Gleneagles Hospital, Kuala Lumpur
JTK Consult (JTK) was engaged by Gleneagles Kuala Lumpur (GKL) to conduct an external building condition audit to identify defects on the external façade caused by an adjacent building project.
The building elements were inspected at a close range and visible signs of defects and cracks were recorded on standard proformas. Photographs were also taken of the inspected areas to document the general condition of the structural elements and visible cracks. Where access was possible the width and length of cracks was also recorded.
Most of the cracks were found at the external openings where lintels would have been provided and at the interface of the columns and masonry walls. Large cracks on the façade walls were noted mainly at the carpark building. These were considered to be plaster cracks associated with thermal and moisture impacts with time and poor detailing at openings.
Some settlement of the external pavement was also noted at the NE corner of the hospital building. The settlement was caused by the bored piling works which was undertaken as part of the development of adjacent building two years earlier. Based on the visual inspection and complaints, the last movement was noted to have been around March, 2015 and thought to have been due to stabilisation movement of the ground water table leading to consolidation of the ground and the formation of potholes. The building maintenance team was advised to continue monitoring and if no further settlement was noted to proceed with remedial intervention.
Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur
Gleneagles Hospital Sdn Bhd
2016
Forensic Engineering and Remedial Solutions:
condition audit and defects survey
Datuk Ir Joseph M Rajaratnam :
Board Director
Datuk Ir Rajaratnam has over 50 years of experience in the engineering industry. He has worked in Malaysia and South Africa holding senior management positions in Jabatan Telekom Malaysia, Telekom Malaysia Berhad and Telkom South Africa respectively over the period August 1964 to June 2002. He was instrumental in establishing and developing staff training facilities and programmes for Telkom South Africa and while at Telekom Malaysia was intimately involved in developing new infrastructure facilities including buildings to house the growing Telcom business.
Since joining JTK Consult as Director, he has used his in depth understanding of the built environment garnered over several years of management and implementation of construction projects throughout Malaysia in supporting the JTK consultancy. Besides overseeing JTK projects, he also undertakes peer reviews and acts as a critique to ensure that our projects are not only delivered to the highest standards but also are appropriate for the requirements at hand and are technically sound.
Dr Kribanandan : Managing Director
Dr Kribanandan has a keen interest in design, materials technology and forensics in civil engineering. He has, over the years, built a wealth of knowledge and experience in value engineering, construction and technical risk management, concrete technology, forensic engineering, the appropriate use of NDT diagnostic tools, undertaking durability assurance audits and design life prediction for an entire spectrum of buildings and civil structures. He also often acts as an expert in dispute resolution.
Starting his career with Taylor Woodrow in the UK, he then spent three years in southern Africa working as a consultant to the Botswana Technology Centre where he focused on harnessing alternative and appropriate technologies for design and construction including considerations in Rain water harvesting, Ferro cement technology, Earth construction, and Passive solar design in projects ranging from housing and office buildings to product development for construction.
He returned to Malaysia in 1993 as technical manager and then director of Taywood Engineering, a subsidiary of Taylor Woodrow, covering Singapore and Malaysia. He was responsible for setting up and developing Taylor Woodrow’s unique Design and Technology consultancy in Malaysia and in this capacity delivered projects over a wide geographic area including in the UK, Middle East, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. In 2001, following a management buyout, Taywood Engineering merged with JTK Consult and he assumed the role of managing director.
He is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (MICE) UK and a member of the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (MIEM). He represented Malaysia in the ISO Committee TC59/SC14 on Design Life of Buildings and chaired the local committee spearheading the implementation of this new standard. He was the founding president of the American Concrete Institute KL Chapter and has been on the steering committee for the conference series on durability of building materials and components (DBMC) which is held every 3 years since the 10th DBMC in 2007. He has published extensively and is the author of over 250 Technical Reports in various aspects of engineering.