Abstract
The vast amount of high-resolution data obtained from smart sensors and devices offers significant opportunities for advancing computational modelling and data analytics for the design and construction of buildings and infrastructure. Already, various performance data have been integrated into N-dimensional building information modeling (BIM), foreseeably transforming the way society designs, constructs, maintains, and operates buildings and infrastructure. Additionally, recent advances in data analytics when processing structured and unstructured data present interesting opportunities to extract meaningful information from existing and new data sources in building and infrastructure projects.
This ACD special issue aims to review and discuss advances in computational modelling and data analytics for the design and construction of building and infrastructure projects. In particular, this issue includes extended papers presented at the 17th International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering (ICCCBE) held in Tampere, Finland, June 5-6, 2018. The conference covered a broad range of topics related to advances and innovative ideas in computing as applicable to building, structural, and construction engineering. Among many excellent papers presented at the conference, four papers were invited for extended paper publications in this special issue. The paper by Chi Yon Cho, Xuesong Liu, and Burcu Akinci discusses computer-vision techniques to recognize 2D building mechanical drawings for generating BIM models. Takashi Hara, Katsukiyo Shimomura, Keita Hamano and Shoko Miyake present the semi-automated approach to produce the design of construction scaffolding systems. The paper by Adel Francis, Edmond Miresco, and Erwan Le Meur examines the benefits of using chronographic modeling in construction project scheduling. Bogyeong Lee, Hyun-Soo Lee, Moonseo Park, Changbum Ryan Ahn, Nakjung Choi, and Toseung Kim investigate how routine activity patterns of an occupant can be extracted for home automation and healthcare. In addition to extended papers from the conference, the following two papers are collected by the special issue. The paper by Songjukta Datta and Amir Behzadan discusses large crowd evacuation simulation to assist in emergency mapping and egress route assignment during design, construction, and operation of a facility. Patrick Suermann, Hriday Patel, and Like Sauter investigate the effect of space low-gravity conditions on construction techniques by simulating and visualizing drilling process.
Abstract
The growth in the number of single-member households is a critical issue worldwide, especially among the elderly. For those living alone, who may be unaware of their health status or routines that could improve their health, a continuous healthcare monitoring system could provide valuable feedback. Assessing the performance adequacy of activities of daily living (ADL) can serve as a measure of an individual\'s health status; previous research has focused on determining a person\'s daily activities and extracting the most frequently performed behavioral patterns using camera recordings or wearable sensing techniques. However, existing methods used to extract common patterns of an occupant\'s activities in the home fail to address the spatio-temporal dimensions of human activities simultaneously. Though multiple sequence alignment (MSA) offers some advantages—such as inherent containment of the spatio-temporal data in sequence format, and rapid identification of hidden patterns— MSA has rarely been used to extract in-home ADL routines. This research proposes a method to extract a household occupant\'s ADL routines from a cumulative spatio-temporal data log of occupancy collected using a non-intrusive method (i.e., a tomographic motion detection system). The findings from an occupant\'s 28-day spatio-temporal activity log demonstrate the capacity of the proposed approach to identify routine patterns of an occupant\'s daily activities and to reveal the order, duration, and frequency of routine activities. Routine ADL patterns identified from the proposed approach are expected to provide a basis for detecting/evaluating abrupt or gradual changes of an occupant\'s ADL patterns that result from a physical or mental disorder, and can offer valuable information for home automation applications by enabling the prediction of ADL patterns.
Key Words
activities of daily living (ADL); sequence alignment; human activity patterns; smart-home environment; geriatrics
Address
Bogyeong Lee, Hyun-Soo Lee, Moonseo Park and Toseung Kim: Department of Architecture and Architectural Engineering, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro,
Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
Changbum Ryan Ahn\" Department of Construction Science, College of Architecture, Texas A&M University, College Station,
Texas 77843-3137, USA
Nakjung Choi: Nokia Bell labs, New Jersey, USA
Abstract
Every year, many people are severely injured or lose their lives in accidents such as fire, chemical spill, public pandemonium, school shooting, and workplace violence. Research indicates that the fate of people in an emergency situation involving one or more hazards depends not only on the design of the space (e.g., residential building, industrial facility, shopping mall, sports stadium, school, concert hall) in which the incident occurs, but also on a host of other factors including but not limited to (a) occupants\' characteristics, (b) level of familiarity with and cognition of the surroundings, and (c) effectiveness of hazard intervention systems. In this paper, we present EVAQ, a simulation framework for modeling large crowd evacuation by taking into account occupants\' behaviors and interactions during an emergency. In particular, human\'s personal (i.e., age, gender, disability) and interpersonal (i.e., group behavior and interactions) attributes are parameterized in a hazard-impacted environment. In addition, different hazard types (e.g., fire, lone wolf attacker) and propagation patterns, as well as intervention schemes (simulating building repellent systems, firefighters, law enforcement) are modeled. Next, the application of EVAQ to crowd egress planning in an airport terminal under human attack, and a shopping mall in fire emergency are presented and results are discussed. Finally, a validation test is performed using real world data from a past building fire incident to assess the reliability and integrity of EVAQ in comparison with existing evacuation modeling tools.
Key Words
emergency mapping; crowd simulation; human behavior; architecture for safety; cellular-automata
Address
Department of Construction Science, Texas A&M University,
3137 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Abstract
Planning and management building projects should tackle the coordination of works and the management of limited spaces, traffic and supplies. Activities cannot be performed without the resources available and resources cannot be used beyond the capacity of workplaces. Otherwise, workspace congestion will negatively affect the flow of works. Better on-site management allows for substantial productivity improvements and cost savings. The procurement system should be able to manage a wider variety of materials and products of the required quality in order to have less stock, in less time, using less space, with less investment and avoiding multiple storage stations. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the advantages of using the Chronographic modeling, by combining spatiotemporal technical scheduling with the 4D simulations, the Last Planner System and the Takt-time when modeling the construction of building projects. This paper work toward the aforementioned goal by examining the impact that material flow has on site occupancy. The proposed spatiotemporal model promotes efficient site use, defines optimal site-occupancy and workforce-rotation rates, minimizes intermediate stocks, and ensures a suitable procurement process. This paper study the material flow on the site and consider horizontal and vertical paths, traffic flows and appropriate means of transportation to ensure fluidity and safety. This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge by linking execution and supply to the spatial and temporal aspects. The methodology compare the performance and procurement processes for the proposed Chronographic model with the Gantt-Precedence diagram. Two examples are presented to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed model and to validate the related concepts. This validation is designed to test the model\'s graphical ability to simulate construction and procurement.
Key Words
building; chronographic; management; modelling; precedence diagram; procurement; project; scheduling; space planning
Address
Adel Francis, Edmond Miresco: Construction Engineering Department, École de technologie supérieure, Quebec University, 1100, Notre-Dame West, Montreal (Qc), Canada, H3C 1K3
Erwan Le Meur: École Nationale Supérieure d\'Architecture de Paris-Belleville, Université de Paris Est, 60 Boulevard de la Villette, 75019 Paris, France
Abstract
This research is comprised of virtually simulating behavior while experiencing low gravity effects in advance of real world testing in low gravity aboard Zero Gravity Corporation
Key Words
space regolith; space construction; zero gravity; space drilling; computational design; static stress analysis
Address
Patrick C. Suermann, Hriday H. Patel:Department of Construction Science, Texas A&M University
Francis Hall 321D, 3137 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-3137
Luke D. Sauter: Department of Astronautical Engineering, United States Air Force Academy,
HQ USAFA/DFAS, 2354 Fairchild Dr., USAFA, CO 80840
Abstract
Operation and Maintenance (O&M) phase is the main contributor to the total lifecycle cost of a building. Previous studies have described that Building Information Models (BIM), if available with detailed asset information and their properties, can enable rapid troubleshooting and execution of O&M tasks by providing the required information of the facility. Despite the potential benefits, there is still rarely BIM with Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) assets and properties that are available for O&M. BIM is usually not in possession for existing buildings and generating BIM manually is a time-consuming process. Hence, there is a need for an automated approach that can reconstruct the MEP systems in BIM. Previous studies investigated automatic reconstruction of BIM using architectural drawings, structural drawings, or the combination with photos. But most of the previous studies are limited to reconstruct the architectural and structural components. Note that mechanical components in the building typically require more frequent maintenance than architectural or structural components. However, the building mechanical drawings are relatively more complex due to various type of symbols that are used to represent the mechanical systems. In order to address this challenge, this paper proposed a symbol recognition framework that can automatically recognize the different type of symbols in the building mechanical drawings. This study applied vector-based computer vision techniques to recognize the symbols and their properties (e.g., location, type, etc.) in two vector-based input documents: 2D drawings and the symbol description document. The framework not only enables recognizing and locating the mechanical component of interest for BIM reconstruction purpose but opens the possibility of merging the updated information into the current BIM in the future reducing the time of repeated manual creation of BIM after every renovation project.
Key Words
Building Information Modeling (BIM); Facility Management (FM); symbol recognition; vectorial signature matching; building mechanical drawings
Address
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University,
5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
Abstract
Temporary scaffold systems in the construction site play an important role for ensuring the safety of the workers and for constructing the stable structures. To assemble the scaffold, the pipe scaffolding system, the wedge binding scaffolding system and the particular materials have been utilized. To design the material arrangement of a scaffold, firstly the configuration was determined considering the construction geometry. Then, the strength of the scaffold was confirmed and the quantity of the material was accounted. In this paper, the design method of the temporary scaffold was proposed for intending the semi-automatic procedure. In the proposed design method, the geometric design and the safety requirement were specified by the safety standard and the design flow was followed by the designer\'s knowledge. The size and the quantities of the materials were calculated by referring to the relation between the scaffold and the constructing structure. In the calculating procedure, three dimensional positions of each scaffold materials were calculated and recorded simultaneously. Then, three dimensional scaffold structural was drawn semi-automatically on the CAD software by using the obtained material sizes, positions and directions. The proposed design method provides us the precise quantities of scaffold materials and enables us to reduce the design effort and the cost estimation processes. In addition, the obtained results can be applied to BIM software after converting to IFC format.
Key Words
scaffold, quantity survey, design, CAD, BIM, CIM
Address
Takashi Hara: Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, National Institute of Technology, Tokuyama College, Gakuendai, Shunan, 745-8585 Japan
Katsukiyo Shimomura: Miwa Consultants Ltd., 68-4, Kurosawa, Miwa-cho, Iwakuni 740-1212 Japan
Keita Hamano and Shoko Miyake: Sugiko Co. Ltd., 1-7 Kinko-cho, Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama, 221-0056 Japan
