The Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) analysis showed that the oil mixture added with ethyl cellulose has the relatively high binding effect due to the presence of strong carbonyl group especially after being heat cured at 1900C for 24 hours. The mixed proportion of materials with different amount of ethyl cellulose used was studied in the production of tile specimen. The results showed that the ethyl cellulose composed roofing tile specimens passed the transverse breaking strength, durability, permeabilityand the ultraviolet accelerated test. The shrinkage on the tile can be overcome by adding temperature resistance polymer on the exterior of the tile.

Compatibility of Plastomeric Modified Bituminous Blends: Its Effect on the Performance Behavior of Modified Bituminous Mixture

This paper present a part of research study conducted to investigate the effect of compatibility of polymer bitumen blend on the performance behavior of the well graded bituminous concrete mixture. Bituminous mixture was prepared by using 80/100 Pen bitumen for control mix, while polyethylene modified mixture was prepared by blending linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) with 80/100 Pen bitumen. The concentration of polymer in the blend was kept at 1, 2 and 3 % by weight of bitumen content. The compatibility of polymer bitumen blend as revealed by morphological analysis using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) shows that as the concentration of polymer in bitumen increases the formation of polymer network was observed. It was found that at higher polymer concentration formation of polymer bitumen network considered responsible for improved performance which was also confirmed by dynamic creep results of the modified bituminous samples.

Effect of Polymer Dispersion on the Rheology and Morphology of Polymer Modified Bituminous Blend

Increase in axle wheel load and traffic volume has led to the use of polymer modified bitumen (PMB) on roads as it offers better rutting, thermal and fatigue performances. In this paper the viscosity function of PMB obtained at 135°C was studied in the context of polymer dispersion in the bitumen blend. Polypropylene (PP) was used as the modifier for 80/100 pen bitumen. The morphological analysis using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic force Microscopy (AFM) and Field Emission Electron Microscopy (FESEM) were presented. It was found that although the polymer resin was not fully digested by the virgin bitumen, there was evidence of a significant alteration of the Newtonian behavior of virgin bitumen to non-Newtonian behavior by the addition of the polymer.Presence of thixotropic behavior in the blend can be considered benefical in recovery of stress related deformation. SEM examination of PP resin revealed that partial breakage of the periphery of the resin was sufficient to enhance the viscosity of the PMB significantly. AFM phase images revealed that up to 2% polymer concentration in bitumen significantly enhances the viscoelastic property of the final PMB blend.The phase separated layer in PMB blend with sufficient stiffnesss and viscoelastic property of PP also acts as stress relaxant surface. Thus the PMB benefited by the incorporation of the polymer as it induces phase separated layer in the blend that can potentialy offer better fatigue and cracking properties to the resulting mix.