SOME ASPECTS OF GEOTECHNICAL CONSIDERATION IN THE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT ON EX-MINING LAND Yeow Thit Sang Executive Director Bandar Sunway Sdn Bhd Wong Boon Chong Principal Wong Boon Chong Consultant Dr Ooi Teik Aun Director ‘Transfield Construction Malaysia SUMMARY In the development of ex-mining land for housing purposes, the earthwork and * foundation system must be carefully considered in accordance with sound engineering practice with little constraint on cost.” Detailed site investigation and monitoring of ground settlement are important to provide essential data for planning and design to arrive at an economical and sound engineering solution. It is thus important that the Management of the housing development must be placed under the charge of an experienced professional engineer to ensure its successful implementation. This paper describes some aspects of the geotechnical engineering works carried out in a large scale housing development of an ex-mining land. L INTRODUCTION, Bandar Sunway is a self contained development built on an extensively mined out land of approximately 500 acres. It is bounded by Sungei Klang on the east and stretched to the border of Subang Jaya on the west. It is about 20 km from the Kuala Lumpur City, Fig. 1 shows the location of the site. The land was originally a tin mine worked over by dredging’ method. The dredgers were unable to recover the tin concentrates deposited in the crevices between the pinnacles of ‘the limestone formation. Fig. 2 shows some features of Karstic limestone bedrock. ‘The exposed limestone left behind by the open east mining led to the operation of a limestone, quarry in 1974, A large depression was created with an area of approximately 80 acres and 2 depth of 45m by the time the site was alienated to Bandar Sunway for Housing Development in 1986/1987. ‘Thus the development of this wasteland into a housing estate started during the recession time and amidst a spate of failures reported on houses built on ex-mining land. It, therefore posed a great challenge to the Developer and its Engineers in making this ambitious development a success. Table 1 shows the type of development planned for the area. a4Bb ‘Type of Development A. Residential Terrace house (2-storey 22’ X° Terrace house (2-storey 20’ X ¢ Terrace house (1-storey 20° X ¢ Medium cost apartment (960 sq Low-cost flat (600 sq. ft.) B. Industrial Terrace type (25° X 80°) ‘Terrace type (30° X 80°) Semi-detached type (65° X 150” Decached type C. Commercial Shep office: (4-storey) Shop office (2-storey) Pearl station Hovel Commercial complex (Plot ratio Office complex (Plot ratio 1:3 D. Institution College campus Primary and secondary schools E. — Weter Theme Park of Ui 1400 919 530 208 1120 nae 19.33 acres 6.24 acres 16.92 acres 14.80 acres 190 acres ‘The entire development is plan 2000.” Fig. 3 shows the layout plan of tl cast methad of mining resulted in grea distance of deposition from the Palong. after mining activities. Fig. 5 shows 2 in 1986. In order to overcome the eng development in ex-mining land, vari foundation systems were adopted. ‘This investigation is carried out in relation b ar construction from 1987 to the year ious phases of development. The open ation of soil deposit depending on the 4 shows a typical profile of the ground al view of the site before development ng problems associated with housing aethods of ground improvement and ssible only when carefully planned soil known mining history of the ground,‘The development of the ex-quarry crater into a water theme park and the surrounding area into a Town Centre requires exterisive stabilisation work on the rock face. This is because the quarrying operation caused extensive damage to the rock slope making it unstable. ‘The unfavourable jointing of the rock mass further aggravate the stability problem. Thus the investigation and detail design for rock slope stabilisation was a major task. Fig. 6 shows the plan view of the ex-quarty. In this paper only the earthwork and foundation system will be discussed in the subsequent section, 2 SOIL INVESTIGATION In view of the complexity of the site, preliminary soil investigation consisting of some forty (40) boreholes and fifty (50) Dutch Cone Deep Sounding were carried out in July 1986 to January 1987 to provide ground information for subsequent detailed planning of the work. Figs. 7 and 8 show examples of the subsucface investigation results where the presence of slime were detected below the sand layer. 3. EARTHWORK AND GROUND IMPROVEMENT The principle of earthwork for this project is to use all available material within the site including the slime. The slime within a depth of 6m is removed, spread to dry and then compacted between two sand layers. ‘The process is repeated until formation if reached. ‘The top 0.6m of the formation is filled with compacted sandy clay fill from nearby soutce, Settlement plates installed showed insignificant post construction settlement of the area treated. ‘The use of slime as fill material also avoided discharging it into the Klang river thus alleviate environmental pollution. Where the slime are fresh and in great depth, controlled containment displacement method was used to remove the slime for drying. ‘The areas were surcharged with or without vertical drains depending on the results of the soil investigation after slime extraction. : In contrast to the method of treatment of slime ponds in Kampong Pandan where the water level need to be to be maintained, the slime pond in Bandar Sunway was first pumped dried then filled with 1.5m of sand layer as working platform. Any displaced slime during the filling process was removed for drying in another area. Three sets of soil investigation were carried out at three different stages of the filling operation. ‘The results of the soil investigation were compared for design and planning purposes. Deep settlement plates were installed during the filling operation to monitor the ground settlement. ‘The location of these settlement plates are as shown in Fig. 9. The settlements recorded for the settlement plates in the pond area were large and in some area exceeding 1m. Fig. 10 shows the settlement of some of the settlement plates. The settlement was recorded for a total of 76 weeks. Surface settlement Bauges were installed to’monitor the settlement behaviour of the fill area for the purpose of delineating the area requiring ground improvement. 43Prefabricated vertical drains were installed on area where settlement is continuing and the area surcharged with Sm height of sand fill for a period of 4 months. Fig. 11 shows the settlement behaviour of the surcharged area. BUILDING FOUNDATION The foundation of each type of development is discussed separately in the following sections. 41 42 4.3 44 ‘Two storey terrace residential houses The ground condition is variable and filled to various. depths in controlled manner as described previously. Most of the type of houses are designed on raft foundation stiffened with intermediate beamis beneath party walls and partition walis so as to minimise differential settlement. The structural design of raft foundation takes into consideration the combination of dead and live loads and the variation of soil condition. It is not uncommon to have one part of structure on a compressible soil and the other part on incompressible soil. Settlement monitoring during the construction stage shows that the foundation settlement is of the range of 20mm to 33mm. resulting in a differential settlements of 13mm. The angular distortion thus calculated is about 1/460 which is less than 1/300, the limit at which architectural damage occurs, Regular field inspection of the completed and occupied houses revealed that the newly added lean-to by the owner has visible crack at the connection area. The lean-to, being on isolated footings and not designed professionally, settles more than the building proper which is on developer designed raft foundation. S-storey medium cost apartment Four blocks of five storey concrete framed medium: cost apartment are founded on square reinforced concrete piles of sizes 230mm and 275mm driven to required sets. Every pile record was studied for any irregularity or abnormality by the engineer. Beside the conventional static load test carried ‘out oni selected piles, dynamic pile testing was also conducted on piles to detect suspected pile defects. If found necessary, additional piles were installed as replacement piles. Office Complex ‘The structural frame of the high rise office building is founded on prestressed concrete spun piles of 500mm diameter. “The ground condition is generally sand over limestone bedrock. Hotel anh45 4.6 47, 48 ‘The twenty storey concrete frame building is proposed to be founded on sound. rock formation which has been flattened by former quarrying activities where limestone bedrock is overtain by sol overburden, micropile will be introduced to transfer the foundation load to rock. Sunway Technology Park Light industrial building consisting of 1% storey terrace and semi-detached factory with mezzanine floor and column-free layout are located over the mined out area containing thick layer of slime. Having considered the several ground improvement methods, prefabricated vertical band drain was used with surcharge to accelerate the consolidation of the slime. ‘The slime which consists essentially of clay-silt and sand mixture will be sufficiently stable after 90% of primary consolidation. Although the calculated surcharge required is 4m, some areas were given a 6m surcharge to shorten the consolidation period. Settlement measurements were taken at regular intervals. “The readings taken over a six month period showed settlement tapering off and coincided with the estimated settlement calculation. After the removal of surcharge, the area was compacted by one ton falling weight dropped through a height of 6m, “This is to compact the formation layer of the granular soil layer. Raft foundation was used for the heavier ‘mezzanine floor portion of the building and isolated spread foundation was adopted for the lightly loaded columns. Post construction monitoring by visual inspections of the already occupied factory showed no visible sign of any structural distress. Additions of steel or concrete floor by the owners themselves also did not show any sign of distress thus indicating the allowable bearing pressure is greater than that assumed in the design, Suaway College and Hostel The structural frames of these medium rise buildings are supported on precast square reinforced concrete piles of sizes ranging from 200mm to 400mm. Water Theme Park Apart from the stabilisation’of rock slope which is outside the scope of this paper, the Water Theme Park consisting of, among others, children’s play pool, fin pool, wave pool, and slow river are water retaining structures sitting on rock formation or on well compacted granular fill over rack. Pedestrian Suspension Bridge ‘The pedestrian suspension bridge is @ unique feature of the Water Theme Park. The suspension bridge is supported by cables which are in tension and fixed to Structural Anchorages. The Anchorages are provided by rock anchors installed into sound rock so to provide the required resistance to theaia 5.2 53 5.4 55 5.6 5.7 5.8 cable pull, Where the rock joints are closely spaced, rock dowels were used to stabilise the small scale slab and wedge of the closely jointed rock. Fig. 12 shows an isometric view of the suspension bridge. CONCLUSION Bandar Sunway is an example of multiple land use where the tin was first mined, the exposed limestone quarried for rock product and the ex-mining land carefully planned for an integrated commercial, residential, educational and recreational development. The successful development of ex-mining land requires careful soil” investigation, systematic ground settlement monitoring and suitable treatment of soil and ground improvement works. The reuse of slime by method of drying and sand sandwiching has been effective in rehabilitating the slime which can be a potential source of environmental .pollution if discharged into rivers, If left in place it is a constant sourcé of settlement problem’ when left untreated. Ground improvement method using prefabricated band drain and surcharge is effective in treating slime at great depth, For ‘medium to low rise structures, raft foundation or isolated spread foundation can be used after soil treatment/improvement. ~ Pile driving in limestone formation can give rise to problem due to Karstic nature of limestone bedcock or obstruction by boulders. Dynamic pile load test can be used to assess the possible pile damage. ‘The overall performance of building settlement is generally satisfactory thus demonstrating the successful implementation of the various geotechnical engincering method adopted for this development. ‘The importance of experienced professional engineer to control the development of ex-mining land is emphasised. AGBIS 40 NoIWOOT - Fold aragoyl AYE3O¥I ae OWT ap VANE ORIG 209 ONY SNSMOOUOSE BNOISZWM OUSUYH 40 SIRINIWAI BNOS - Z “OL! J savin | SRVHEAG: Trawns OND amPHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 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