Onn Malaysia

Fusion of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Fingerprint in Boarding School Monitoring System (BoSs)

This chapter discussed the implementation of RFID integrated with biometric sensor to improved Boarding School’s (BS) management of student’s and facilities. BS may offer a variety of extracurricular activities where conducive learning environment with good facilities such as computer room, gymnasium and entertainment room contribute to good way of mind relaxing and boost up brains development. Currently, most BS managements are having difficulties to monitor their students using the old-fashioned paper-based system; where the procedures are inefficient in monitoring the student’s whereabouts. The application of RFID Metric Card system as a Boarding School Monitoring System is to improve the school management procedure, automatically monitor the interest group movements and increase their safety. By using RFID technology, it is easier and faster to detect students handling at that time and reduce assets losses. In this system the fingerprint recognition is also adopted to enable the process of identifying of BS student more reliable and secure for facilities management. Through enhancing security in BS access and facilities control, it help the school management to provide visibility of assets and effective users tracking.This research work offers an important implication for monitoring the BS assets and eases the workload of the school management and save time for various student activities. In order to analyze and design the system, this application use student’s metric card embedded with RFID tag for tracking their whereabouts and fingerprint registered to the access the facilities room. When the metric card passes through the RFID reader, it will trigger the system to read the data from the RFID tag to the database where the access data can be viewed online by BS management for monitoring purposes. For the facilities room access,RFID will be detected when someone with an RFID tag passes through the RFID reader and verify by matching fingerprint image. Upon verification with database is success, the system will enable the room to be access. Thus, the management people may know the students location and also view log record of room entry via internet. This will ease the management in monitoring the availability of boarding school, easy access to BS facilities and reduce unattended assets loses.

SCREW-IN SOIL NAIL FOR SLOPE REINFORCEMENT AGAINST SLIP FAILURE: A LAB-BASED MODEL STUDY

Slope failures occur when the shear resistance along the slip plane is exceeded. This can be caused by excessive load imposed at the slope crest or compromised stability of the slope, e.g. disturbed dimensions of the slope. In order to prevent slope failure, stabilisation or reinforcement measures need to be taken. A common solution is to intercept the slope failure plane with reinforcement elements, such as soil nails and ground anchors. In soil nailing, reinforcement bars are installed on the slope to effectively resist the additional shear forces from the imposed loads, hence reducing the probability of failure in the long run. This paper describes the innovation of soil nail with screw-in installation mechanism instead of the conventional push-in approach. The screw-in installation ensures better soil-nail grip and less disturbance during the slope stabilisation procedure, especially in terms of noise and spoils. In addition, the novel nail has a hollow stem which improves shear resistance with greater soil-nail surface contact on the inner wall. The opening at the nail head also enables displaced air to escape as the nail is screwed into the slope and soil pushed into the inner hollow cavity. The prototype nails were tested in a slope model with different configurations, and were found to reduce the Angular Distortion Ratio by 37 % and the Volumetric Deformation Index as much as 33 % respectively. The novel screw-in soil nail could be potentially used to stabilize natural and man-made slopes, though full-scale simulations are recommended to formulate the installation procedure and to validate the effectiveness.

SHEAR RESISTANCE IMPROVEMENT OF OIL-CONTAMINATED BALLAST LAYER WITH RUBBER SHRED INCLUSIONS

Railway ballast, which form an integral part of rail tracks, is highly susceptible to subsistence due to both vibration transmitted by the passing trains, as well as the breakage of ballasts with repeated impact. The resulting subsistence necessitates regular monitoring and maintenance, involving cost- and time- consuming remedial actions, such as stone-blowing and ballast renewal. Measures to minimize the wear and tear effect are therefore desirable to prolong the lifespan of the ballast layer. It is even more critical when the ballast is contaminated with oil and grease from braking wheels and leakages. This paper describes the inclusion of rubber shreds (≤10 mm in length, 1.5 mm thick) derived from the inner tubes of motorcycle tyres in oil-contaminated ballast layer for shear resistance improvement. The tests are mainly carried out in a standard direct shear test setup, i.e. shear box measuring 60 mm x 60 mm. Granitic stones of suitable sizes were sieved and used as representative samples of typical ballast. The samples were soaked in lubricant oil for 14 days to simulate the contamination. The direct shear test results indicated rubber shreds inclusion could effectively improve the shear resistance of ballast and expedient in deformation control with increased ductility of the composites. This could potentially improve absorption of impact, hence reduction of breakages of the ballasts. Clearly both mechanisms contribute to the overall reduced subsistence, accompanied by an increase in the shear resistance. However, further investigations in a dynamic test setup are necessary for verifications prior to field implementation.