Author Biography: Dr. Mohammad Abdul Mannan was born at a simple family of a small village, Aktarpur, Rangiarpota, Jibonnagar, Chuadanga, Bangladesh. He has obtained B.Sc. (Civil Engineering) degree with first class, MSc in Civil Engineering and PhD in Concrete technology. He has started carrier as lecturer at BIT Rajshahi (now RUET), Bangladesh followed by AJP consulting firm, then Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and is now a Professor of Department of Civil Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia. He is the inventor of few construction products. Based on 30 years of experience in teaching, professional practice and research, his vision is to be excellence in research on Innovative Construction Material and Structure. Book Description: Due to a high demand in construction and furniture industries worldwide, natural resources such as stones and wood as non-renewable resources are being depleted. Thus, researchers are focusing on renewable resources as alternative materials. As such, the utilisation of abundant solid wastes and byproducts, which are discharged from agriculture, industry and municipalities present an alternative to the conventional materials for the construction and furniture industries. These solid wastes and byproducts, when properly processed have shown to be effective and can readily meet design specifications. Agricultural solid wastes from oil palm distributors such as Oil Palm Shell (OPS) and Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB), which are abundant in agro-based countries, present an interesting alternative to the conventional aggregate in lightweight concrete and artificial plank production, respectively. At present, palm oil producing countries are Barkina Faso, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Colombia, Costa Rica, C�te d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Uganda, Venezuela and others. In Malaysia, oil palm plantations cover over 5 million hectares, and annual production of OPS as solid waste from 450 oil palm mills is more than 6 million tons. This large amount of OPS as a renewable green aggregate can contribute to overcoming the over dependence on depletable resources for concrete production. The civil engineering projects are of a larger scale; they need sustainable materials in order to gain a greater momentum of growth. The major technical characteristics of OPS solid waste must be primarily understood before each particular use. Therefore, there is a need to highlight the importance of OPS to be used in the construction industry.

This book is a direct companion to Sittig's Handbook of Toxic and Hazardous Chemicals and Carcinogens in that the hazardous chemicals listed in Sittig's Handbook are the source for this guide. With more than 7,500 entries highlighting chemical producers worldwide, this international directory is a source of complete contact information for manufacturers, agencies, organizations, and useful sources of information regarding hazardous chemicals.

Lightweight aggregate concrete is undergoing something of a renaissance. Although this material has been available for many years, only now is it being used more widely. This book provides a comprehensive review of this growing field from an international perspective.

Part 1 – Recommended extensions to Model Code 90 Starting in 1995 as a Joint CEB/FIP Working Group on Lightweight Aggregate Concrete (LWAC), the group was after the merger of CEB and FIP attached to the new fib Commission 8 Concrete. As a background for an extension of the CEB/FIP Model Code 1990 (MC 90) it delivered firstly Bulletin 4. Similarly to what has been done before in the field of High Strength / High Performance Concrete the present guide identifies the lacunae in the existing MC90 and proposes supplementary or alternative solutions to be applied for lightweight aggregate concretes. In order to facilitate its use the report is edited in two columns following the numbering of the CEB-FIP Model Code 1990. The group has given preference to topics of practical importance for LWAC structures, and for which reliable information is available. Justifications of the proposed extensions are to be found in the references to each section. Part 2 – Identification of research needs The technical report identifies the research needs resulting from those clauses of MC 90 which need amendment, and for which more basic research should provide a better understanding of mechanical, physical and chemical processes. Part 3 – Application of lightweight aggregate concrete The state-of-art report documents 33 application examples of projects world-wide. Twenty-eight two-page and five one-page presentations aim to explain the motivation for adopting this technology and report on the design considerations and codes applied, the practical experience during design and construction, the results obtained and the infield performance; for each example references list the literature where more detailed information can be found.