Modular and Offsite Construction (MOC) Summit Proceedings
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Automatic Estimation System of Building Frames Integrated with Structural Design Information (AutoES)
Get PDFThe project participants, including clients, architects, structural engineers and contractors would want to know accurate construction costs as soon as the design is completed. However, it may take at least several weeks for the cost estimation after the structural design and drawings are completed, depending on the project scale or size. Quantity surveying in manual is time-consuming and taken by lots of effort. Even if computerized software is used, it takes a lot of time to insert structural design information to the software. In addition, the estimated cost may result in inaccurate quantity owing to the drawing errors or quantity surveyors’ mistake, as well as it is not an exact quantity for actual construction, exposing numerous problems at the construction phase. For instance, to accurately estimate the quantity of rebar, some additional effort is required such as preparing the bar bending schedule. Such problems occur by the communication gap and viewpoint difference among project participants who perform structural designs, draft the structural drawings and estimate quantity. But, if structural design information can be automatically received for quantity estimation, an exact quantity can be estimated without omission or errors. To solve those problems, this study proposes automatic estimation System of building frames integrated with structural design information (AutoES). Using the algorithms provided by AutoES, the task of cost estimation can be accomplished with an exact bill of quantity including a bar bending schedule without errors, mistakes, or omission within a week, which used to take at least 4 weeks
Design and Specification Compilation of a Modularized Prefabricated High-rise Steel Frame Structure with Inclined Braces Part II: Elastic-plastic analysis and Joint Design
Get PDFModularized prefabricated steel structure has some obvious advantages, such as fast construction, industrial-scale production and environment-friendliness. Although it has been used for low-rise buildings, its applications in high-rise buildings are quite less. The elastic-plastic time-history analysis under rare earthquake conditions is performed on a 30-floor building. The changing law of the base shear force, the story drift angle, the stress, the damage characteristics, etc. are studied. According to the theoretical analysis, the finite element simulation and the model test, the design methods and the relevant formulas regarding the elastic and elastic-plastic properties of the beam-column connection joints, the column flange joints and the inclined brace joints are proposed in this paper. The control parameters for the structural design are also discussed. This paper provides an important reference for the research and design of the same type of modularized prefabricated high-rise steel structures, and the design method has been compiled into design specification
Analyzing Obstacles and Exploring Opportunities to Improve Modular Industrialized Construction in Lebanon
Get PDFOver the past few decades, modular concrete construction emerged as a viable solution for meeting client requirements in getting an early return on investment, a high quality building, and an economically feasible construction. Precast concrete construction offers several green building benefits such as reducing construction wastes, minimizing site disturbances, and increasing flexibility. Although modular construction has been on the rise in Lebanon, many obstacles stand in the way of reaping more value for customers including technical, logistical, and organizational issues. This research aims at assessing the obstacles for efficient industrialized construction and exploring opportunities for improvement. The study reports results from industry-wide interviews covering all modular precast production companies, the major architects and design professionals, and class-A contracting companies. Findings of the study highlight that technical, logistical, and organizational/ cultural factors form the main obstacles, whereas cost, time, sustainability, and flexibility are the areas of opportunity for implementing efficient industrialized construction and increasing the uptake of precast concrete construction
Productivity-Based Management System for Offsite Manufacturing: Case Study of Noralta Lodge
Get PDFLarge-scale projects entail a zero-tolerance policy in regards to on-time project delivery and project quality. Severe winter conditions in Canada challenge conventional on-site construction activities and raise the risk of project delays and deficiencies. Industrialized (modularized) construction stands as an alternative that provides high quality products in a timely manner. Moreover, modular construction offers manufactured building components in a controlled environment, which ensures that quality standards remain consistent regardless of weather conditions. Once manufactured, modular units are then shipped to the site to be assembled. Two major geographical phases are common in offsite construction: the manufacturing phase, and the on-site installation phase. Consequently, management teams face challenges related to productivity and optimum work sequence in both phases. Traditional project planning and control methods consider the duration of a task as a static entity resulting from the direct relationship between the sizes of the crews on-site and labour productivity. Learning curves, skill-based tasklabour matrices, and resource levelling techniques are factors that imply the dynamic nature of construction tasks; delays in one task may affect other subsequent tasks both directly and indirectly. The Productivity-Based Management System (PBMS) provides opportunities to increase the production rates of task duration, and decrease actual task duration. The proposed research introduces a framework for a PBMS to manage and control the on-site phase of modular construction. In this research, the PBMS is developed, implemented, and then applied to a 1,700- bedroom workforce camp in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada
Modularization Business Case: Process Flowchart and Major Considerations
Get PDFModularization is a well-known method of enhancing project value by exporting a portion of site work to one or more local or distant fabrication or assembly shops/yards. Still, the industry is in need of additional guidance on how to more effectively exploit modularization. To help achieve wider and more effective use of modularization, the researchers and the Construction Industry Institute’s (CII) Research Team 283 develops here a new modularization business case process for developing the modularization drivers (and for determining the degree to which modularization will be implemented). The result is an optimal decision-making process as these drivers are compared with the owner’s objectives and evaluation criteria for cost, schedule, risk and other project objectives. This paper presents this new modularization business case process and lays out the major considerations that pertain to per-project phases. The findings provide guidelines along with a flowchart that should impose rigor on the decision process, helping owners and avoiding poor outcomes
Near Optimum Selection of Module Configuration for Efficient Modular Construction
Get PDFModular construction has received considerable attention in recent years. This has been attributed to its impact on cost and time reduction and improved productivity and quality of constructed facilities. Modular construction can also result in improved safety on construction jobsites and reduced material waste. Most recent work in this field focused cranes selection and location, more suited scheduling methods and issues pertinent to logistics, without due consideration to optimized modules configuration. This paper introduces a newly developed unified modular suitability index to accomplish a near optimum selection of module configuration for efficient modular residential construction. The developed modular suitability index (MSI) utilizes five indices; 1) connections index (CI) that evaluates the module connections using the matrix clustering technique along with the bond energy algorithm, 2) transportation dimensions index (TDI) that accounts for the module dimensions’ effects on transportation, 3) transportation shipping distance index (TSDI) to evaluate the distance between modules fabrication and assembly facility and the project construction site, 4) crane cost penalty index (CCPI) to evaluate the crane cost relevant to the module placing rate, and 5) concrete volume index (CVI) to evaluate the project’s foundation concrete quantities. Calculating the modular suitability index (MSI) provides a unified indicator for the project stakeholders to assess the suitability of different modular configuration and support near optimum modules
Implementation of Prefabrication and Modular Offsite Construction using BIM and Lean Construction Techniques
Get PDFThe construction industry continues to experience productivity rates that lag behind other industries. Additionally, an increasingly competitive market and a decreasing skilled labor pool are challenging construction firms. Prefabrication and offsite modular construction techniques offer alternatives to traditional site-built construction methods that have the potential to provide improved productivity as well as other added benefits. Prefabrication methods, applied effectively, offer results that produce value to the project team. Such value includes improved productivity and efficiency in construction operations, reduced project costs, reduced schedule durations, and improved safety, increased levels of quality and improved sustainability and waste reduction. Currently the implementation of prefabrication and offsite construction techniques on the construction project remains subjective and unstandardized. The aim of this research is to develop a framework that will assist the project team to make decisions regarding the use of prefabrication and modular construction based on factors that have proven to be the most successful in implementing modern methods of construction. The concentration is on emphasizing the use of Building Information Modeling and Lean Construction methods as catalysts to maximize the effectiveness of the use of modular offsite construction. This research is primarily toward the use of prefabrication and modular construction methods for vertical construction and should prove valuable for all project players including Owners, Designers and Constructors. The development of this framework utilizes information compiled through interviews and case studies to develop a proposed framework for implementing prefabrication and off-site modular construction techniques at the project level. The framework will be validated in the future using a Delphi survey to qualitatively generate quantified data on the best methods to implement prefabrication and offsite construction techniques
Front matter, 2015 MOC Summit proceedings
No full textProceedings of the 2015 Modular and Offsite Construction (MOC) Summit held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, May 19 - 21, 2015
Development of Novel Connections for Pre-cast Composite and Pre-cast Concrete Frames
Get PDFIn some applications, the conventional steel pipe racks were encased with concrete to protect the frame from fire. However, the concrete encasing steel is not considered to contribute to structural capacity at all. This paper proposed pipe rack frames encased by precast concrete, but with functions both as a part of structural elements contributing to flexural load bearing capacity and to fire proofing. The new steel-concrete composite structural system consisting of steel, concrete with reinforcements, extended steel plates with bolts designed based on inelastic finite element method provides efficient structural performances, reducing material quantities with the protection from fires. Additionally extended plate with bolts introduced for column-beam joint assembly played important roles in providing moment connections. AISC 358 introduced the use of extended plate similar to the proposed connection. Significant experimental and analytical investigations were performed to verify structural behaviour of the composite frame. Material quantities were also compared to demonstrate economy of the new frames compared with conventional pipe rack frames
Automation of Quantity Take-off for Modular Construction
Get PDFQuantity takeoff, serving as a foundation for the downstream tasks in the construction management, is a repetitive work. However, this process in current practice involves massive manual interventions, which is extremely time consuming and highly error-prone. This is partially due to the fact that incorporating cost breakdown structure formulated according to industry companies’ classification system into BIM still remains a challenge. This study thus exploits a methodology which allows construction practitioners to obtain quantity takeoff in an automatic manner. The main concept is to pre-load the unique classification information into the BIM model such that the quantity of materials in a given BIM model can be extracted and stored into a database (Excel Sheet) automatically in according with the preloaded classification system. Besides this, the unique classification information, along with formulas for derivedquantities, is front-loaded into the Excel Sheet database. As a result, the explicitly extracted quantities are converted by the preloaded formulas to the required format for the purpose of ordering and purchasing. A prototype system is developed based on Autodesk Revit through Revit Application Programming Interface. A case study of a modularized house reveals that a considerable amount of time saving and accuracy increasing of project estimation are achieved as a result of achieving the quantity takeoff automation