Refine
Document Type
- Conference Proceeding (123)
- Article (66)
- Doctoral Thesis (25)
- Master's Thesis (5)
- Diploma Thesis (1)
Institute
- Professur Informatik im Bauwesen (177)
- Professur Baubetrieb und Bauverfahren (10)
- Professur Grundbau (4)
- Professur Holz- und Mauerwerksbau (4)
- Professur Allgemeine Baustoffkunde (2)
- Professur Entwerfen und Architekturtheorie (2)
- Professur Informatik in der Architektur (2)
- Professur Massivbau I (2)
- Institut für Strukturmechanik (ISM) (1)
- Junior-Professur Computational Architecture (1)
- Junior-Professur Europäische Medienkultur (1)
- Professur Angewandte Mathematik (1)
- Professur Aufbereitung von Baustoffen und Wiederverwertung (1)
- Professur Bauaufnahme und Baudenkmalpflege (1)
- Professur Bauchemie und Polymere Werkstoffe (1)
- Professur Bauformenlehre (1)
- Professur Bauphysik (1)
- Professur Baustatik und Bauteilfestigkeit (1)
- Professur Bodenmechanik (1)
- Professur Darstellungsmethodik (1)
- Professur Entwerfen und Industriebau (1)
- Professur Entwerfen und ländliches Bauen (1)
- Professur Planung von Ingenieurbauten (1)
- Professur Raumplanung und Raumforschung (1)
- Professur Stahlbau (1)
- Professur Verkehrsplanung und Verkehrstechnik (1)
- Professur Wasserbau (1)
Keywords
- Verteiltes System (37)
- Bautechnik (30)
- Bauwerk (27)
- Produktmodell (25)
- Simulation (23)
- Architektur (21)
- Modellierung (21)
- Mehragentensystem (19)
- Ingenieurbau (17)
- Planungsprozess (17)
Year of publication
- 2004 (220) (remove)
Modeling of Freeway Traffic
(2004)
An integrated modeling of freeway traffic is developed, whose implementation in an uniform computer –aided simulation model facilitate comparative evaluation and systematic coupling of several traffic simulations, traffic controls, traffic measurements and traffic scenarios. The integrated modeling of freeway traffic is a basic mapping of freeway networks, control methods, measurements and different simulations of traffic flow...
Particle Simulation and Evaluation of Personal Exposure to Contaminant Sources in an Elevation Space
(2004)
An elevator, which figures a small volume, is normally used by everyone for a short period of time and equipped with simple ventilation system..Any contaminant released within it may cause serious problem. This research adapt a fire and smoke simulation software (FDS) into non-fire indoor airflow scario. Differently from previous research, particles are chosen as a risk evalution unit. A personal and multi-personal exposure model is proposed. The model takes the influence of the human thermal boundary, coughing, inhalation, exhalation, standing position, and the fan factor into account. The model is easy-to-use and suitable for the design of elevator system in practice.
Pre-stressed structural elements are widely used in large-span structures. As a rule, they have higher stiffness characteristics. Pre-stressed rods can be applied as girders of different purpose, and as their separate parts, e.g. rods of trusses and frames. Among numerous ways of prestressing the compression of girders, trusses, and frames by tightenings from high-strength materials is under common application.
The approach discussed here is part of research into an overall concept for digital instruments which support the entire planning process and help in enabling planning decisions to be based upon clear reasoning and plausible arguments. Such specialist systems must take into account currently available technology, such as networked working patterns, object-orientation, building and product models as well as the working method of the planner. The paper describes a plausibility instrument for the formulation of colour scheme proposals for building interiors and elevations. With the help of intuitively usable light simulations, colour, material and spatial concepts can be assessed realistically. The software prototype “Coloured Architecture” is conceived as a professional extension to conventional design tools for the modelling of buildings. As such it can be used by the architect in the earliest design phases of the planning process as well as for colour implementation on location.
The paper describes a concept for the step-by-step computer-aided capture and representation of geometric building data in the context of planning-oriented building surveying. Selected aspects of the concept have been implemented and tested as prototypes. The process of step-by-step capture and representation is determined by the order in which the user experiences the building. Only the information that the user knows (can see) or can reasonably deduce is represented. In addition approaches to the flexible combination of different measuring techniques and geometric abstractions are described which are based upon geodetic computational adjustment.
The paper summarizes a part of research carried out in ICCI project and provides a current review of ICT infrastructures supporting collaboration. It covers taxonomies, protocols, standards, components, typical subsystems as well as future trends and recommendation for two most important technologies with applications in AEC: (1) EIP (Enterprise information portal) – a single gateway to a company's information, knowledge base, and applications for all actors; (2) RTC (Real-Time Communication and Collaboration technologies) that provide means for asynchronous communication between geographically dislocated people using ICT. Proposed future developments are: orientation towards web services - with building information models, business intelligence, personalization, AEC information retrieval, p2p workspaces and grids.
The construction industry is a supportive industry in China. IT (information technolgy), including computer technology and communication technology, as a whole is regarded as the most important means to upgrade the construction industry so that research projects were organized by Chinese government to further the application of IT in the construction industry. This study originated from one of the projects and is aimed at grasping the general situation on the application of IT in the construction industry. A questionnaire was designed for the survey, which used stratified proportional sampling method, and was carried out under the help of a government agency. This study can not only provide sound foundation for the government to make relative policies, but also reveal references for the firms in construction industry to apply IT in their business. This paper presents the preliminary result of the survey.
The objective of the joint project 'Life cycle optimised system solutions for densified housing with massive wood technology', short form Basys, was the development and application of an open building system for sustainable construction in a virtual enterprise. Four partners coming from building economy and a university institute developed the building system in a comprehensive planning process. By applying massive wood technology, most requirements of densified housing can be met and individual buildings can be produced on demand.
Current software solutions for real estate planning, construction and use, do not model the complete life cycle of a building. Well-integrated software tools exist for the planning and construction phases. Data integrity exists throughout the planning and construction phases, but problems occur at the transition to the use-phase. At this interface, the complete data set of planning and execution gets lost. Another software deficiency is that current software solutions don’t handle construction work and maintenance work equally. This is why a new software generation is demanded, which continuously covers the entire workflow process from the planning phase to the demolition of a building. New data concepts have to be developed, which allow bringing work items for construction together with work items for real estate use.
The highway product model based on the length information of the centerline, and the application system is developed. This paper shows the schema and the modeling process of the product model, which includes geometric elements such as an alignment, lanes, sidewalks, shoulders and sprits, and accessories such as guard fences, plantings and signs. Furthermore, The Highway Sequence Editor (HSE) is developed as an application system to verify the model.
This paper describes an ongoing research on the representation and reasoning about construction specifications, which is part of a bigger research project that aims at developing a formalism for automating the identification of deviations and defects on construction sites. We specifically describe the requirements on product and process models and an approach for representing and reasoning about construction specifications to enable automated detection and assessment of construction deviations and defects. This research builds on the previous research on modeling design specifications and extends and elaborates concept of contexts developed in that domain. The paper provides an overview of how the construction specifications are being modele d in this research and points out future steps that need to be accomplished to develop the envisioned automated deviation and defect detection system.
The evolution of data exchange and integration standards within the Architectural, Engineering and Construction industry is gradually making the long-held vision of computer-integratedconstruction a reality. The Industry Foundations Classes and CIMSteel Integration Standards are two such standards that have seen remarkable successes over the past few years. Despite successes, these standards support the exchange of product data more than they do process data, especially those processes that are loosely coupled with product models. This paper reports on on-going research to evaluate the adequacy of the IFC and CIS/2 standards to support process modeling in the steel supply chain. Some initial recommendations are made regarding enhancements to the data standards to better support processes.
Site superintendents performing project management tasks on construction sites need to access project documents and need to collect information that they observe while inspecting the site. Often, information that is observed on a construction site needs to be integrated into electronic documents or project control systems. In the future, we expect integrated product and process models to be the medium for storing and handling construction project management information. Even though mobile computing devices today are already capable of storing and handling such integrated product and process data models, the user interaction with such large and complex models is difficult and not adequately addressed in the existing research. In this paper, we introduce a system that supports project management tasks on construction sites effectively and efficiently by making integrated product and process models accessible. In order to effectively and efficiently enter or access information, site superintendents need visual representations of the project data that are flexible with respect to the level of detail, the decomposition structure, and the type of visual representation. Based on this understanding of the information and data collection needs, we developed the navigational model framework and the application Site Data Collection System (SiDaCoS), which implements that framework. The navigational model framework allows site superintendents to create customized representations of information contained in a product and process model that correspond to their data access and data collection needs on site.
Although there are some good reasons to design engineering software as a stand-alone application for a single computer, there are also numerous possibilities for creating distributed engineering applications, in particular using the Internet. This paper presents some typical scenarios how engineering applications can benefit from including network capabilities. Also, some examples of Internet-based engineering applications are discussed to show how the concepts presented can be implemented.
The Priority Programme ‘Network Based Co-operation in Structural Engineering’ of the ‘German Research Foundation’ (DFG) has been established in the year 2000. This paper describes and discusses the main research directions and first results of the workgroup ‘Distributed Product Models’. The five projects of the workgroup have developed completely different solutions for specific application domains. Each solution concept deals with a consistent product modeling and knowledge processing in a distributed environment in the planning process. The individual solution approaches of the projects are described and the underlying basic assumptions are discussed. A unified system architecture is described for all projects of the workgroup. Two different approaches (object-oriented and graph-based models) have been introduced for product and knowledge modeling. The common structure of these models will be explained to fully understand the differences of these modeling approaches. Finally the concepts for co-operative work and conflict management in a distributed environment are described: The solution approaches will be distinguished by classifying the supported co-operation according to time. A final scientific summary describes the state-of-the-art in network based co-operation in structural engineering: The role of research directions like knowledge modeling, standard product modeling and versioning in the distributed planning process will be explained.
An architecture of a distributed planning system for the building industry has been developed. The emphasis is on highly collaborative environments in steelwork, timber construction etc. where designers concurrently handle 3D models. The overall system connects local design systems by the so-called Design Framework DFW. This framework consists of the definition of distributed components and protocols which make the collaborative design work. The process of collaborative design has been formalized on an abstract level. This paper describes how this has been done. A sample is given to illustrate the mapping of concrete scenarios of the ‘real design world’ to an abstract scenario level. This work is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG as part of the project SPP1103 (Meißner et al. 2003).
The synchronous distributed processing of common source code in the software development process is supported by well proven methods. The planning process has similarities with the software development process. However, there are no consistent and similarly successful methods for applications in construction projects. A new approach is proposed in this contribution.
Today’s building industry not only demands more and more reduced construction time on building site, but also an advanced and mostly construction attendant design phase. Even though there is software available to support design processes in distributed environments, most applications only support simple document based exchange of information. In this paper a knowledge based system is presented to support cooperative, comprehensive design processes in distributed environments. The presented research project is financially supported by the German Research Community (DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).
Collaboration in AEC Design : Web-enabling Applications using Peer-to-Peer Office Communicator
(2004)
A market analysis conducted by Gartner Dataquest in August 2001 has shown the typical characteristics of the AEC design process. High volatility in membership of AEC design groups and members dispersed over several external offices is the common collaboration scenario. Membership is most times short lived, compared to the overall duration of the process. A technical solution has to take that into account by making joining and leaving a collaborative work group very easy. The modelling of roles of collaboration between group members must be based on a commonly understood principle like the publisher / subscriber model, where the individual that is responsible for the distribution of vital information is clear. Security issues and trust in the confidentiality of the system is a central concern for the acceptance of the system. Therefore, keeping the subset of data that will be published under the absolute control of the publisher is a must. This is not the case with server-based scenarios, sometimes even due to psychological reasons. A loosely bound Peer-to-Peer network offers advantages over a server-based solution, because of less administrative overhead and simple installation procedures. In a peer-to-peer environment, a publish/subscribe role model can be more easily implemented. The publish/subscribe model matches the way AEC processes are modelled in real world scenarios today, where legal proof of information exchange between external offices is of high importance. Workflow management systems for small to midsize companies of the AEC industry may adopt the peer-to-peer approach to collaboration in the future. Further investigations are being made on the research level (WINDS) by integrating the viewer and redlining application Collaborate! into a collaborative environment.
Recent research shows that current learning strategies in construction industry have not been effective in implementing lean principles in construction. With that in mind the researchers set to investigate an alternative learning strategy in order to promote learning at the international level. A web-based environment, was developed for this project with the intent of promoting learning and knowledge exchange on the theory and practice of "process transparency" across different countries.
The design of building projects involves several types of resources such as architects, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and draftsmen, among others. For design firms to stay in business in this very competitive market, they need to manage their resources in a way that improves productivity and cost effectiveness. This task, however, is not simple and requires thorough analysis of process-level operations, resource use, and productivity. Typically, these operational aspects are the responsibility of the design office manager who assigns available resources to the different design projects to save time and lower design expenses. It is noted that limited studies have been carried out in the literature to model overall organizational operations and behavioral aspects, particularly in firms specialized in the design of building projects. In an effort to simplify the modeling process, a simplified modeling and simulation tool is used in this research. A simulation model representing an actual design office was developed assuming that the office performs designs for small, medium, and large size building projects. The developed model was used to simulate several alternatives and examine various resource assignment strategies. The simulation was conducted over ten years and the resulting productivity and income was measured.
Current disaster management procedures rely primarily on heuristics which result in their strategies being very cautious and sub-optimum in terms of saving life, minimising damage and returning the building to its normal function. Also effective disaster management demands decentralized, dynamic, flexible, short term and across domain resource sharing, which is not well supported by existing distributing computing infrastructres. The paper proposes a conceptual framework for emergency management in the built environment, using Semantic Grid as an integrating platform for different technologies. The framework supports a distributed network of specialists in built environment, including structural engineers, building technologists, decision analysts etc. It brings together the necessary technology threads, including the Semantic Web (to provide a framework for shared definitions of terms, resources and relationships), Web Services (to provide dynamic discovery and integration) and Grid Computing (for enhanced computational power, high speed access, collaboration and security control) to support rapid formation of virtual teams for disaster management. The proposed framework also make an extensive use of modelling and simulation (both numerical and using visualisations), data mining (to find resources in legacy data sets) and visualisation. It also include a variety of hardware instruments with access to real time data. Furthermore the whole framework is centred on collaborative working by the virtual team. Although focus of this paper is on disaster management, many aspects of the discussed Grid and Visualisation technologies will be useful for any other forms of collaboration. Conclusions are drawn about the possible future impact on the built environment.
In this paper we present a computer aided method supporting co-operation between different project partners, such as architects and engineers, on the basis of strictly three-dimensional models. The center of our software architecture is a product model, described by the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) of the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI). From this a geometrical model is extracted and automatically transferred to a computational model serving as a basis for various simulation tasks. In this paper the focus is set on the advantage of the fully three-dimensional structural analysis performed by p-version of the finite element analysis. Other simulation methods are discussed in a separate contribution of this Volume (Treeck 2004). The validity of this approach will be shown in a complex example.
Current building product models explicitly represent components, attributes of components, and relationships between components. These designer-focused product models, however, do not represent many of the design conditions that are important for construction, such as component similarity, uniformity, and penetrations. Current design and construction tools offer limited support for detecting these construction-specific design conditions. This paper describes the ontology we developed using the manufacturing concept of features to represent the design conditions that are important for construction. The feature ontology provides the blueprint for the additions and changes needed to transform a standard product model into a constructionspecific product model. The ontology formalizes three classes of features, defines the attributes and functions of each feature type, and represents the relationships between features explicitly. The descriptive semantics of the ontology allows practitioners to represent their varied preferences for naming features, specifying features that result from component intersections and the similarity of components, and grouping features that affect a specific construction domain. A software prototype that implements the ontology enables practitioners to transform designer-focused product models into feature-based product models that represent the construction perspective.
A wide variety of behavioural models exist in microscopic traffic simulation. Commercial programms often use closed-source policies and are confined to their respective simulation platforms. Open-source approaches mainly focus on distinctive, highly specialized traffic situations. In the scope of this paper, an open-source framework for developing modular, objectoriented simulation systems is presented, capable of simultaneously accommodating different driving models and enabling the user to modify and extend the catalogue of driving behaviours. The existing driving behaviours and the computational implementation of the simulation are being described.
There exists a big gap between the capabilities of current 3D-CAD applications and their actual usage in practice. Many architects and planners still prefer to draft in 2D because the benefits of 3D modeling are difficult to explain. This presentation offers a basis to view the 3D building model not merely as the source for 2D plan generation. By adding extra dimensions like Time and Cost to the 3D building model it becomes possible to generate dynamic information on building construction progress with regards to used material, resources and cost. These additional benefits are key elements to many planners and contractors and may therefore widen the acceptance of 3D building modeling in general.
Most retaining walls and box culverts built for arterial road construction are simple, and the design process of these structures is often repetitive and labor-intensive because they are so similar in structural configuration. Although some integrated design automation systems developed for retaining walls and box culverts have expedited the design process of these structures, the process of collecting and distributing the resultant engineering documents has not been fully integrated with the computer applications. We have been developing a Web-based design automation system to manage the resultant documents as well as to speed up the repetitive design process. Manipulation of engineering drawings in the Web page is one of the critical functions needed for Web-based design automation. eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and XML-based vector graphics are expected to facilitate the representation of engineering drawings in the Web page. In this paper, we present how we used XML and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to compose engineering drawings and represent them in the Web page. XML Data Island we designed to define drawing components turned out effective in manipulating the engineering drawings in the Web page.
This paper describes the concept and experiences of the international Open Distance Learning Course ‘HydroWeb’. This course deals with the introduction of Web-based Collaborative Engineering in standard education programmes of water related engineering and civil engineering based on information sharing. Organized under the umbrella of IAHR and ETNET21 this course is collaboration from several universities from all over the world. Started in 1999 the course demonstrates the potential and innovative opportunities of Web-Technology in education, research and engineering: Students from the different partner universities form small distributed teams to solve a given engineering problem in a time window of two weeks. To overcome the spatial distribution the students apply modern Web technology such as video conferencing, application sharing and document management. All results as well as the final reports are presented as Web document on a shared Web-based project platform (http://www.hydro-web.org). Besides the experiences to apply standard Web tools and working methods based on information sharing instead the conventional information exchange in the daily engineering work the students improve their soft skills operate successfully in international and interdisciplinary project environments as part of the ‘Technical Culture’ of nowadays.
In this paper, a circulation-type society is expressed by recurrent architecture network described with multi-agent model which consists of the following agents: user, builder, reuse maker, fabricator, waste disposer, material maker and earth bank (see Fig.1). Structural members, materials, resources and monies move among these agents. Each agent has its own rules and aims, regarding structural damages, lifetime, cost reduction, numbers of structural members and structural systems. Reasonable prices of members (fresh, reused, recycled and disposed) can be optimized by GAs in this system considering equal distribution of monies among agents.
The increased implementation of site data capture technologies invariably results in an increase in data warehousing and database technologies to store captured data. However, restricted use of data beyond the initial application could potentially result in a loss of understanding of site processes. This could in turn lead to poor decision making at production, tactical and strategic levels. Concrete usage data have been collected from two piling processes. These data have been analysed and the results highlighted potential improvements that could be made to existing site management and estimating processes. A cost benefit analysis has been used to support decision making at the strategic level where the identified improvements require capital expenditure.
Structural engineering projects are increasingly organized in networked cooperations due to a permanently enlarged competition pressure and a high degree of complexity while performing the concurrent design activities. Software that intends to support such collaborative structural design processes implicates enormous requirements. In the course of our common research work, we analyzed the pros and cons of the application of both the peer-to-peer (University of Bonn) and multiagent architecture style (University of Bochum) within the field of collaborative structural design. In this paper, we join the benefits of both architecture styles in an integrated conceptual approach. We demonstrate the surplus value of the integrated multiagent–peer-to-peer approach by means of an example scenario in which several structural engineers are co-operatively designing the basic structural elements of an arched bridge, applying heterogeneous CAD systems.
The scientific transfer of key technology features to developing countries, together with adequate competence, localisation and adaptation, is the primary purpose of the proposed investigation. It is evident that introducing high-level CAD design and detailing will improve the planning process in developing countries. Successful utilization of applied information technology for the planning process, however, depends on the user-interface of individual software. Therefore, to open the great opportunity embedded in CAD software for clients globally, the language and character-set barrier of traditional user-interfaces must be overcome. A proposal for a research program is given here to address such issue in favour of global civil engineering.
During the establishing of fundamentals in a building project a huge amount of influence factors and boundary conditions have to be investigated in order to provide the prerequisites for further planning processes. These investigative tasks are often related with a great effort concerning time and money, because there are no standardized workflows and interfaces which provide an efficient access to the necessary information related to a specific construction site. Within the fundamental investigation human and natural circumstances have to be taken into account. Thus, in this project two examples have been chosen in order to demonstrate the holistic approach for an integration and provision of georeferenced information. The developed internet-site http://www.grundlagenermittlung.de has been designed to support architects and civil engineers in early planning phases of a building project efficiently. It offers web-based services based on dynamic interfaces for a flexible search and collection of information concerning the building site. Therefore, a central Metadatabase-Server for Description, Discovery and Integration has been established which enables a registration of georeferenced services and the redirection of incoming requests to other, distributed data pools. Using this Yellow-Page concept in combination with the underlying meta-data based on the ISO 19115 standard an efficient investigation of geographical and environmental information becomes possible.
Assuring global consistency in a cooperative working environment is the main focus of many nowaday research projects in the field of civil engineering and others. In this paper, a new approach based on octrees will be discussed. It will be shown that by the usage of octrees not only the management and control of processes in a network-based working environment can be optimised but also an efficient integration platform for processes from various disciplines – such as architecture and civil engineering – can be provided. By means of an octree-based collision detection resp. consistency assurance a client-server-architecture will be described as well as sophisticated information services for a further support of cooperative work.
A vast growth of advanced information technology systems and tools nowadays is opening new ways to collect accurate as-built data. Since the turn of the millennium, new technology developments enable for the first time to gather accurate as-built information. Accurate as-built data will be of great usage to construction management as well as to designers and engineers. Given that most of the planned data are already digitally available, as-built data remains on paper forms. Information technology developments are opening new ways to digitize construction field data in order to develop intelligent tools for construction management allowing design engineers to update as-planned data. 3D Laser scanning, digital close-range photogrammetry and mobile computing are among the promising data collection technologies, which are auspicious to create new opportunities to develop advanced construction management and engineering tools. Primarily, accurate collected as-built data will be highly beneficial for the process of updating as-planned data.
Development and Analysis of Sparse Matrix Concepts for Finite Element Approximation on general Cells
(2004)
In engineering and computing, the finite element approximation is one of the most well-known computational solution techniques. It is a great tool to find solutions for mechanic, fluid mechanic and ecological problems. Whoever works with the finite element method will need to solve a large system of linear equations. There are different ways to find a solution. One way is to use a matrix decomposition technique such as LU or QR. The other possibility is to use an iterative solution algorithm like Conjugate Gradients, Gauß-Seidel, Multigrid Methods, etc. This paper will focus on iterative solvers and the needed storage techniques...
In this contribution the software design and implementation of an analysis server for the computation of failure probabilities in structural engineering is presented. The structures considered are described in terms of an equivalent Finite Element model, the stochastic properties, like e.g. the scatter of the material behavior or the incoming load, are represented using suitable random variables. Within the software framework, a Client-Server-Architecture has been implemented, employing the middleware CORBA for the communication between the distributed modules. The analysis server offers the possibility to compute failure probabilities for stochastically defined structures. Therefore, several different approximation (FORM, SORM) and simulation methods (Monte Carlo Simulation and Importance Sampling) have been implemented. This paper closes in showing several examples computed on the analysis server.
The optimization of continuous structures requires careful attention to discretization errors. Compared to ordinary low order formulation (h-elements) in conjunction with an adaptive mesh refinement in each optimization step, the use of high order finite elements (so called p-elements) has several advantages. However, compared to the h-method a higher order finite element analysis program poses higher demands from a software engineering point of view. In this article the basics of an object oriented higher order finite element system especially tailored to the use in structural optimization is presented. Besides the design of the system, aspects related to the employed implementation language Java are discussed.
This paper describes a framework for computer-aided conceptual design of building structures that results from building architectural considerations. The central task that is carried out during conceptual design is the synthesis of the structural system. This paper proposes a methodology for the synthesis of structural solutions. Given the nature of architectural constraints, user-model interactivity is devised as the most suitable computer methodology for driving the structural synthesis process. Taking advantage of the hierarchical organization of the structural system, this research proposes a top-down approach for structural synthesis. Through hierarchical refinement, the approach lends itself to the synthesis of global and local structural solutions. The components required for implementing the proposed methodology are briefly described. The main components have been incorporated in a proof-of-concept prototype that is being tested and validated with actual buildings.
Many construction and facilities management Web sites can be found on the Internet. The interested parties on construction and facilities management Web sites can find databases of best practices, calculators, analyzers, software, expert and decision support systems, neural networks, etc. Technological innovation mainly through changes in the availability of information and communication technology inclusive databases of best practices, calculators, analyzers, software, neural networks, decision support and expert systems that have been provided by a variety of new services developed by the construction and facilities management sectors. Most of all calculators, analyzers, software, decision support and expert systems, neural networks and on-line systems seek to find out how to make the most economic decisions and most of all these decisions are intended only for economic objectives. Alternatives under evaluation have to be evaluated not only from the economic position, but take into consideration qualitative, technical, technological and other characteristics as well. Based on the analysis of the existing calculators, analyzers, information, expert and decision support systems, neural networks and in order to determine most efficient versions of best practices a Decision Support Web-Based System for Construction Innovation (IDSS) was developed by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.
The influence of vortex-induces vibrations on vertical tie rods has been proved as a determinant load factor in the lifetime-oriented dimensioning of arched steel bridges. Particularly, the welded connection plates between the suspenders and the arches often exhibit cracks induced primarily rods. In this context, the synchronization of the vortex-shedding to the rod motion in a critical wind velocity range, the so-called lock-in effect, is of essential interest.
The presented work focuses on the presentation of a discrete event simulator which can be used for automated sequencing and optimization of building processes. The sequencing is based on the commonly used component–activity–resource relations taking structural and process constraints into account. For the optimization a genetic algorithm approach was developed, implemented and successfully applied to several real life steel constructions. In this contribution we discuss the application of the discrete event simulator including its optimization capabilities on a 4D process model of a steel structure of an automobile recycling facility.
This paper presents a specific modeling technique that is focused on preparing planning processes in civil engineering. Planning processes in civil engineering are characterized by some peculiarities so that the sequence of planning tasks needs to be determined for each planning project. Neither the use of optimized partial processes nor the use of lower detailed and optimized processes guarantee an optimal overall planning process. The modeling technique considers these peculiarities. In a first step, it is focused on the logic of the planning process. Algorithms based on the graph theory determine that logic. This approach ensures consistency and logical correctness of the description of a planning process at the early beginning in its preparation phase. Sets of data – the products of engineers like technical drawings, technical models, reports, or specifications – form the core of the presented modeling technique. The production of these sets of data requires time and money. This is expressed by a specific weighting of each set of data in the presented modeling technique. The introduction of these weights allows an efficient progress measurement and controlling of a planning project. For this purpose, a link between the modeling technique used in the preparation phase and the execution phase is necessary so that target and actual values are available for controlling purposes. The present paper covers the description of this link. An example is given to illustrate the use of the modeling technique for planning processes in civil engineering projects.
A simulation system has been developed as a computer aided design tool to evaluate the effect of proposed design on the thermal environment during the designing process. This system calculates outdoor surface temperatures in order to evaluate the thermal impact of a design factor in outdoor space. In this study, the previous heat balance simulation system was improved to predict the surface temperature of a proposed design using 3D-CAD. This system is able to input the complicated outdoor spatial forms efficiently and also to evaluate the surface temperature distribution from any viewpoint.
Effective knowledge management is increasingly considered as a cornerstone of sustainable business success. Knowledge management systems are strategically valuable for both ensuring consistency and continuous improvement of various aspects such as quality delivery, productivity and competitiveness. The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the construction industry are mostly operating under tighter timeframes, narrower profit margins and more constrained resources. Hence the recently commenced SMILE-SMC (Strategic Management with Information Leveraged Excellece for Small and Medium Contractors) project aims to support the information and knowledge management needs of the small and medium contractors in Hong Kong. This paper presents some snapshots on the SMILE-SMC project, and its conceptualized deliverables with some highlights of recent developments.
PKPM series CAD software is an integrated CAD system for building design, which integrated the following parts: architectural design, structural design, building service design and statistic analysis of quantity and budget. These four parts share the same database with high efficiency. Over 80% of design corporation in China are using PKPM series CAD software. The detailed information and some key modules of PKPM series CAD software are mainly introduced in this paper.
This paper is a report of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and its potential applications in the commercial construction industry. RFID technology offers wireless communication between RFID tags and readers with non line-of-sight readability. These fundamental properties eliminate manual data entry and introduce the potential for automated processes to increase project productivity, construction safety, and project cost efficiency. Construction contractors, owners, and material suppliers that believe technology can further develop methods and processes in construction should feel obligated to participate in RFID studies for the advancement of the construction industry as a whole.
This article discusses how the failures of construction projects could be prevented. The focus is on using IT tools in communication. The article is based on the findings of the PROLABproject. The project seeks to find solutions for how the information can effectively be used in project management, specially in construction projects, what kind of procedures help the management of the knowledge and how the obstacles for efficient ways of administrating the information can be removed. These obstacles can be either related to use of new technology or to organization culture. The paper discusses e-mail as a medium of communication with the media richness framework (Fulk & Boyd 1991) based on the interviews done with the participants of construction projects. We found out that the emails were used in both rich way and not so rich way. Obstacles of rich use of IT communication were partly technical and partly psychological. Technology acceptance model (TAM) is used to study the actual use of emails in communication. Obstacles of the use of emails were mostly individual differences like the skills to use the system or external variables like they did not have proper software to open the attachments. Also people talked about information overload. Emails often push too much information. Keywords: IT tools, Communication, Knowledge management, Construction
Available construction time-cost trade-off analysis models can be used to generate trade-offs between these two important objectives, however, their application is limited in large-scale construction projects due to their impractical computational requirements. This paper presents the development of a scalable and multi-objective genetic algorithm that provides the capability of simultaneously optimizing construction time and cost large-scale construction projects. The genetic algorithm was implemented in a distributed computing environment that utilizes a recent standard for parallel and distributed programming called the message passing interface (MPI). The performance of the model is evaluated using a set of measures of performance and the results demonstrate the capability of the present model in significantly reducing the computational time required to optimize large-scale construction projects.
This paper presents a generic methodology for measurement system configuration when the goal is to identify behaviour models that reasonably explain observations. For such tasks, the best measurement system provides maximum separation between candidate models. In this work, the degree of separation between models is measured using Shannon’s Entropy Function. The location and type of measurement devices are chosen such that the entropy of candidate models is greatest. This methodology is tested on a laboratory structure and, to demonstrate generality, an existing fresh water supply network in a city in Switzerland. In both cases, the methodology suggests an appropriate set of sensors for identifying the state of the system.
The problem of data interoperability is now very important. The formal description of construction systems and objects must base upon the modeling for the description of construction data domain. The XML-language was selected as a basis of a universal data format, ensuring natural hierarchy of objects, flexibility, good layout and expandability. The language, developed by the author, is called Building Object Description Extensible Markup Language (bodXML). The types of all objects used by data transfer should be definite beforehand with existing methods of programming. It limits the possibilities of IT in application of new types. But the recipient software must recognize the building objects even if the kind of object is unknown at the outset. The author offers a set of main topological and geometric properties being sufficient for recognition of main three-dimensional building constructions with flat edges. The tests of artificial neuron network have shown that the recognition of a kind of the constructions represented as a set of indicated parameters happens enough confidently.
This paper describes an Internet-enabled software model that could facilitate the development and utilization of nonlinear structural analysis programs. The software model allows users easy access to the analysis core program and the analysis results by using a web-browser or other application programs. In addition, new and legacy codes can be incorporated as distributed services and be integrated with the software framework from disparate sites. A distributed project management system, taking advantages of Internet and database technologies, is implemented to store and manage model information and simulation results. Nonlinear dynamic analysis and simulations of a bridge structure is performed to illustrate the facilities of the Internet-enabled software model.
In recent years, the survey is performed for repair, such as a bridge and a building built in past, spending great expense. And it is anxious for the survey technique that doesn’t need cost and time more. Then, we made an idea of the technique of precise 3D model creation by 2D pictures. However, the technique of performing the improvement in accuracy of convergent photographing and automatic acquisition of corresponding points was not established. Therefore, in this research, we try to obtain a semi-automation of corresponding points acquisition from initial corresponding points and the improvement in accuracy of convergent photographing. Moreover, we applied the research to the used house of Japanese real estate, and the applicable field was selected as the high needs of the residence of 3D model. And we developed the system that everyone could create Web / 3D model house by VRML easily without requiring expensive apparatuses or expertise.
In this research project we intend to transfer the whole AEC-Bidding process to an agent-based virtual marketplace. Hereby, the existing legal regulations have to be considered. Important aspects in developing the virtual marketplace are to provide the possibility to realize an agentbased bidding consortium as well as to integrate subcontractors.
A distributed geotechnical remote analysis of data system (Distributed G-RAD) can benefit both owners and contractors in providing better quality control and assurance on geotechnical projects. The Distributed G-RAD approach involves efficient data acquisition using PDAs with GPS capability, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags for labeling soil samples, laser scanning for measuring lift thickness and volumes of stockpiles and borrow pits. Spatial data storage is provided using a geographic information system (GIS). Portions of this system are already developed while other parts are still being considered. This paper also describes how RFID and laser scanning technologies can be used in the larger Distributed G-RAD system.
This paper presents an agent-based software, Virtual Administrator System (VAS) for the smallscale maintenance of school buildings. VAS is capable of handling a heavy load of routine, lowtech maintenance jobs. It assigns a different priority to each job application according to its significance and urgency, and automatically adjusts schedules for maintenance engineers when on-site supervision is needed. The system can help ease off the burden of routine small-scale maintenance work, making it more cost-effective and efficient in the overall management of school building maintenance. VAS posts jobs on the Web in a multi-media format and classified all applications into four categories: the on-call maintenance contract, the term maintenance contract, the guaranty maintenance contract, and the regular maintenance contract. It then estimates their urgency level and passes the information to maintenance engineers who will decide whether on-site inspection is needed. Based on the engineers’ feedback, VAS automatically implements the scheduling for inspection as well as sends out real-time or batch notifications to contractors. All these activities are recorded in a database to allow continuous research and data mining and the analysis and diagnosis of specific jobs for followup maintenance plans.
The growing competition pressure in the building industry increases the demands on the design and construction processes in respect to economical, technical and time aspects. These demands require efficient improvements of the value-added chain, which can be realized mainly with the usage of innovative information- and communication-technologies. To support the collaboration of all participants involved in a certain building project the Workflow-Management-System “BauKom-Online” has been developed. In the focus of the system is to support the coordination of the participants and their information exchange. Such a software-method is well suited to ensure a high quality planning process. The modelling of business-processes enables a better self-comprehension of the participants work and helps to enhance the project performance. The system architecture of BauKom-Online contains two basic components: the processmodelling tool and the workflow-engine. The process-model contains of activities and states of the planning and construction processes and their relations. These connected processes compose the workflow. Such a process-model for engineering purposes has to satisfy several needs, e.g., the consideration of planning and building alternatives, dynamic changes of the model during execution of the project and the linkage to further technical objects like costs, building structure, specifications and documentmanagement. Furthermore, the scheduling of the project can be done within the process-model and can be visualized as a Gantt-diagram. ...
The paper introduced the research and application of the highway construction management information integrated system. Explained the development and application of highway survey applet run on mobile telephone supporting Java and the technique of transmitting engineering data by GPRS wireless network technology. And expounded the development and application of highway engineering construction field data collecting software run on Pocket-PC. Recommended the technique of engineering long distance data transmitting based on C/S structure adopting VPN (Virtual Private Networks) technology. Especially expatiated on the research on the platform of highway construction management information integrated system adopting geography information system (GIS) technique, database technique and network technique. And said all to subsystem about bid manage, contract management, engineering design drawing, engineering survey calculation, measure and pay, data processing on engineering experiment, quantity assessing, project plan and progress, engineering document management etc. Besides? proposed highway construction project visual analysis and inquiry system based on Web-GIS; Explained the research and application of highway engineering construction OA based on B/S structure; real-time workflow and information processing such as the management of administration, business and procedure of authorization and information distribution. At last, the author described the prospect of the application of C/S and B/S structure in trade software development in the highway construction management.
As a result of the pilot-project “Grundwasser-Online” the supervision and the active controlling of large monitoring- and catchment-areas are realised by a co-operative integration of all related institutions, a synchronisation-process to combine all distributed data into one central server database, and a high-level eGovernment-Service to provide evaluated information over the internet. Based on this software system the local authorities are able to supervise the groundwater-levels and to find adequate decisions, which finally result in official permissions for the usage of groundwater-reservoirs by the water supply companies.
Expert systems integrating fuzzy reasoning techniques represent a powerful tool to support practicing engineers during the early stages of structural design. In this context fuzzy models have proved themselves to be very suitable for the representation of complex design knowledge. However their definition is a laborious task. This paper introduces an approach for the design and the optimization of fuzzy systems based upon Genetic Programming. To keep the emerging fuzzy systems transparent a new framework for the definition of linguistic variables is also introduced.
Digital maps are very easily applied as route guide maps. Route guide maps are provided through Web or a mobile phone services, and demand for such services is increasing. However, the production of a route guide map requires a great deal of time. Therefore, it is difficult for general users to make route guide maps. The purpose of the present research is the development of a system that can generate a route guide map using the Digital Map 2500 (Spatial Data Framework) published by the Geographical Survey Institute. This system will not require advanced equipment or expert knowledge. Therefore, anyone can produce route guide maps easily and quickly. By using the Digital Map 2500, the time and cost required in order to generate a map are reduced. Moreover, a useful route guide map can be created by simplifying the map form based on the human cognitive map.
The purpose of this research is to develop the method to retrieve a building name from the impression of the building. First, the images of the building are registered as database by the questionnaire. Next, the images of the objective building are compared with the degree of matching in image databases, and the building with high synthetic matching degree is retrieved. This system could get a good retrieval result. Moreover, image processing was done, and image databases are trained by neural network from the amount of characteristics of the image, and the retrieval system by image processing was examined.
Business and engineering knowledge in AEC/FM is captured mainly implicitly in project and corporate document repositories. Even with the increasing integration of model-based systems with project information spaces, a large percentage of the information exchange will further on rely on isolated and rather poorly structured text documents. In this paper we propose an approach enabling the use of product model data as a primary source of engineering knowledge to support information externalisation from relevant construction documents, to provide for domain-specific information retrieval, and to help in re-organising and re-contextualising documents in accordance to the user’s discipline-specific tasks and information needs. Suggested is a retrieval and mining framework combining methods for analysing text documents, filtering product models and reasoning on Bayesian networks to explicitly represent the content of text repositories in personalisable semantic content networks. We describe the proposed basic network that can be realised on short-term using minimal product model information as well as various extensions towards a full-fledged added value integration of document-based and model-based information.
Advances in construction data analysis techniques have provided useful tools to discover explicit knowledge on historical databases supporting project managers’ decision making. However, in many situations, historical data are extracted and preprocessed for knowledge discovery based on time-consuming and problem-specific data preparation solutions, which often results in inefficiencies and inconsistencies. To overcome the problem, we are working on the development of a new data fusion methodology, which is designed to provide timely and consistent access to historical data for efficient and effective management knowledge discovery. The methodology is intended to be a new bridge between historical databases and data analysis techniques, which shields project managers from complex data preparation solutions, and enables them to use discovered knowledge for decision making more conveniently. This paper briefly describes the motivation, the background and the initial results of the ongoing research.
The paper describes further developments of the interactive evolutionary design concept relating to the emergence of mutually inclusive regions of high performance design solutions. These solutions are generated from cluster-oriented genetic algorithm (COGAs) output and relate to a number of objectives introduced during the preliminary design of military airframes. The data-mining of multi-objective COGA (moCOGA) output further defines these regions through the application of clustering algorithms, data reduction and variable attribute relevance analyses. A number of visual representations of the COGA output projected onto both variable and objective space are presented. The multi-objective output of the COGA is compared to output from a Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm (SPEA-II) to illustrate the manner in which moCOGAs can generate good approximations to Pareto frontiers.
The methods currently used for scheduling building processes have some major advantages as well as disadvantages. The main advantages are the arrangement of the tasks of a project in a clear, easily readable form and the calculation of valuable information like critical paths. The main disadvantage on the other hand is the inflexibility of the model caused by the modeling paradigms. Small changes of the modeled information strongly influence the whole model and lead to the need to change many more details in the plan. In this article an approach is introduced allowing the creation of more flexible schedules. It aims towards a more robust model that lowers the need to change more than a few information while being able to calculate the important propositions of the known models and leading to further valuable conclusions.
This paper describes a couple of new truss structures based on fractal geometry. One is the famous Sierpinski Gasket and another is a fractal triangle derived by means of applying a process forming leaves of a cedar tree using M. F. Barnsley’s contraction mapping theory. Therefore a pair of x-y coordinates of an arbitrary nodal point on the structures are generated easily if IFS(Iterated Function System) codes and a scale of them are specified. Structural members are defined similarly. Thus data for frame analysis can be generated automatically, which is significant if the objective structure has complex configuration. Next analytical results under vertical and wind loadings in Japanese Building Code are shown. Here members are assumed to be timber and to have cross section of 15cm×15cm. Finally authors conclude that geometrically new truss structures were developed and automatic data generation for frame analysis was attained using IFS. Analytical results show they contribute to saving material when compared it with King-post truss.
Diese erste umfassende Monographie über den Architekten, Professor und Museumsmann Manfred Lehmbruck (Paris 1913 – Stuttgart 1992) konzentriert sich neben dem Lebensweg und den theoretischen Arbeiten Lehmbrucks zum Museumsbau auf die drei realisierten Museumsbauten: das Reuchlinhaus Pforzheim, das Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum Duisburg und das Federseemuseum Bad Buchau. Aber auch die drei anderen bedeutenden Gebäudeensembles, die Pausa AG Mössingen, die Berufsschule und das Stadtbad Stuttgart-Feuerbach und der Solitär der Mittelschule in Mössingen, alle fertiggestellt in den Sechziger Jahren des letzten Jahrhunderts, werden ausführlich besprochen. Das umfassende Werkverzeichnis im Anhang zeigt deutlich den Einfluß, den seine Lehrer, allen voran Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, aber auch Heinrich Tessenow, Paul Bonatz und Auguste Perret, auf die Architektursprache Lehmbrucks gehabt haben.
The process of matching data represented in two different data models is a longstanding issue in the exchange of data between different software systems. While the traditional manual matching approach cannot meet today’s demands on data exchange, research shows that a fully automated generic approach for model matching is not likely, and generic semi-automated approaches are not easy to implement. In this paper, we present an approach that focuses on matching data models in a specific domain. The approach combines a basic model matching approach and a version matching approach to deduce new matching rules to enable data transfer between two evolving data models.
In der täglichen Ingenieurpraxis werden in zunehmenden Maße numerische Analysen im Rahmen der Finite-Elemente-Methode auch zur Untersuchung stabilitätsgefährdeter Strukturen eingesetzt. Für die aktuelle Praxis, insbesondere im konstruktiven Stahlbau, ist jedoch festzustellen, dass zwischen der fortgeschrittenen Theorie und dem Niveau der praktischen Anwendung numerischer Stabilitätsanalysen eine große Kluft besteht. Aus praktischer Sicht erscheint es unumgänglich, die weiter wachsende Diskrepanz zwischen den umfangreichen theoretischen Möglichkeiten und der gegenwärtigen Praxis abzubauen. Damit steht der praktisch tätige Ingenieur vor der Aufgabe, sein Wissen auf dem Gebiet numerischer Stabilitätsanalysen zu vertiefen und bereits vorhandene FE-Programme um Berechnungsalgorithmen für umfassende numerische Stabilitätsanalysen zu erweitern. Dafür werden in der Arbeit die Grundlagen einer FEM- orientierten modernen Stabilitätstheorie einheitlich und aus Sicht einer praktischen Anwendung aufbereitet. Die Darstellung von realisierten programmtechnischen Umsetzungen für erweiterte Analysenmethoden wie Nachbeulanalysen, Pfadwechsel und Approximationen imperfekter Pfade ermöglicht eine Erweiterung des Methodenvorrates. Die innerhalb der Arbeit untersuchten Beispiele zeigen, dass durch die Anwendung der behandelten Verfahren das Tragverhalten einer stabilitätsgefährdeten Struktur wesentlich besser eingeschätzt werden kann als bei Beschränkung auf die herkömmlichen Analysemethoden.
Let the information of a civil engineering application be decomposed into objects of a given set of classes. Then the set of objects forms the data base of the application. The objects contain attributes and methods. Properties of the objects are stored in the attributes. Algorithms which the objects perform are implemented in the methods of the objects. If objects are modified by a user, the consistency of data in the base is destroyed. The data base must be modified in an update to restore its consistency. The sequence of the update operations is not arbitrary, but is governed by dependence between the objects. The situation can be described mathematically with graph theory. The available algorithms for the determination of the update sequence are not suitable when the data base is large. A new update algorithm for large data bases has been developed and is presented in this paper.
The development of a life cycle structured cooperation platform is described, which is based on an integrated process and goal-oriented project model. Furthermore the structure of a life cycle oriented object structure model and its implementation in the platform are documented. The complete conceptual model is described, which represents the basis of a lifecycle -oriented structuring of the planning object and supports the thematic classification of the object and project management data.
Information and Communication Technologies (ITC) in education have been extensively discussed nowadays. In this e-learning scenario, the construction and use of environments that support teaching and learning is a reality. Therefore, for time and general resource savings it is crucial the access to hypermedia contents with great interactivity and with high reusability. Substantial efforts have been centered in the search for a metadata proposal (metadata is a generic term used to describe data that can be used to identify and to describe common characteristics among different documents) that can be standardized and is system independent for the so called learning objects.
The truss model for predicting shear resistance of reinforced concrete beams has usually been criticized because of its underestimation of the concrete shear strength especially for beams with low shear reinforcement. Two challengers are commonly encountered in any truss model and are responsible for its inaccurate shear strength prediction. First: the cracking angle is usually assumed empirically and second the shear contribution of the arching action is usually neglected. This research introduces a nouvelle approach, by using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for accurately evaluating the shear cracking angle of reinforced and prestressed concrete beams. The model inputs include the beam geometry, concrete strength, the shear reinforcement ratio and the prestressing stress if any. ...
Indentation experiments have been carried out over the past century to determine hardness of materials. Modern indentation machines have the capability to continuously monitor load and displacement to high precision and accuracy. In recent years, research interests have focussed on methods to extract material properties from indentation load-displacement curves. Analytical methods to interpret the indentation load-displacement curves are difficult to formulate due to material and geometric nonlinearities as well as complex contact interactions. In the present study, an artificial neural network model was constructed for interpretation of indentation load-displacement curves. Large strain-large deformation finite element analyses were first carried out to simulate indentation experiments. The data from finite element analyses were then used to train the artificial neural network model. The artificial neural network model was able to accurately determine the material properties when presented with load-displacement curves which were not used in the training process. The proposed artificial neural network model is robust and directly relates the characteristics of the indentation loaddisplacement curve to the elasto-plastic material properties.
Preparation and provision of building information for planning within existing built contexts
(2004)
A prerequisite for planning within existing built contexts is precise information regarding the building substance, its construction and materials, possible damages and any modifications and additions that may have occurred during its lifetime. Using the information collected in a building survey the user should be able to “explore” the building in virtual form, as well as to assess the information contained with regard to a specific planning aspect. The functionality provided by an information module should cover several levels of information provision ranging from ‘simple retrieval’ of relevant information to the analysis and assessment of stored information with regard to particular question sets. Through the provision of basic functionality at an elementary level and the ability to extend this using plug-ins, the system concept of an open extendable system is upheld. Using this modular approach, different levels of information provision can be provided as required during the planning process.
In our project, we develop new tools for the conceptual design phase. During conceptual design, the coarse functionality and organization of a building is more important than a detailed worked out construction. We identify two roles, first the knowledge engineer who is responsible for knowledge definition and maintenance; second the architect who elaborates the conceptual design. The tool for the knowledge engineer is based on graph technology, it is specified using PROGRES and the UPGRADE framework. The tools for the architect are integrated to the industrial CAD tool ArchiCAD. Consistency between knowledge and conceptual design is ensured by the constraint checker, another extension to ArchiCAD.
Communication software and distributed applications for control and building performance simulation software must be reliable, efficient, flexible, and reusable. This paper reports on progress of a project, which aims to achieve better integrated building and systems control modeling in building performance simulation by run-time coupling of distributed computer programs. These requirements motivate the use of the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), which offers sufficient advantage than communication within simple abstraction. However, set up highly available applications with CORBA is hard. Neither control modeling software nor building performance environments have simple interface with CORBA objects. Therefore, this paper describes an architectural solution to distributed control and building performance software tools with CORBA objects. Then, it explains how much the developement of CORBA based distributed building control simulation applications is difficult. The paper finishes by giving some recommendations.
Organisational and human issues have been highlighted, among other issues (ICT infrastructures, legal and contractual, etc.), as key elements in enhancing the competitiveness of the construction sector. More specifically, the importance of human resources has been recognised, especially training and professional development, in order to cultivate a stable workforce. The paper provides a review of the key training needs for the construction sector with particular reference to the uptake and exploitation of new technologies and working practices, presents an action plan to address learning and training needs, and proposes an eight-stage iterative learning and training methodology. The results will be of particular interest to managers in stakeholder organisations of all sizes throughout the sector, plus academic and research bodies intending to continue construction ICT research.
Die Bedeutung von klassischen Elementen in virtueller Architektur - Untersucht am Beispiel der Wand
(2004)
Die Dissertation exploriert und evaluiert die Definition einer Entsprechung der architektonischen Kategorie der Wand für virtuelle Architekturen. Es wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit eine architektonische Strukturierung in der virtuellen Architektur fortzuführen ist, um Handlungs- und Kommunikationsstrukturen zu sichern. Der erste Teil motiviert die Arbeit und vermittelt die Grundlagen und Termini, die in einem direkten Zusammenhang mit der virtuellen Architektur verwendet werden. Der folgende Teil konzentriert sich ausschließlich auf die reale Architektur. Ausgehend vom Element der Wand wird, in einer analytischen und architekturtheoretischen Betrachtung, ein Modell von Raumkategorien entwickelt, welches im Hinblick auf die virtuelle Architektur von besonderer Bedeutung ist. Die aus der Analyse gewonnen Erkenntnisse in Form von Raumkategorien werden im dritten Teil aus der realen in die virtuelle Architektur übertragen. Das folgende Kapitel beschreibt drei Experimente, die Fra-gen, Hypothesen und Ansätze aus den vorangegangenen Kapiteln empirisch evaluieren. Im abschließenden Kapitel werden die Erkenntnisse der experimentellen Untersuchung im Kontext des architektonischen Gestaltens von virtuellen Architekturen diskutiert.
This paper describes an approach to support co-operation of experts in heterogeneous geotechnical engineering project environments during both regular execution and handling of exceptional situations. A co-operation platform is introduced which is based on a generalized information model mapping key information about the construction project, the construction process as well as the organization structure. Several tools are provided to operate the information model in a network based environment.
To support research in the building sector and in order to help it move towards a new digital economy, the European Commission under the 5th Framework initiative, especially the IST programme, funded various RTD projects. The opportunity to bring these IST projects together was acknowledged so that stronger links can be created under a clustering umbrella and that, moreover, links of those projects with their RTD environment could be facilitated. This has been the objective of work carried out within the ICCI (IST-2001-33022) Cluster project. This paper introduces the main aims and objectives of the project, and then presents its principal outcomes. In a second part, it synthesises the underlying concepts, technology and tools that will make ICT-based Construction a reality in a near future, and gives recommended actions for the industry, the EC and the Construction ICT R&D in Europe, giving some benefit of this project experience to the three communities.
This ethnographic study reports on emerging work processes and practices observed in the AEC (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) Global Teamwork program, i.e., what people experience when interacting with and through collaboration technologies, why people practice in the way they do, how the practice fits into the environment and changes the work patterns. It presents the experience of two high-performance typical but extreme AEC teamwork cases adopting and adapting to collaboration technologies and how these technologies in practice impact their work processes. The findings illustrate the importance of collaboration technologies in cross-disciplinary, global teamwork. Observations indicate that high performance teams that use the collaboration technologies effectively exhibit collaboration readiness at an early stage and manage to define a “third way” to meet the demands of the cross-disciplinary, multi cultural and geographically distributed AEC workspace. The observations and implications represent the blueprint for yearly innovations and improvements to the design of the AEC Global Teamwork program.
In this Paper, we explored the relation between the electricity consumption in residential sector and the automobile energy consumption in transportation sector in accordance with the location of city by employing Geographic Information System (GIS). We found in the study that the electricity consumption per capita has a tendency that is higher in city center and lower in suburbs in Utsunomiya city. It is also noted that there is little difference among total consumption between city center and suburbs, despite the fact that the density of electric appliances tends to increase in a small size house of city center and the amount of automobile energy consumption from residence is lower in city center than in suburbs.
Development of Urban Land Use Model to Compare Transit-Oriented and Automobile-Oriented Cities
(2004)
This study is an attempt to develop a simple simulation model that can compare the differences between automobile-oriented and transit-oriented cities, and clarify the difference between city forms by transportation modes. Following a theoretical model development, a series of simulation runs are tried. The model allocates people who commute to CBD from residential zones along a transportation corridor. As a result of many simulation analyses, it is shown that automobiles need much more traffic space in comparison with the transit as is shown by the proposed traffic space ratio both in CBD and along the corridor.
Research on Establishment of a Standard of Traffic Impact Assessment with Integrated Database System
(2004)
Planning support systems, such as geographical information system (GIS) and traffic flow simulation models, are widely in use in recent urban planning research. In this paper we propose a method to apply traffic impact assessment (TIA) to large-scale, commercial developments. In TIA research we often encounter the problem of increasing amount of data that is necessary for detailed investigation and analysis, as the scale of commercial developments become larger and more complex. As a result, TIA presents two problems. The first problem is the difficulty of data acquisition. The second problem is the reliability of data. As a solution, we developed an integrated database system.
In the focus of the Bologna-contract of the European secretaries of education the universities are invited to aim a unification and comparability of certificates and to offer compatible and cooperative models of education. Among existing lectures in the Internet there will arise a new competition between the universities in netbased teaching and learning environments. For the use of distributed sources of information and for the possibility to generate free configurable sequences of education modules you need management systems which are able to handle different formats of documents and to assemble it to consistent and valid lessons. Beside elementar viewing-functions, fusion of information also administrative tasks are needed, e.g. automated efficiency controls, adaptive learning surroundings. This paper attends to three aspects: - netbased teaching and learning in the area of the instruction of civil engineers - netbased information assembling and fusion of knowledge bases to higher level documents - netbased learning with international coordinated projects
For the management or reorganisation of existing buildings, data concerning dimensions and construction are necessary. Often these data are given exclusively by paper-based drawings and no digital data such as a computer based product model or even a CAD-model are available. In order to perform mass calculation, damage mapping or a recalculation of the structure these drawings of the building under consideration have to be analysed manually by the engineer. This is a very time-consuming job. In order to close this gap between drawings of an existing building and a digital product model an approach is presented in this paper to digitise a drawing, to build up geometric and topologic models and to recognise construction parts of the building. Finally all recognised parts are transformed into a three-dimensional geometric model which provides all necessary geometric information for the product model. During this import process the semantics of a ground floor plan has to be converted into a 3D-model.
Creation of hierarchical sequence of the plastic and viscoplastic models according to different levels of structure approximations is considered. Developed strategy of multimodel analysis, which consists of creation of the inelastic models library, determination of selection criteria system and caring out of multivariant sequential clarifying computations, is described. Application of the multimodel approach in numerical computations has demonstrated possibility of reliable prediction of stress-strain response under wide variety of combined nonproportional loading.
A large-scale computer modeling and simulation method is presented for environmental flows in urban area. Several GIS and CAD data were used for the preparation of shape model and an automatic mesh generation method based on Delaunay method was developed. Parallel finite element method based on domain decomposition method was employed for the numerical simulation of natural phenomena. The present method was applied to the simulation of flood flow and wind flow in urban area. The present method is shown to be a useful planning and design tool for the natural disasters and the change of environments.
This paper focuses on a new three-level discretisation strategy which enables the transition between continuum/structural (I) and structural/black box modelling (II). The transition (I) is realised by means of a model adaptive concept based on an innovative finite element technology. For transition (II) we apply the truncated balanced realisation method (TBR). The latter represents an established system theoretical model reduction technique which is here combined with a novel substructure technique. The approach provides a modular concept to facilitate the computational analysis of complex structures. The final goal is to apply the strategy to life time estimation.
This paper examines the impact of information technology (IT) utilization on construction firm performance. Based on empirical data collected from 74 US construction firms, the analyses provide evidence that IT has a positive impact on overall firm performance, schedule performance, and cost performance. Firm performance is a composite score of several metrics of performance: schedule performance, cost performance, customer satisfaction, safety performance, and profit. No relationship is found between IT utilization and customer satisfaction, safety, or profit, although this may be due to limitations of the study given strong correlations between IT utilization and cost and schedule performnance. The empirical evidence of positive association between performance and IT use provided by this research is significant to both construction practice and research literature. This evidence should encourage firms to adopt and invest in IT tools.
This paper describes a research project that addresses the difficulties in dealing with regulatory documents such as national and regional codes. These documents tend to be voluminous, heavily cross-referenced, possibly ambiguous and even conflicting at times. There are often multiple documents that need to be consulted and satisfied; however it is a difficult task to locate all of the relevant provisions. In addition, sections dealing with the same or similar conceptual ideas sometimes lay down conflicting requirements. We propose a framework for regulation representation, analysis and comparison with emphasis on the extraction of similarities between provisions. We focus on accessibility regulations, whose intent is to provide the same or equivalent access to a building and its facilities for disabled persons. An XML regulatory repository is developed to extract structural as well as non-structural features from government regulations to help user understanding and computational analysis. A similarity analysis is performed between different sources of regulations. In order to achieve a better comparison between provisions, we employ a combination of feature matching and structural analysis. Results are shown on comparisons between American and European codes, as well as on the domain of electronic-rulemaking.
A/E/C Team members, while collaborating on building projects, rely on past experiences and content through the use of project design archives (whether in paper or digital format). This leads to underutilization of potential knowledge, as decision-making of data, information, and knowledge reuse is limited by access to these archives, due to sheer size and inconvenient presentation. This paper presents an integrated solution that leverages two technologies CoMem (Corporate Memory) and iRoom (interactive Room) developed at Stanford. This addresses critical limitations, i.e., content, context, visualization and interactivity, constraining the process of collaborative exploration towards knowledge reuse and decision-making.
Construction is a conservative industry that over the last twenty ye ars has experienced drastic changes in the way that interdisciplinary teams interact to design and execute a project. In this article we offer a general overview of how the main participants cooperate in the different phases of a construction project, and which are some of the main areas for communication improvement. We also explore the communication tools used in the exchange of information, and identify the main causes of information breakdown. The general framework of this study is of application to both standard and green projects. At the end of the article we discuss the peculiarities of green buildings. Our goal is to offer a series of industry insights derived from the perspective of a general contractor aimed at identifying the areas where contributions in computing and information exchange could have a greater impact on the successful completion of a project.
An important feature of the 2003 SARS outbreak in Canada, Singapore, and Hong Kong was that many health care workers (HCWs) developed SARS after caring for patients with SARS. This has been ascribed to inadequate or ineffective patient isolation. However, it is difficult for dense cities to provide sufficient isolation facilities within a short period of time. This has raised concerns from the public for new strategies in the planning and design of isolation facilities. Considering that SARS or other infectious diseases could seriously damage our society’s development, isolation facilities that could be rapidly and economically constructed with appropriate environmental controls are essential. For this reason, the design team of the Department of Architecture collaborated with a special task force from the Faculty of Medicine, who are the frontline medical officers treating the SARS patients, to design Rapidly Assembled Isolation Patient Wards. Both architecture and medicine are well established disciplines, but they have little in common in terms of the mode of knowledge construction and practice. This induced much intellectual exploration and research interest in conducting this study. The process has provided an important reference for cross disciplinary studies between the architectural and medical domains.
Spatial data acquisition, integration, and modeling for real-time project life-cycle applications
(2004)
Current methods for site modeling employs expensive laser range scanners that produce dense point clouds which require hours or days of post-processing to arrive at a finished model. While these methods produce very detailed models of the scanned scene, useful for obtaining as-built drawings of existing structures, the associated computational time burden precludes the methods from being used onsite for real-time decision-making. Moreover, in many project life-cycle applications, detailed models of objects are not needed. Results of earlier research conducted by the authors demonstrated novel, highly economical methods that reduce data acquisition time and the need for computationally intensive processing. These methods enable complete local area modeling in the order of a minute, and with sufficient accuracy for applications such as advanced equipment control, simple as-built site modeling, and real-time safety monitoring for construction equipment. This paper describes a research project that is investigating novel ways of acquiring, integrating, modeling, and analyzing project site spatial data that do not rely on dense, expensive laser scanning technology and that enable scalability and robustness for real-time, field deployment. Algorithms and methods for modeling objects of simple geometric shape (geometric primitives from a limited number of range points, as well as methods provide a foundation for further development required to address more complex site situations, especially if dynamic site information (motion of personnel and equipment). Field experiments are being conducted to establish performance parameters and validation for the proposed methods and models. Initial experimental work has demonstrated the feasibility of this approach.
For planning in existing built contexts, the building survey is the starting point for initial planning proposals, for the diagnosis and documentation of building damages, for the creation of objectives catalogues, for the detailed design of renovation and conversion measures and for ensuring fulfilment of building legislation, particularly by change of use and refitting. An examination of currently available IT-tools shows insufficient support for planning within existing contexts, most notably a deficit with regard to information capture and administration. This paper discusses the concept for a modular surveying system (basic concept, separation of geometry from semantic data, and separation into sub-systems) and the prototypical realisation of a system for the complete support of the entire building surveying process for existing buildings. The project aims to contribute to the development of a planning system for existing buildings. ...