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- 2004 (128) (remove)
The uniqueness and the long life cycle of buildings imply a dynamically modifiable building model. The technological foundation for the management of digital building models, a dynamic model management system (MMS), developed by our research group, allows to explicitly access and to modify the object model of the stored planning data. In this paper, the integration of constraints in digital building models will be shown. Constraints are conditions, which apply to the instances of domain model classes, and are defined by the user at runtime of the information system. For the expression of constraints, the Constraint Modelling Language (CML) has been developed and will be described in this paper. CML is a powerful, intuitively usable object-oriented language, which allows the expression of constraints at a high semantic level. A constrained-enabled MMS can verify, whether an instance fulfils the applying constraints. To ensure flexibility, the evaluation of constraints is not implicitly performed by the systems, but explicitly initiated by the user. A classification of constraint types and example usage scenarios are given.
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.
The management of resources is an essential task in each construction company. Today, ERP systems and e-Business systems are available to assist construction companies to efficiently organise the allocation of their personnel and equipment within the company, but they cannot provide the company with the idle resources for every single task that has to be performed during a construction project. Therefore, companies should have an alternative solution to better exploit expensive resources and compensate their fixed costs, but also have them available at the right time for their own business activities. This paper outlines the approach taken by the EU funded project “e-Sharing” (IST-2001-33325) to support resource management between construction companies. It will describe requirements for the management of construction resources, its core features, and the integration approach. Therefore, we will outline the approach of an integrated resource type model supporting the management and classification of construction equipment, construction tasks and qualification profiles. The development is based on a cross-domain analysis and evaluation of existing models. ...
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.
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.
Der architektonische Raum wird als ein Medium der Kommunikation im Kontext der >neuen< Medien begriffen, aus der Erkenntnis, dass er schon immer ein Medium war und aus einer komplexen Medienstruktur in Abhängigkeit von anderen Medien besteht. Im Prozess von Handlung und Kommunikation ist der architektonische Raum das Medium, das räumliche Nähe von Individuen über alle Sinne und das Bewusstsein gleichzeitig intensiv ermöglicht. Der architektonische Raum als immersives Kommunikationsmedium erreicht im Zeitalter der >neuen< Medien eine neue Dimension, indem mehr und andere Wirklichkeitsalternativen der Kommunikation zur Verfügung stehen. N. Luhmann folgend, wird die Architektur aus der Sicht der Form/Medium-Differenz systemtheoretisch als strukturierter Möglichkeitsraum betrachtet. Der Raum ist das Medium für Formen des architektonischen Raumes, in dem Architektur überhaupt erst wirksam wird. Umgekehrt sind die Formen des architektonischen Raumes Medien für die Wahrnehmung einer Vielzahl von räumlichen Wirklichkeiten. Eine Fassade aus Stein oder Glas ist gebaute Form und kann als Medium Information kommunizieren. Medien werden ihrer Bestimmung um so besser gerecht, je mehr sie sich der Aufmerksamkeit entziehen und wie transparente Fenster hinter der Oberfläche der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung zurücktreten. Als >unwahrnehmbares< Medium ist der architektonische Raum damit eine hintergründige >Wirkungsmacht<, eine Bühne für die Entfaltung von Wirkung, Atmosphäre und Bewegung. Seine physische Wirklichkeit war schon immer durch virtuelle Wirklichkeiten oder Realitäten entgrenzt, die durch Techniken und Technologien der Simulation als künstliche Welten wahrnehmbar und kommunizierbar werden. Dies kann an tradierten Beispielen der gotischen Kathedrale, dem Panorama, den panoptischen Räumen, dem Theater, Kino oder den kontinuierlichen Räumen von der Moderne bis heute aufgezeigt weren. Virtuelle Räume gotischer Glasbilder oder barocker Decken- und Wandbilder im Medium des architektonischen Raumes sind uns geläufig. Die Immersion, das Eintauchen in diese virtuellen Wirklichkeitsspären löst die Wahrnehmung der eigenen körperlichen Präsenz in ihnen aus. Das Potential des virtuellen Raumes der Architektur besteht im Vergleich zu anderen virtuellen Realitäten von Text, Bild oder digitalen Medien in seiner Gebundenheit an die physische, räumliche Reizstruktur, der er die Eindringlichkeit und Komplexität seiner Wirkung verdankt. Es werden unterschiedliche Wechselwirkungen und gemeinsame Entwicklungen von zeitgenössischen Beispielen der Architektur mit den >neuen< Medien aufgezeigt. In der »sensitiven Wand« wird die physische Raumgrenze durch die Integration neuer Techniken und Technologien digitaler, elektronischer Medien etwas extrem Flexibles und Formbares in Interaktion mit dem Benutzer. Der H2O Pavillon (Oosterhuis und NOX, 1997) ist ein Beispiel dafür. Der ausgeprägt polysensorische Immersionsraum steht für die Einheit von digitaler und architektonischer Simulation. Die metaphorische Welt von Höhle und Quelle des Thermalbades Vals (P.Zumthor, 1996) ist die räumliche Reflexion auf die metaphorische Struktur virtueller Räume der >neuen< Medien. Die simulierte Wirklichkeit in den Medien Wasser, Stein und architektonischer Raum produziert schöpferisch den polysensorischen immersiven Zugang in die virtuellen Welten >authentischer< physischer Umgebung. Das >Sichtbare< im Medium Raum der Architektur ist ohne das >Unsichtbare< nicht zu begreifen bzw. das sinnlich Wahrnehmbare nicht ohne das Unwahrnehmbare. Das Erkennen dieser Relation von Form und Medium ermöglicht die Formulierung des neuen Begriffes des medialen Raumes der Architektur, der zur Basis für eine Medientheorie der Architektur wird, als Sichtweise der Entgrenzung des physischen Raumes durch den virtuellen Raum für die subjektive Wahrnehmung, Handlung und Kommunikation.
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.
The promise of lower costs for sensors that can be used for construction inspection means that inspectors will continue to have new choices to consider in creating inspection plans. However, these emerging inspection methods can require different activities, resources, and decisions such that it can be difficult to compare the emerging methods with other methods that satisfy the same inspection needs. Furthermore, the context in which inspection is performed can significantly influence how well certain inspection methods are suited for a given set of goals for inspection. Context information, such as weather, security, and the regulatory environment, can be used to understand what information about a component should be collected and how an inspection should be performed. The research described in this paper is aimed at developing an approach for comparing and selecting inspection plans. This approach consists of (1) refinement of given goals for inspection, if necessary, in order to address any additional information needs due to a given context and in order to reach a level of detail that can be addressed by an inspection activity; (2) development of constraints to describe how an inspection should be achieved; (3) matching of goals to available inspection methods, and generation of activities and resource plans in order to address the goals; and (4) selection of an inspection plan from among the possible plans that have been identified. The authors illustrate this approach with observations made at a local construction site.
The worldwide growth of communication networks and associated technologies provide the basic infrastructure for new ways of executing the engineering process. Collaboration amongst team members seperated in time and location is of particular importance. Two broad themes can be recognized in research pertaining to distributed collaboration. One theme focusses on the technical and technological aspects of distributed work, while the other emphasises human aspects thereof. The case of finite element structural analysis in a distributed collaboratory is examined in this paper. An approach is taken which has its roots in human aspects of the structural analysis task. Based on experience of how structural engineers currently approach and execute this task while utilising standard software designed for use on local workstations only, criteria are stated for a software architechture that could support collaborative structural analysis. Aspects of a pilot application and the results of qualitative performance measurements are discussed.
As computer programs become ever more complex, software development has shifted from focusing on programming towards focusing on integration. This paper describes a simulation access language (SimAL) that can be used to access and compose software applications over the Internet. Specifically, the framework is developed for the integration of tools for project management applications. The infrastructure allows users to specify and to use existing heterogeneous tools (e.g., Microsoft Project, Microsoft Excel, Primavera Project Planner, and AutoCAD) for simulation of project scenarios. This paper describes the components of the SimAL language and the implementation efforts required in the development of the SimAL framework. An illustration example bringing on-line weather forecasting service for project scheduling and management applications is provided to demonstrate the use of the simulation language and the infrastructure framework.
All construction project are constrained by their schedules, budgets and specifications, and safety and environmental regulations. These constraints made construction management more complex and difficult. At the same time, many historical data that can support the decisions in the future are kept in construction enterprises,. To use the historical data effectively and efficiently, it is essential to apply the data warehouse and data mining technologies. This paper introduces a research which aims to develop a data warehouse system according to the requirements of construction enterprises and use data mining technology to learn useful information and knowledge from the data warehouse system. The design, the development and the application of this system are detailedly introduced in this paper.
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.
The planning of projects in building engineering is a complex process which is characterized by a dynamical composition and many modifications during the definition and execution time of processes. For a computer-aided and network-based cooperation a formal description of the planning process is necessary. In the research project “Relational Process Modelling in Cooperative Building Planning” a process model is described by three parts: an organizational structure with participants, a building structure with states and a process structure with activities. This research project is part of the priority program 1103 “Network-Based Cooperative Planning Processes in Structural Engineering” promoted by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Planning processes in civil engineering can be described by workflow graphs. The process structure describes the logical planning process and can be formally defined by a bipartite graph. This structure consists of activities, transitions and relationships between activities and transitions. In order to minimize errors at execution time of a planning process a consistent and structurally correct process model must be guaranteed. This contribution considers the concept and the algorithms for checking the consistency and the correctness of the process structure.
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.
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.
This paper describes monitoring of the in-valley discharge and underground water level at the place where the tunnel will be constructed and also, the numerical analysis for prediction applying the Tank Model and Linear Filter Method to calculate the prediction. The application of these analyses has actually allowed the change of underground water level to be grasped and more effective information system to be established by comparing the real-time monitoring data with the real-time calculation of prediction.
Information science researchers and developers have spent many years addressing the problem of retrieving the exact information needed and using it for analysis purposes. In informationseeking dialogues, the user, i.e. construction project manager or supplier, often asks questions about specific aspects of the tasks they want to perform. But most of the time it is difficult for the software systems to unambiguously understand their overall intentions. The existence of information tunnels (Tannenbaum 2002) aggravates this phenomenon. This study includes a detailed case study of the material management process in the construction industry. Based on this case study, the structure of a formal user model for information retrieval in construction management is proposed. This prototype user model will be incorporated into the system design for construction information management and retrieval. This information retrieval system is a user-centered product based on the development of a user configurable visitor mechanism for managing and retrieving project information without worrying too much about the underlying data structure of the database system. An executable UML model combined with OODB is used to reduce the ambiguity in the user's intentions and to achieve user satisfaction.
At the start of the conceptual design process, designers start to give tangible form to their thoughts by sketching. This helps with reasoning and communicates ideas to other members of the team. Sketches are gradually worked up into more formal drawings which are then passed to the other stages of the design process. There are however some problems with basing early ideas on sketching. For example, due to their ad-hoc nature, sketches tend only to be diagrammatic representations and so designers cannot be sure that their ideas are feasible and what is being proposed meets the constraints described in the client brief. This can result in designers wasting time working up ideas which prove to be unsuitable. Also the process of constraint checking is complex and time consuming and so designers tend limit their search of possible options and instead choose satisfying rather than good solutions. This paper describes the INTEGRA project which examines the role of sketching in early conceptual design and how this can be linked to other aspects of the process and particularly automated constraint checking using an IT based approach. The focus for the work is the design of framed buildings. A multi-disciplinary approach has been adopted and the work has been undertaken in close collaboration with practising designers and clients.
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.
In the AEC (Architecture / Engineering / Construction) industry a number of individuals and organisations collaborate and work jointly on a construction project. The resulting consortium has large pool of expertise and experience and can be defined as a Virtual Organisation (VO) formed for the duration of the project. VOs are electronically networked organisations where IT and web based communication technology play an important role in coordinating various activities of these organisations. This paper describes the design, development and implementation of a Grid enabled application called the Product Supplier Catalogue Database (PSCD) which supports collaborative working in consortia. As part of the Grid-enabling process, specialised metadata is being developed to enable PSCD to effectively utilise Grid middleware such as Globus and Java CoG toolkits. We also describe our experience whilst designing, developing and deploying the security service of the application using the Globus Security Interface (GSI).