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The goal of the collaborative research center (SFB 532) >Textile reinforced concrete (TRC): the basis for the development of a new material technology< installed in 1998 at the Aachen University is a complex assessment of mechanical, chemical, economical and productional aspects in an interdisciplinary environment. The research project involves 10 institutes performing parallel research in 17 projects. The coordination of such a research process requires effective software support for information sharing in form of data exchange, data analysis and data archival. Furthermore, the processes of experiment planning and design, modification of material compositions and design parameters and development of new material models in such an environment call for systematic coordination applying the concepts of operational research. Flexible organization of the data coming from several sources is a crucial premise for a transparent accumulation of knowledge and, thus, for a successful research in a long run. The technical information system (TRC-TIS) developed in the SFB 532 has been implemented as a database-powered web server with a transparent definition of the product and process model. It serves as an intranet server with access domains devoted to the involved research groups. At the same time, it allows the presentation of selected results just by granting a data object an access from the public area of the server via internet.
Hyperbolic Qp-scales
(2003)
The Qp-scales were first introduced in [1] as interpolation spaces between the Bloch and Dirichlet spaces in the complex space. ... However, such treatment presents the disadvantage of only considering the Euclidean case. In order to obtain an approach to homogeneous hyperbolic manifolds, the projective model of Gel'fand was retaken in [2]. With the help of a convenient fundamental solution for the hyperbolic (homogeneous of degree ®) D® (see [5]) it was introduced in [7] and [3] equivalent Qp scales for homogeneous hyperbolic spaces. In this talk we shall present and study some properties of this hyperbolic scale.
As it is well known, the approximation theory of complex valued functions is one of the main fields in function theory. In general, several aspects of approximation and interpolation are only well understood by using methods of complex analysis. It seems natural to extend these techniques to higher dimensions by using Clifford Analysis methods or, more specific, in lower dimensions 3 or 4, by using tools of quaternionic analysis. One starting point for such attempts has to be the suitable choice of complete orthonormal function systems that should replace the holomorphic function systems used in the complex case. The aim of our contribuition is the construction of a complete orthonormal system of monogenic polynomials derived from a harmonic function system by using sistematically the generalized quaternionic derivative
Die Bearbeitung von Bauprojekten erfordert ein hohes Maß an Fachwissen verschiedener Disziplinen. Dabei kommt eine Vielzahl spezialisierter Fachmodelle zum Einsatz. Zur Übernahme der Daten von anderen Planern in das eigene, neu zu erstellende Fachmodell sind die verfügbaren Inhalte aus verschiedenen Modellen vom Fachplaner entsprechend seiner Anforderungen anzupassen und um spezifische Inhalte zu ergänzen. Dabei ergeben sich Beziehungen, welche die Zusammenhänge und Abhängigkeiten der Fachmodelle untereinander aufzeigen. Eine zugleich allgemeingültige sowie vollständige Vordefinition des durch die Beziehungen beschriebenen Modellverbundes ist kaum möglich. Zur rechnerinternen Abbildung erfolgt aus diesem Grund eine Zerlegung des Modellverbundes in Partialmodelle und entsprechende Verknüpfungen. Die Beschaffenheit des Beziehungsgeflechtes hängt sowohl von der Qualität der Datenmodelle als auch von der Beschreibungsgüte der Verknüpfungstypen, deren Definition ein hohes Maß an Fachwissen erfordern, ab. Mit einem Konzept zur Strukturierung und Zerlegung der Verbindungen in Basiselemente sowie der Integrationsmöglichkeit zu komplexeren Elementen wird eine einfachere Erstellung, Wartung und Anpassung von umfassenden baufachlichen Inhalten ermöglicht. Zur Sicherung einer hochwertigen Beschreibung des Modellverbundes ist ein an die Fähigkeiten des Ingenieurs ausgerichteter Zugang zur Spezifikation und Anpassung der Beziehungsdefinitionen unverzichtbar.
Iso-parametric finite elements with linear shape functions show in general a too stiff element behavior, called locking. By the investigation of structural parts under bending loading the so-called shear locking appears, because these elements can not reproduce pure bending modes. Many studies dealt with the locking problem and a number of methods to avoid the undesirable effects have been developed. Two well known methods are the >Assumed Natural Strain< (ANS) method and the >Enhanced Assumed Strain< (EAS) method. In this study the EAS method is applied to a four-node plane element with four EAS-parameters. The paper will describe the well-known linear formulation, its extension to nonlinear materials and the modeling of material uncertainties with random fields. For nonlinear material behavior the EAS parameters can not be determined directly. Here the problem is solved by using an internal iteration at the element level, which is much more efficient and stable than the determination via a global iteration. To verify the deterministic element behavior the results of common test examples are presented for linear and nonlinear materials. The modeling of material uncertainties is done by point-discretized random fields. To show the applicability of the element for stochastic finite element calculations Latin Hypercube Sampling was applied to investigate the stochastic hardening behavior of a cantilever beam with nonlinear material. The enhanced linear element can be applied as an alternative to higher-order finite elements where more nodes are necessary. The presented element formulation can be used in a similar manner to improve stochastic linear solid elements.
The conventional way of describing an image is in terms of its canonical pixel-based representation. Other image description techniques are based on image transformations. Such an image transformation converts a canonical image representation into a representation in which specific properties of an image are described more explicitly. In most transformations, images are locally approximated within a window by a linear combination of a number of a priori selected patterns. The coefficients of such a decomposition then provide the desired image representation. The Hermite transform is an image transformation technique introduced by Martens. It uses overlapping Gaussian windows and projects images locally onto a basis of orthogonal polynomials. As the analysis filters needed for the Hermite transform are derivatives of Gaussians, Hermite analysis is in close agreement with the information analysis carried out by the human visual system. In this paper we construct a new higher dimensional Hermite transform within the framework of Quaternionic Analysis. The building blocks for this construction are the Clifford-Hermite polynomials rewritten in terms of Quaternionic analysis. Furthermore, we compare this newly introduced Hermite transform with the Quaternionic-Hermite Continuous Wavelet transform. The Continuous Wavelet transform is a signal analysis technique suitable for non-stationary, inhomogeneous signals for which Fourier analysis is inadequate. Finally the developed three dimensional filter functions of the Quaternionic-Hermite transform are tested with traditional scalar benchmark signals upon their selectivity at detecting pointwise singularities.
On the basis of the little material available (an architecture plan and some photographs) a computer model is developed for a bullet shaped dome, part of the Belgian Congo pavilion, created by the architect Henry Lacoste for the International Colonial Exhibition of 1931 in Paris. The ingenious and elegant wooden skeleton of the dome is approximated in two stages. The first approximation focusses on the curves traced on the dome by the wooden laminae, which appear to be loxodromes, cutting the meridians by a constant angle. In a second approximation the very specific joints of the laminae are taken into consideration. The resulting computer image shows an astonishing resemblance with the photographs. Finally, the shapes and dimensions of all laminae are calculated, enabling a possible reconstruction of the dome.
Die heutige Situation in der Tragwerksplanung ist durch das kooperative Zusammenwirken einer größeren Anzahl von Fachleuten verschiedener Disziplinen (Architektur, Tragwerksplanung, etc.) in zeitlich befristeten Projektgemeinschaften gekennzeichnet. Bei der Abstimmung der hierdurch bedingten komplexen, dynamischen und vernetzten Planungsprozesse kommt es dabei häufig zu Planungsmängeln und Qualitätseinbußen. Dieser Artikel zeigt auf, wie mit Hilfe der Agententechnologie Lösungsansätze zur Verbesserung der Planungssituation erreicht werden können. Hierzu wird ein Agentenmodell für die vernetzt-kooperative Tragwerksplanung vorgestellt und anhand der Planung einer Fußgängerbogenbrücke anschaulich demonstriert. Das Agentenmodell erfasst (1) die beteiligten Fachplaner und Organisationen, (2) die tragwerksspezifischen Planungsprozesse, (3) die zugehörigen (Teil-)Produktmodelle und (4) die genutzte (Ingenieur-)Software. Hieraus leiten sich die drei Teilmodelle (1) agentenbasiertes Kooperationsmodell, (2) agentenbasierte Produktmodellintegration und (3) Modell zur agentenbasierten Software-Integration ab. Der Fokus des Artikels liegt auf der Darstellung des agentenbasierten Kooperationsmodells.
Seit mehr als fünfzig Jahren werden zur Untersuchung der Tragwerkssicherheit auch Methoden der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung herangezogen. Ungeachtet der inzwischen erreichten Fortschritte und der offensichtlichen Vorzüge, konnte dieses Vorgehen in der Praxis bis jetzt noch nicht ausreichend Fuß fassen. Im Beitrag wird das Problem der Tragwerkssicherheit mit einem neuartigen Verfahren behandelt. Im Unterschied zu den üblichen probabilistischen Methoden geht es nicht von Verteilungsfunktionen aus. Vielmehr werden die maßgebenden Zufallsgrößen in den Mittelpunkt gestellt und direkt in die Rechenvorschrift eingeführt. Als mathematisches Hilfsmittel dienen die WIENERschen Chaos-Polynome. Sie stellen im Raum der Zufallsgrößen mit beschränkter Varianz eine Basis dar, mit der sich eine beliebige Zufallsgröße nach orthogonalen Polynomen GAUSSscher Zufallsgrößen entwickeln läßt. So entsteht ein effektiver Formalismus, der sich eng an die herkömmliche Deformationsmethode anlehnt und als deren probabilistische Verallgemeinerung angesprochen werden darf. Die Methode liefert die Grenzzustandsbedingung als Funktion der auf das Tragwerk wirkenden Zufallsgrößen. Die Versagenswahrscheinlichkeit kann daher durch Monte-Carlo-Simulation bestimmt werden. Die mit der Auswertung des Wahrscheinlichkeitsintegrals der First Order Reliability Method (FORM) verbundenen Schwierigkeiten werden vermieden. An einem Beispieltragwerk wird dargestellt, wie sich Veränderungen gewisser Konstruktionsparameter auf die Versagenswahrscheinlichkeit auswirken.
Maxwell's equations can be rewritten in terms of a Dirac operator D+a. The advantage is that in this setting Maxwell's equations are treated as a system of first order differential equations. To ensure the uniqueness of a non-homogeneous differential equation in the whole space additional conditions are needed.
A realistic and reliable model is an important precondition for the simulation of revitalization tasks and the estimation of system properties of existing buildings. Thereby, the main focus lies on the parameter identification, the optimization strategies and the preparation of experiments. As usual structures are modeled by the finite element method. This as well as other techniques are based on idealizations and empiric material properties. Within one theory the parameters of the model should be approximated by gradually performed experiments and their analysis. This approximation method is performed by solving an optimization problem, which is usually non-convex, of high dimension and possesses a non-differentiable objective function. Therefore we use an optimization procedure based on genetic algorithms which was implemented by using the program package SLang...
In modernen Gebäuden nimmt die Komplexität der Heizungstechnik ständig zu. Damit wird es auch immer schwieriger, ein ökologisch und ökonomisch vernünftiges Zusammenspiel der Komponenten zu gewährleisten. Die Vernetzung der verschiedenen Komponenten eines Heizsystems mittels Netzwerktechnik aus der EDV soll helfen, die Energieeffizienz zu erhöhen. Embedded Systems und Mikrocontroller fungieren als Regler für die Teilsysteme. Durch Kommunikation untereinander sollen sie ihr Regelverhalten aneinander anpassen. Eine Internetanbindung ermöglicht die Nutzung weiterer Informationen für die Betriebsführung. Außerdem kann der Internetanschluss für die Fernwartung der Anlage genutzt werden. Mit kleinen, im Webbrowser eines Rechners ausgeführten Java-Programmen, sogenannten Applets, können die Betriebszustände von Heizsystemen in Echtzeit visualisiert werden. Durch das Aufzeichnen von Betriebsdaten wird deren Analyse ermöglicht.
SYSBAT - An Application to the Building ProductionBased on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
(2003)
Our proposed solution is to enable partners of a construction project to share all the technical data produced and handled during the building production process by building a system through the use of internet technology. The system links distributed databases and allows building partners to access remotely and manipulate specific information. It provides an updated building representation that is being enriched and refined all along the building production process. A recent collaboration with Nemetschek France (subsidiary company of Nemetschek AG, AEC CAD software leader) focus on a building product repository available in a web context. The aim is to help building project actors to choose a technical solution that fits its professional needs, and maintain our information system with up to date information. It starts with the possibility to build on line building product catalogs, in order to link Allplan CAD entities with building technical features. This paper presents the conceptual approaches on which our information system is built. Starting from a general organization diagram organization, we focus on the product and the description branches of construction works (including last IFC model specifications). Our aim is to add decisional support to the construction works selection process. To do so, we consider the actor's role upon the system and the pieces of information each one needs to achieve a given task.
The research of the best building design requires a concerted design approach of both structure and foundation. Our work is an application of this approach. Our objective is also to create an interactive tool, which will be able to define, at the early design stages, the orientations of structure and foundation systems that satisfy as well as possible the client and the architect. If the concerns of these two actors are primarily technical and economical, they also wish to apprehend the environmental and social dimensions of their projects. Thus, this approach bases on alternative studies and on a multi-criterion analysis. In this paper, we present the context of our work, the problem formulation, which allows a concerted design of Structure and Foundation systems and the feasible solutions identifying process.
Wahrnehmung und Verarbeitung von Ereignissen bei der verteilten Planung im baulichen Brandschutz
(2003)
Der Bauplanungsprozess ist durch ein hohes Maß an Kooperation zwischen Planungsbeteiligten verschiedener Fachrichtungen gekennzeichnet. Hierbei werden zum einen Planungen auf der Basis von Planungsinformationen anderer Planungsbeteiligter detailliert, zum anderen geben Planungen einzelner auch wichtige Rahmenbedingungen für die Gesamtplanung vor. Der vorliegende Beitrag beschreibt einen Ansatz zur ganzheitlichen Unterstützungen verteilter Planungen am Beispiel des baulichen Brandschutzes. Der Antrag trägt hierbei der verteilten und parallelen Planung Rechnung, wie sie heute bei der Planung großer und mittlerer Bauwerke angewendet wird. Die Verteiltheit wird nicht nur für die Planungsbeteiligten modelliert, sondern auch die einzelnen Planungsinformationen liegen im gemeinsamen Kooperationsverbund verteilt vor. Der Fokus dieses Beitrags liegt auf der Wahrnehmung von Planungsänderungen und Ereignissen während der Planung und die Verarbeitung dieser Informationen um eine durchgängige Planung zu gewährleisten. Dies wird zum einen durch das CoBE Awarenessmodell erreicht, mit dem Ereignisse erkannt und dem Informationsverbund zur Verfügung gestellt werden können. Zum anderen werden die Ereignisbehandlung und die darauf folgende fachgerechte Informationsverarbeitung mit Hilfe eines Multi-Agentensystems beschrieben.
Mobile Software-Agenten für neuartige Funktionen und Nutzeffekte in intelligenten Gebäudesystemen
(2003)
Anwendungsbezogene Software innerhalb vernetzter Gebäude nimmt immer mehr zu. Neue Standards erlauben den einfachen Fernzugriff, um neue Services zu installieren oder um Updates aufspielen zu können. Zu diesem Thema wird der OSGi-Standard vorgestellt, der ein Management von Software während des Betriebs vornehmen kann. Außerdem nimmt die Netzlast der heterogenen Netze innerhalb und zu den Häusern stetig zu. Hier können mobile Softwareagenten ihre Vorteile gegenüber herkömmlichen, statischen Kommunikationsmechanismen hervorheben. Im folgenden Text wird die Integration solcher mobilen Softwareagenten in bestehende Standards intelligenter Häuser beschrieben und anhand des Innovationszentrum Intelligentes Haus Duisburg (www.inhaus-duisburg.de) beispielhaft erläutert. Nach der Einleitung wird in Kapitel 2 der aktuelle Stand der Technik beschrieben. Dabei wird vor allem auf den OSGi-Standard und die Technik der mobilen Softwareagenten eingegangen. Im Kapitel 3 wird stehen vor allem Voranalysen zur Fernwartung, Optimierungen von Regelungen und die Integration dynamischer Netzteilnehmer im Vordergrund, die durch die beschriebenen Mechanismen erleichtert werden. Im Kapitel 4 werden die Ergebnisse kurz zusammengefaßt und einen Ausblick gegeben.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
This paper presents an innovative software platform OpenSTEP intended to build advanced distributed integrated systems and to conduct multidisciplinary collaborative projects in both academy and industry. The paper discusses an open system architecture, methodology, component library and CASE toolkit enabling the developers to build a wide range of interoperable applications and systems compliant with STEP and, particularly, with IFC becoming the increasingly important standard for information integration in architecture, engineering and construction.
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.
This paper presents the combination of two different parallelization environments, OpenMP and MPI, in one numerical simulation tool. The computation of the system matrices and vectors is parallelized with OpenMP and the solution of the system of equations is done with the MPIbased solver MUMPS. The efficiency of both algorithms is shown on several linear and nonlinear examples using the Finite Element Method and a meshless discretization technique.
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.
Civil engineering decision support systems (construction, building life cycle, refurbishment, total quality management, innovation, etc.) created in Lithuania are described in this paper. The above decision support systems comprise of the following constituent parts: data (database and its management system), models (model base and its management system) and a user interface. Presentation of information in databases may be in conceptual (digital, textual, graphical, photographic, video) and quantitative forms. Quantitative information presented involves criteria systems and subsystems, units of measurement, values and initial weight fully defining the variants provided. The databases were developed providing a multiple criteria analysis of alternatives from economical, infrastructure, technical, technological, qualitative, legislative, social and other perspectives. This information is provided in a user-oriented way. Since the analysis of alternatives is usually performed by taking into account economical, infrastructure, technical, technological, qualitative and other factors, a model-base include models which enable a decision maker to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the variants available and make a proper choice. These systems, related questions and practical case study were analysed the paper.
This paper presents an evaluation system for steel structures of hydroelectric power stations, including hydraulic gates and penstocks, based on Fault Tree Analyasis (FTA) and performance maps. This system consists of fault tree diagrams of FTA, performance maps, design and analysis systems, and engineerin databases. These four modules are integrated by appropriate hyperlinks so that the user of this system can use it easily and seamlessly. A well developed system was applied to some illustrative example cases, and they showed that the developed methodology and system worked well and the users found the system useful and effective for their maintenance tasks at powerstations.
Transport problems, as, for instance, the transport of sediment in hydraulic engineering and the transport of harmful substances through porous media, play an important role in many fields of civil engineering. Other examples include the dissipation of heat or sound as well as the simulation of traffic with macroscopic models. The contribution explains the analysis of the applicability of Voronoi-based finite volume methods for the approximation of solutions of transport problems. A special concern is the discretisation of the transport equation. Current limitations of the method as well as ideas for stabilisation are explained with examples.
Analysis System for Bridge Test (Chinese name abbr.: QLJC) is an application software specially designed for bridge test to analyze the static and dynamic character of bridge structures, calculate efficiency ratio of load test, pick up the results of observation points and so on. In this paper, research content, system design, calculation theory, characteristics and practical application of QLJC is introduced in detail.
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 method of the finite elements is an adaptable numerical procedure for interpolation as well as for the numerical approximation of solutions of partial differential equations. The basis of these procedure is the formulation of suitable finite elements and element decompositions of the solution space. Classical finite elements are based on triangles or quadrangles in the two-dimensional space and tetrahedron or hexahedron in the threedimensional space. The use of arbitrary-dimensional convex and non-convex polyhedrons as the geometrical basis of finite elements increases the flexibility of generating finite element decompositions substantially and is sometimes the only way to get a clear decomposition...
In this paper, systematic analyses for the shoring systems installed to support the applied loads during construction are performed on the basis of the numerical approach. On the basis of a rigorous time-dependent analysis, structural behaviors of reinforced concrete (RC) frame structures according to the changes in design variables such as the types of shoring systems, shore stiffness and shore spacing are analyzed and discussed. The time-dependent deformations of concrete such as creep and shrinkage and construction sequences of frame structures are also taken into account to minimize the structural instability and to reach to an improved design of shoring system because these effects may increase the axial forces delivered to the shores. In advance, the influence of the column shortening effect, generally mentioned in a tall building structure, is analyzed. From many parametric studies, it has been finally concluded that the most effective shoring system in RC frame structures is 2S1R (two shores and one reshore) regardless of the changes in design variables.
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...
The paper investigates accuracy of deflection predictions made by the finite element package ATENA and design code methods ACI and EC2. Deflections have been calculated for a large number of experimental reinforced concrete beams reported by three investigators. Statistical parameters have been established for each of the technique at different load levels, separately for the beams with small and moderate reinforcement ratio.
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.
Framed-tube system with multiple internal tubes is analysed using an orthotropic box beam analogy approach in which each tube is individually modelled by a box beam that accounts for the flexural and shear deformations, as well as the shear-lag effects. A simple numerical modeling technique is proposed for estimating the shear-lag phenomenon in tube structures with multiple internal tubes. The proposed method idealizes the framed-tube structures with multiple internal tubes as equivalent multiple tubes, each composed of four equivalent orthotropic plate panels. The numerical analysis is based on the minimum potential energy principle in conjunction with the variational approach. The shear-lag phenomenon of such structures is studied taking into account the additional bending moments in the tubes. A detailed work is carried out through the numerical analysis of the additional bending moment. The moment factor is further introduced to identify the shear lag phenomenon along with the additional moment.
The displacements and stresses in arch dams and their abutments are frequently determined with 20-node brick elements. The elements are distorted near the contact plane between the wall and the abutment. A cantilever beam testbed has been developed to investigate the consequences of this distortion. It is shown that the deterioration of the accuracy in the computed stresses is significant. A compatible 18-node wedge element with linear stress variation is developed as an alternative to the brick element. The shape of this element type is readily adapted to the shape of the contact plane. It is shown that the accuracy of the computed stresses in the vicinity of the contact plane is improved significantly by the use of wedge elements.
The primary objective of initial shape analysis of a cable stayed bridge is to calculate initial installation cable tension forces and to evaluate fabrication camber of main span and pylon providing the final longitudinal profile of the bridge at the end of construction. In addition, the initial cable forces depending on the alternation of the bridge’s shape can be obtained from the analysis, and will be used to provide construction safety during construction. In this research, we conducted numerical experiments for initial shape of Ko-ha bridge, which will be constructed in the near future, using three different typical methods such as continuous beam method, linear truss method, and IIMF (Introducing Initial Member Force) method
The paper presents a general map-based approach to prototyping of products in virtual reality environments. Virtual prototyping of products is considered as a consistent simulation and visualization process mapping the source product model into its target visual representations. The approach enables to interrelate formally the product and visual information models with each other by defining mapping rules, to specify a prototyping scenario as a composition of map instances, and then to explore particular product models in virtual reality environments by interpreting the composed scenario. Having been realized, the proposed approach provides for the strongly formalized method and the common software framework to build virtual prototyping applications. As a result, the applications gain in expressiveness, reusability and reliability, as well as take on additional runtime flexibility...
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.
In current AEC practice client requirements are typically recorded in a building program, which, depending on the building type, covers various aspects from the overall goals, activities and spatial needs to very detailed material and condition requirements. This documentation is used as the starting point of the design process, but as the design progresses, it is usually left aside and changes are made incrementally based on the previous design solution. These incremental small changes can lead to a solution that may no longer meet the original requirements. In addition, design is by nature an iterative process and the proposed solutions often also cause evolution in the client requirements. However, the requirements documentation is usually not updated accordingly. Finding the latest updates and evolution of the requirements from the documentation is very difficult, if not impossible. This process can lead to an end result, which is significantly different from the documented requirements. Some important requirements may not be satisfied, and even if the design process was based on agreed-upon changes in the scope and requirements, differences in the requirements documents and in the completed building can lead to well-justified doubts about the quality of the design and construction process...
The complexity of the relationships between the actors of a building project requires high efficiency in communication. Among other things, data sharing is crucial. The exchange of data is made possible by interfaces between expert programs, which rely on product models. The latter are neutral standards with formal definitions of building objects and their attributes. This paper deals with the state of the art and the research activities concerning product models in the steel construction domain and the advantages provided by this technology for the sector.
The goal of the research is to increase the understanding of dynamic behaviors during the crane operation, and develops computer-aided methods to improve the training of crane operators. There are approximately 125,000 cranes in operation today in the construction industry, responsible for major portion of erection activities. Unfortunately, many accidents occur every year in the U.S. and other countries related to the operation of cranes in construction sites. For example on November 28, 1989 a tower crane collapse during the construction of a building in San Francisco killing four construction workers, one civilian and injuring 28. According to the statistics from Occupational Safety Health Administration (OSHA), there were 137 crane-related fatalities from 1992 to 2001 in the US. A well-known internet website that keeps track of crane-related accidents (craneaccidents.com), reports 516 accidents and 277 fatalities from 2000 to 2002. These statistics show that even though many measures have been taken to decrease the number of crane-related accidents (Braam, 2002), the number of crane related accidents is still very large. It is important to recognize that each construction related fatality is not only a great human loss but also increases the costs of insurance, lawsuits, and the construction budget due to delay of a project (Paulson 1992)...
Physically Based Modeling and Multi-Physical Simulation System for Wood Structure Fire Performance
(2004)
This research is devoted to promoting the performance-based engineering in wood structure fire. It looks into the characteristic of the material, structural composing and collapse detecting to find out the main factors in the wood structure collapse in fire. The aim of the research is to provide an automatic simulation platform for the complicated circulation. A physically based model for slim member for beams and columns and a frame of multi-physical simulation are provided to implement the system. The physically based model contains material model, structural mechanics model, material mechanics model, as well as geometry model for the compositive simulation. The multi-physical simulation is built on the model and has the capacity to carry out a simulation combining structural, fire (thermal, CFD) and material degradation simulation. The structural and fire simulation rely on two sophisticated software respectively, ANSYS (an FEA software) and FDS (with a core of CFD). Researchers of the paper develop system by themselves to combine the two existing ones. The system has the capability to calculate the wood char to find out the loss of cross-section and to detect the collapse caused in different ways. The paper gives a sample of Chinese traditional house to show how this simulation system works.
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.
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.
Buildings require both for construction and, due to their comparatively long life cycle for maintenance, significant raw material and energy resources. So far available knowledge about resource consumption during an entire life cycle of a building is still quite rare, because various criteria affect each other and/or overlay mutually. In this contribution a model based software concept is presented using an integrated approach for life cycle simulation and assessment of buildings. The essential point of the development consists of connecting an IFC compliant product model of a building via the Internet with data bases for the resource and energy requirement of building materials. Furthermore, numerical simulations allow calculating and minimizing the energy consumption, the resource requirement, the waste streams and also the noxious emissions. In the context of this paper we present the first release of software programs for architects and engineers, which help them to evaluate their design decisions objectively in early planning steps. Additionally the usage of the software is demonstrated by a test case study for a real world building. By applying this software in practice a substantial contribution for saving energy and natural resources can be provided in the sense of sustainable and ecological building design.
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.
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.
The goal of the research is the development of a computer system to plan, simulate and visualize erection processes in construction. In the research construction cranes are treated as robots with predefined degrees of freedom and crane-specific motion planning techniques are developed to generate time-optimized and collision-free paths for each piece to be erected in the project. Using inverse kinematics and structural dynamics simulation, the computer system then computes the crane motions and velocities necessary to achieve the previously calculated paths. The main benefits of the research are the accurate planning and scheduling of crane operations leading to optimization of crane usage and project schedules, as well as improving overall crane safety in the project. This research is aimed at the development of systems that will allow computer-assisted erection of civil infrastructure and ultimately to achieve fully-automated erection processes using robotic cranes...
Individual views on a building product of people involved in the design process imply different models for planning and calculation. In order to interpret these geometrical, topological and semantical data of a building model we identify a structural component graph, a graph of room faces, a room graph and a relational object graph as aids and we explain algorithms to derive these relations. The application of the technique presented is demonstrated by the analysis and discretization of a sample model in the scope of building energy simulation.
This paper presents an application of dynamic decision making under uncertainty in planning and estimating underground construction. The application of the proposed methodology is illustrated by its application to an actual tunneling project—The Hanging Lake Tunnel Project in Colorado, USA. To encompass the typical risks in underground construction, tunneling decisions are structured as a risk-sensitive Markov decision process that reflects the decision process faced by a contractor in each tunneling round. This decision process consists of five basic components: (1) decision stages (locations), (2) system states (ground classes and tunneling methods), (3) alternatives (tunneling methods), (4) ground class transition probabilities, and (5) tunneling cost structure. The paper also presents concepts related to risk preference that are necessary to model the contractor’s risk attitude, including the lottery concept, utility theory, and the delta property. The optimality equation is formulated, the model components are defined, and the model is solved by stochastic dynamic programming. The main results are the optimal construction plans and risk-adjusted project costs, both of which reflect the dynamics of subsurface construction, the uncertainty about geologic variability as a function of available information, and the contractor’s risk preference.
Recently, many reseraches on active control systems of building structures are preformed based on modern control theory and are installed real buildings. The authors have already proposed intelligent fuzzy optimal active control (IFOAC) systems. IFOAC systems imitate intelligent activities of human brains such as prediction, adaptation, decision-kaking and so on. In IFOAC systems, objective and subjective judgements on the active control can be taken into account. However, IFOAC systems are considered to be suitable for far-field erathquake and control effect becomes small in case of near-field earthqaukes which include a few velosity pules with large amplitudes. To improve control effect in case of near-souece earthquakes, the authors have also proposed hybrid control (HC) systems, in which IFOAC systems and fuzzy control system are combined. In HC systems, the fuzzy control systems are introduced as a reflective fuzzy active control (RFAC) system and imitates spinal reflection of human. In HC systems, active control forces are activated to buildings in accordance with switching rules on active control forces. In this paper, optimizations on fuzzy control rules in RFAC system and switching rules of active control forces in HC system are performed by Parameter-Free Genetic Algorithms (PfGAs). Here, the optimization is performed by using different earthquake inputs. The results of digital simulations show that the HC system can reduce maximal response displacements under restrictions on strokes of the actuator effectively in case of a near-source earthquake and the effectiveness of the proposed HC system is discussed and clarified.
The processes in the life cycle of buildings are characterised by highly distinct teamwork. The integration of all the distributed working participants, by providing an environment, which especially supports the communication and collaboration between the actors, is a fundamental step to improve the efficiency of the involved processes and to reduce the total costs. In this article, a link based modelling approach and its “intelligent” link management is introduced (1). This approach realises an integration environment based on a special building model that acts as a decision support system. The link-based modelling is characterised by the definition and specialisation of links between partial models. These intelligent managed links enable a very flexible and task specific data access and exchange between all the different views and partial models of the participants.
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.
Integrated structural engineering system usually consists of large number of design objects that may be distributed across different platforms. These design objects need to communicate data and information among each other. For efficient communication among design objects a common communication protocol need to be defined. This paper presents the elements of a communication protocol that uses a mediator agent to facilitate communication among design objects. This protocol is termed the Mediative Communication Protocol (MCP). The protocol uses certain design communication performatives and the semantics of an Agent Communication language (ACL) mainly the Knowledge and Query Manipulation Language (KQML) to implement its steps. Details of a Mediator Agent, that will facilitate the communication among design objects, is presented. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is used to present the Meditative protocol and show how the mediator agent can be use to execute the steps of the meditative communication protocol. An example from structural engineering application is presented to demonstrate and validate the protocol. It is concluded that the meditative protocol is a viable protocol to facilitate object-to-object communication and also has potential to facilitate communication among the different project participants at the higher level of integrated structural engineering systems.
This paper presents results of a study on distributed, or parallel, evolutionary computation in the topological design of steel structural systems in tall buildings. It describes results of extensive experimental research on various parallel evolutionary architectures applied to a complex structural design problem. The experiments were conducted using Inventor 2003, a networkbased evolutionary design support tool developed at George Mason University. First, a general introduction to evolutionary computation is provided with an emphasis on recent developments in parallel evolutionary architectures. Next, a discussion of conceptual design of steel structural systems in tall buildings is presented. Further, Inventor 2003 is briefly introduced as well as its design representation and evolutionary computation characteristics. Next, the results obtained from systematic design experiments conducted with Inventor 2003 are discussed. The objective of these experiments was to qualitatively and quantitatively investigate evolution of steel structural systems in tall buildings during a distributed evolutionary design process as well as to compare efficiency and effectiveness of various parallel evolutionary architectures with the traditional evolutionary design approaches. Two connectivity topologies (ring topology and fully-connected topology) have been investigated for four populations of structural designs evolving in parallel and using various migration strategies. Also, results of the initial sensitivity studies are reported in which two ways of initializing distributed evolutionary design processes were investigated, using either arbitrarily selected designs as initial parents or randomly generated ones. Finally, initial research conclusions are presented.
Change management has been the focus of different IT systems. These IT systems were developed to represent design information, record design rationale, facilitate design coordination and changes. They are largely based on managing reactive changes, particularly design changes, in which changes are recorded and then propagated to the relevant project members. However, proactive changes are hardly dealt with in IT systems. Proactive changes require estimating the likelihood of occurrence of a change event as well as estimating the degree of change impacts on project parameters. Changes in construction projects often result from the uncertainty associated with the imprecise and vague knowledge of much project information at the early stages of projects. This is a major outcome of the case studies carried out as part of this research. Therefore, the proposed model considers that incomplete knowledge and certain project characteristics are always behind change causes. For proactive changes, predicting a change event is the main task for modelling. The prediction model should strive to integrate these main elements: 1) project characteristics that lead to change 2) causes of change, 3) the likelihood of change occurrence, and 4) the change consequences. It should also define the dependency relationships between these elements. However, limited data (documented) are only available from previous projects for change cases and many of the above elements can only be expressed in linguistic terms. This means that the model will simulate the uncertainty and subjectivity associated with these sets of elements. Therefore, a fuzzy model is proposed in this research to capture these elements. The model analyses the impact of each set of elements on the other by assigning fuzzy values for these elements that express the uncertainty and subjectivity of their impact. The main aim is to predict change events and evaluate change effects on project parameters. The fuzzy model described above was developed in an IT system for operational purposes and was designed as a Java package of components with their supporting classes, beans, and files. This paper describes the development and the architecture of the proposed IT system to achieve these requirements. The system is intended to help project teams in dealing with change causes and then the change consequences in construction projects.
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.
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.
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.
This paper presents a new design environment based on Multi-Agents and Virtual Reality (VR). In this research, a design system with a virtual reality function was developed. The virtual world was realized by using GL4Java, liquid crystal shutter glasses, sensor systems, etc. And the Multi-Agent CAD system with product models, which had been developed before, was integrated with the VR design system. A prototype system was developed for highway steel plate girder bridges, and was applied to a design problem. The application verified the effectiveness of the developed system.
A Multi-objective Model for Optimizing Construction Planning of Repetitive Infrastructure Projects
(2004)
This paper presents the development of a model for optimizing resource utilization in repetitive infrastructure projects. The model provides the capability of simultaneous minimization of both project duration and work interruptions for construction crews. The model provides in a single run, a set of nondominated solutions that represent the tradeoff between these two objectives. The model incorporates a multiobjective genetic algorithm and scheduling algorithm. The model initially generates a randomly selected set of solutions that evolves to a near optimal set of tradeoff solutions in subsequent generations. Each solution represents a unique scheduling solution that is associated with certain project duration and a number of interruption days for utilized construction crews. As such, the model provides project planners with alternative schedules along with their expected duration and resource utilization efficiency.
A comprehensive framework of information management system for construction projects in China has been established through extensive literature survey and field investigation. It utilizes the potential information technologies and covers the practical management patterns as well as the major aspects of construction project management. It can be used to guide and evaluate the design of the information management systems for construction projects in order to make the system to be applicable to a wide variety of construction projects and survive the changes in project management.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Many problems related to data integration in AEC can be better tackled by an approach that takes into account the heterogeneity of tasks, models and applications but does not require continuous consistency of the evolving design data, at each data management operation. Such an approach must incorporate adequate services that can facilitate reintegration of concurrently modified data at reasonably selected coordination points. In this paper we present a set of methods which, used in combination, can achieve that goal. After a description of the principal envisaged cooperative work scenario each of these methods is discussed in detail and current observations drawn from their software realisation are given. Whilst the suggested approach is valid for any EXPRESS-based data model, the practical focus of work has been on facilitating IFC-driven integration.
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 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 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.
Efforts to define standards for representing AEC/FM data have been fairly successful. However defining a standard reference process model has not met with the same success. Yet almost every conceptual modelling or software development project starts by defining the business processes to be supported and the related requirements to be satisfied. This paper describes a new process-centred methodology for user requirements capture developed in the ICCI project (IST-2001-33022). Its essence is in recognising user requirements and use cases in the context of the real construction process, identifying the actors and roles for each individual activity and associating these activities with information, communication and standardisation requirements on the basis of a formalised specification, named the Process Matrix. In the paper we outline the history of process matrix development, introduce the basic structure of the matrix and show how it can be further extended and refined. We present also a web-based software implementation of the developed approach, describe how it has been used in ICCI and outline further perspectives.
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.
The construction industry is a project-based business bringing together many different organisations to complete a desired goal. The strategic use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has enabled this goal to be completed more effectively. Two issues require addressing, the technology itself and the implementation factors of the technology. Such implementation factors should consider, among other factors, the legal and contractual issues associated with the use of ICT, training requirements and its effects on the organisational culture. To date the legal and contractual issues have not been extensively covered, and it is recognised that the technologies have not been properly covered by any recognised legal and contractual practices. This in turn is threatening to inhibit the growth and prosperity of the use of the technology on construction projects. This paper discusses these legal and contractual issues and describes methods and tools that can be used to enable the growth of technology to be used in a legal and contractually valid 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.
The research reported in this article was conducted to mainly explore the two common numeric prediction techniques, the model tree and the regression tree, when used in conjunction with bagging as a wrapper method. Bagging is used to improve the prediction accuracy of these two algorithms, and results are compared with the ones obtained earlier by the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm. From the conducted experiments, both the bagged regression tree and bagged model tree produce better results than not only their corresponding regression tree and model tree alone, but also the KNN with optimal value of k equal to 7. In addition, the bagged model tree yields the lowest prediction errors and a highest correlation coefficient of 0.81. It is demonstrated that it is feasible to use the bagged model tree for engineering applications in prediction problems such as estimating the remaining service life of bridge decks.
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
This paper reports on the latest results in the development of a new approach for simulating the thermal behavior of buildings that overcomes the limitations of conventional heat-transfer simulation methods such as FDM and FEM. The proposed technique uses a coarse-grain approach to model development whereby each element represents a complete building component such as a wall, internal space, or floor. The thermal behavior of each coarse-grain element is captured using empirical modeling techniques such as artificial neural networks (ANNs). The main advantages of the approach compared to conventional simulation methods are: (a) simplified model construction for the end-user; (b) simplified model reconfiguration; (c) significantly faster simulation runs (orders of magnitude faster for two and three-dimensional models); and (d) potentially more accurate results. The paper demonstrates the viability of the approach through a number of experiments with a model of a composite wall. The approach is shown to be able to sustain highly accurate longterm simulation runs, if the coarse-grain modeling elements are implemented as ANNs. In contrast, an implementation of the coarse-grain elements using a linear model is shown to function inaccurately and erratically. The paper concludes with an identification of on-going work and future areas for development of the technique.
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.
Collaborative Design Processes: A Class on Concurrent Collaboration in Multidisciplinary Design
(2004)
The rise of concurrent engineering in construction demands early team formation and constant communication throughout the project life cycle, but educational models in architecture, engineering and construction have been slow to adjust to this shift in project organization. Most students in these fields spend the majority of their college years working on individual projects that do not build teamwork or communication skills. Collaborative Design Processes (CDP) is a capstone design course where students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Florida learn methods of collaborative design enhanced by the use of information technology. Students work in multidisciplinary teams to collaborate from remote locations via the Internet on the design of a facility. An innovation of this course compared to previous efforts is that students also develop process designs for the integration of technology into the work of multidisciplinary design teams. The course thus combines both active and reflective learning about collaborative design and methods. The course is designed to provide students the experience, tools, and methods needed to improve design processes and better integrate the use of technology into AEC industry work practices. This paper describes the goals, outcomes and significance of this new, interdisciplinary course for distributed AEC education. Differences from existing efforts and lessons learned to promote collaborative practices are discussed. Principal conclusions are that the course presents effective pedagogy to promote collaborative design methods, but faces challenges in both technology and in traditional intra-disciplinary training of students.
Re-using knowledge in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firms can lead to greater competitive advantage, improved designs, and more effective management of constructed facilities. This paper discusses the importance of exploration and discovery of reusable knowledge from a corporate archive as opposed to simple search and retrieval. We describe and illustrate through a scenario of use an exploration framework and prototype, CoMemTM that formalizes the added value of exploration in the process of knowledge reuse. We discuss two exploration activities: (i) Breadth- Only overview exploration that assist a user to rapidly localize pockets of re-usable knowledge from the large corporate archive and (ii) Iterative breadth-depth exploration that enables a user to identify those re-usable components of the Corporate Memory that may yield design issues that were not originally considered.
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.
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.
We present a software prototype for fluid flow problems in civil engineering, which combines essential features of Computational Steering approaches with efficient methods for model transfer and high performance computing. The main components of the system are described: - The modeler with a focus on the data management of the product model - The pre-processing and the post-processing toolkit - The simulation kernel based on the Lattice Boltzmann method - The required hardware for real-time computing
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 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.
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.
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. ...
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.
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.
Complex gridshell structures used in architecturally ambitious constructions remain as appealing as ever in the public realm. This paper describes the theory and approach behind the software realisation of a tool which helps in finding the affine self-weight geometry of gridshell structures. The software tool DOMEdesign supports the formal design process of lattice and grid shell structures based upon the laws of physics. The computer-aided simulation of suspension models is used to derive structurally favourable forms for domes and arches subject to compression load, based upon the input of simple architectonic parameters. Irregular plans, three-dimensional topography, a choice different kinds of shell lattice structures and the desired height of the dome are examples of design parameters which can be used to modify the architectural design. The provision of data export formats for structural dimensioning and visualisation software enables engineers and planners to use the data in future planning and to communicate the design to the client.
Building activities in the construction industry in Germany increasingly concentrate on building measures in or involving the existing built environment. Before planning can begin, buildings must be surveyed in whole or in part with the surveying of geometric data playing a dominant role. The geometric survey is typically undertaken using geodetic or photogrammetric measuring techniques and equipment that have been adapted for use in building surveying. Accordingly appropriate technical knowledge is required in order to be able to operate them as well as a considerable financial investment. Such equipment and surveying methods are usually adaptations from other disciplines. The paper discusses and presents approaches to developing “new” equipment for building surveying, devised with the needs of building surveying in mind – redesigns or new designs for surveying tools. The designs are the result of an inter-disciplinary project between the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Product Design at the Bauhaus Universität Weimar.