Wata – Malaysian Oil and Gas Engineer

You’ll get a bang outa this. And from lame joke to the main message:

My technical division will be hosting a 1 day seminar on the 15th February, 2017 (Hey, if things don’t work out on the 14th…) It is worth 6.5 CPD points, and held at Wisma IEM. The course will be presented by Hj Look Keman Bin Sahari, Brig. General Mustapha bin Omar and Associate Professor Ir. Dr. Mohamed Alias bin Yusof.

Malaysia is considered a young country and rapidly developing. We see many new high rise building coming up even on small plot of land in city area. This is due to high cost of land. However, anything that goes up some day, sometimes it will have to come down. It can be due to aging, high cost of maintenance, availability of new technology, new planning by the owner or authority or whatever other reasons. It is very rare when forwarding development plan, the subject of the need for demolition later is ever considered. Bringing down a building or any structure by mechanical means for example will subject the neighbours to vibration, dust noise and numerous other dangers to them for a long time. It may even take several months. There are also incidents where demolition workers were injured and some were killed in line of duty. Demolition by using explosive may require the services of civil/structural engineer working together with the blasters and blasting engineer. The preparation may take months to study the structural plan of the building to be taken down, to survey the surrounding area and plan how to mitigate the effect of air blast, fragmentation, dust and ground vibration. Beside that the proponent will have to convince the authority that demolition by using explosive is the most practical and probably the cheapest way. Demolition by itself will only take a few minutes. Demolition by using explosives will require the blasters/blasting engineers to have the knowledge of both military and commercial explosives which in Malaysian scenario will require a person to have military background but need to learn the use of commercial explosive in service of after he leaves. Currently the only Institution that give training in the use of commercial explosive is Institute of Quarrying and endorsed by Jabatan Mineral and Geoscience. However, it is tailored to quarrying.  Therefore, there is a need to add to the current syllabus for Shotfiring to include construction blasting and demolition issues a least for a short term. This will enable them to communicate and assist the future demolition expert. Currently only those with Shotfirer Certificate are allowed to apply for Explosive Permit. Demolition by using explosive is not taught at any higher Institute of learning in Malaysia. In USA and Europe for example the subject is learned on the job. The course is design as an introduction to demolition by explosives. An introduction of explosive engineering followed by insight into both commercial and military demolition and followed by the effect of using explosives on the structure. Videos on demolition will be shown to support the lecture. The subject of human resource development for demolition engineers will also be touched. The course be particularly useful for those who are likely to be involved in demolition and thinking of the alternative to mechanical means and also the evaluators of the proposal for demolition work such as government engineers.

Hj Look Keman Bin Sahari graduated in mining engineering from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland in 1979. He joined the Mines Department initially as Geotechnical engineer specializing in Slope engineering particularly technical investigation on slope failures. He later joined the Inspectorate division of the Department until retirement in 1996. In 1990 he continued his studies at Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University, England and obtained M.Sc in Explosives Ordnance Engineering. His interest was then on the use of Shape Charge in the industry. On retirement, he worked as Consultant Engineer in the use of explosive for mining, quarrying and construction. He had also served as expert witness in control blasting in Arbitration. As a committee member of IEM Training Board, he had attended many courses particularly on Geotechnical Engineering, Health and Safety, forensic engineering and also tunneling as Auditor. He is a Professional Engineer with Practicing Certificate and a Fellow of IEM. He had also given lecture on explosives application at IEM and Institute of Quarrying, Malaysia. He is also a qualified Shotfirer.

Brig. General Mustapha bin Omar is a qualified Ammunition Technical Officer and had rose through the rank in the Malaysian Army to become Chief Ammunition Technical officer He is an expert in the application of military explosives including demolition. He also had a Diploma in Industrial Management from UKM in 1993 and subsequently Bachelor in Business Administration from UPM in 2001. In 2002-2003 he further his studies at Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University at MSc level in Explosives Ordnance Engineering. He is also knowledgeable in the use of commercial explosives and had attended a Shotfirer Course organised by Institute of Quarrying, Malaysia. He is currently a Senior Research Officer at STRIDE (Institute Penyelidekan Sains Teknologi Pertahanan.

Associate Professor Ir. Dr. Mohamed Alias bin Yusof obtained his Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering from UTM in 2002, MSc in Project Management from UITM in 2005 and Ph D in Civil Engineering in 2012 from University Pertahanan National Malaysia. He is also a Professional Engineer registered with the Board of Engineer. Dr Alias specialises in the Blast Effect on Structure. He is also knowledgeable in Commercial and Military explosives and had also attended course in Explosives Engineering at Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University He also attended Shotfirer Course and Blast Vibration, Monitoring and Control Course at Institute of Quarrying Malaysia.

Register here, or download the form here.