Built Environment Technology Alliance (BETA)

Partners: Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), Woh Hup Pte Ltd, SEN SG Pte Ltd

Status: Completed (Q2 2025)

Issue: Conventional braced excavation systems require a complex system of structural support elements such as sheet piles*, walers, and struts**.

Solution: This project’s earth-retaining and stabilising structure (ERSS) utilises an innovative configuration that reduces the need for intermediate supporting structures. This creates more open working space on the project site, thus improving site productivity and enabling cost savings in civil and structural works.

Using proprietary technology from South Korea, the ERSS was also customised to suit local conditions, enhance safety and built-in redundancy.

*Sheet piles are sections of sheet materials with interlocking edges that are driven into the ground along the perimeter of the planned excavation to form permanent or temporary walls, used for excavation support and soil retention. 

**Waler and struts are used to assemble a steel strutting system found in temporary works for excavation

Partners: Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), Woh Hup Pte Ltd, NatSteel Holdings Pte Ltd

Status: Completed (Q2 2025)

Issue: Concrete structures often use rebars* as a reinforcement to improve tensile strength. Grade 600** rebars are gaining attention because their higher strength allows fewer rebars to be used. However, Grade 600 concrete must meet serviceability and durability standards before widespread adoption.

Solution: Through investigating various additive proportions, this project has developed an optimal and cost-effective novel concrete that is crack and corrosion resistant, enabling the use of Grade 600 reinforced concrete. The project also simulated the design performance of the concrete under different underground conditions for use in deep foundation works. The results demonstrated upup to a 20% reduction in steel tonnage, and an improvement in construction productivity.

* Rebars are steel rods, typically incorporated to reinforce concrete.

** Grading system used to classify various steels by their composition and physical properties.

Partners: Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), Woh Hup Pte Ltd, TTJ Design & Engineering Pte Ltd

Status: Completed (Q2 2025)

Issue: King posts* are often used to support the ground floor of buildings, allowing superstructure and underground work to proceed concurrently. However, installing king posts is labour-intensive, relies on manual methods, and is prone to costly errors.

Solution: This project has developed high-performance steel (HPS) king posts that are 57% lighter than traditional ones, automating the manufacturing process to save time, thereby leading to cost savings from fabrication to installation.

Additionally, a simple and cost-effective smart positioning system was developed to guide king post installation. This system could cut installation time and save man-hours. 

*King posts are central vertical posts that support a beam below from an arch or truss structure above. They are installed in pile shafts before excavation, and they support and brace the floors being built.

Partners: Pan-United Concrete Pte Ltd, Pan-United Corporation Pte Ltd

Status: Completed (Q4 2024)

Issue: Understanding concrete rheology is essential for Ready-Mix Concrete (RMC) producers to improve production and quality control. However, current methods do not allow real-time monitoring of concrete properties during transit to project sites.

As demand grows for lower carbon footprints in buildings, RMC producers face increasing pressure to innovate and meet these expectations.

Solution: This project utilised systems integration and machine learning to create an intelligent monitoring system that tracks and controls concrete properties during transit. Fully integrated with batching plant operations, this system enables end-to-end management of RMC production and quality control.

Partners: Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), Woh Hup Pte Ltd, Alliance Concrete Singapore Pte Ltd, IMRE- (A*STAR), Cardiff University

Status: Ongoing

Issue: Buildings alone are responsible for close to 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Unlike a building’s operational carbon emissions (which can be reduced over time via innovations in energy efficiency), a building’s embodied carbon emissions are locked in place as soon as construction is complete.

Solution: It is thus increasingly critical to address the carbon footprint of construction materials—in particular concrete, given its abundance in usage and significance to climate change. In addition to efforts to lower clinker content in cement, there is growing interest in carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) technologies for concrete production. These technologies have the potential to securely sequester large amounts of CO2 over the long term.

This project focuses on creating a new low-carbon concrete by enhancing and combining various carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) technologies. These include CO2 mixing and the carbonation of recycled concrete aggregates (RCAs), enabling dual CO2 sequestration.

Partners: Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), Woh Hup Pte Ltd, TTJ Design & Engineering Pte Ltd 

Status: Ongoing 

Issue: Singapore’s Infrastructure Protection Act (IPA), enacted in December 2018, aims to enhance building security and protect sensitive locations through various measures. These measures often focus on critical areas, such as building openings like windows and doors. Blast doors, in particular, are key to increasing the resilience of building entrances and protecting vulnerable areas while maintaining accessibility.

However, blast door designs in Singapore have remained largely unchanged for decades. While still safe, these designs may be overly conservative and not optimised for modern needs.

Solution: This project seeks to develop an improved blast door system that is more efficient and optimised compared to current industry standards. It will focus on enhancing both the door panels and hardware components. The project will also create advanced design methods and engineering tools to help consultants quickly evaluate blast door performance under different conditions. These improvements aim to save materials, time, and costs while maintaining high safety standards.

Partners: Nanyang Technological University (NTU), EnGro Corporation Limited, Zhao Yang Geotechnic Pte Ltd

Status: Ongoing

Issue: The ground soil in Singapore is largely composed of soft marine clay. Marine clay covers nearly one-quarter of the country’s land. Soft marine clay typically has high water content, high compressibility, and low shear strength. These characteristics have resulted in limited bearing capacity, significant ground settlement, and post-construction settlement under loads, thus necessitating soil treatment.

Soil stabilisation using cementitious binders (such as ordinary portland cement, OPC) is one of the most widely used soft soil treatment methods. This process involves the mixing of binders with soil to enhance its engineering properties. 

Solution: This project seeks to develop sustainable novel binders using industrial by-products. This will completely replace commercial binders like OPC to achieve soil stabilisation in various geotechnical applications.

Partners: Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), Woh Hup Pte Ltd, NatSteel Holdings Pte Ltd, Alliance Concrete Singapore Pte Ltd, TTJ Design & Engineering Pte Ltd, IMRE- (A*STAR)

Status: Ongoing

Issue: Steel slags (SSs) are industrial by-products obtained from iron and crude steel production. More than 400 million tonnes of slags are produced annually worldwide by the steel or iron industry. As the only steel mill and the largest recycler in Singapore, NatSteel Holdings Pte Ltd is producing reinforcement steel (or rebars) from 100% scrap metals using an electric arc furnace (EAF).

While recycling over 500,000 tonnes of locally generated metal wastes into rebars yearly, approximately 80,000 tonnes of SSs are produced as a by-product.

Solution: This project hence aims to utilise these by-products to develop a carbon negative concrete with environmental and ecological functions – i.e., Steel Slag Permeable Concrete (SSPC).

Partners: Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), Woh Hup Pte Ltd, TTJ Design & Engineering Pte Ltd, National University of Singapore (NUS)

Status: Ongoing

Issue: The use of high-strength concrete and high-strength steel in welded box sections aligns with the global pursuit of sustainable development. It embodies key sustainability principles by reducing material usage, enhancing structural efficiency, and ensuring long-lasting, sustainable and resilient infrastructure. The cross-sectional dimensions of structural members can also be reduced when high-strength materials are used. This not only reduces material usage but also facilitates the on-site hoisting and manoeuvring of precast structural members. 

Solution: This project aims to investigate the structural performance of concrete-filled welded box sections made of S690 high-strength steel for the construction of high-rise buildings or long-span structures.

Partners: Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Obayashi Corporation, Wefaa Robotics Pte Ltd

Status: Ongoing

Issue: While the construction sector has observed increasing interest and development in construction robotics, two factors continue to hinder wide scale and optimal robotic deployment at construction sites. Firstly, accessibility of construction robots onsite remains challenging due to various dynamic obstacles and constraints, including terrain unevenness, height clearances, width of passageways, etc. Secondly, there are still limitations to the interaction and interoperability between multiple robots vis-à-vis other construction equipment, sensors, and/or smart devices. There is thus a pressing need to empower robot inclusivity and interoperability at construction sites.

Solution: This project proposes to develop an automated digital robot inclusivity assessment system as well as an interoperable software architecture system, which would enable the evaluation and recommendation of optimal site layout plans for robotic deployment as well as facilitate seamless exchange of data between diverse robotic platforms and smart devices/equipment used on construction sites.