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Cutting-Edge Technologies To Achieve A Higher Level Of Modular Construction – Literature Review, Seungtaek Lee, Jin Ouk Choi, Seung Song Jun 2022

Cutting-Edge Technologies To Achieve A Higher Level Of Modular Construction – Literature Review, Seungtaek Lee, Jin Ouk Choi, Seung Song

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Cost overruns, schedule delays, and a shortage of skilled labor are common problems the construction industry is currently experiencing. Modularization and standardization strategies have the potential to resolve the various problems mentioned above and have been applied for various construction applications for a long time. However, the level of modularization remains low, and modular construction projects have not been getting the full benefits. Thus, this review investigated the cutting-edge technologies currently being utilized to develop the modular construction field. For this paper, qualified research papers were identified using predetermined keywords from previous related research papers. Identified literature was then filtered …


Applications Of Agent-Based Modeling (Abm) In Enhancing Facility Operation And Management, Ali Khodabandelu, Jee Woong Park Jun 2022

Applications Of Agent-Based Modeling (Abm) In Enhancing Facility Operation And Management, Ali Khodabandelu, Jee Woong Park

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Agent-based modeling (ABM), as a relatively new simulation technique, has recently gained in popularity in the civil engineering domain due to its uniquely advantageous features. Among many civil engineering applications, ABM has been applied to facility operation and management, such as energy consumption management, as well as the enhancement of maintenance and repair processes. The former studies used ABM to manage energy consumption through simulating human energy-related behaviors and their interactions with facilities, as well as electrical, heating, and cooling systems and appliances, while the latter used ABM to enhance maintenance process through facilitating coordination, negotiation, and decision making between …


An Agent-Based Framework For Investigating Safety-Productivity Tradeoff Of Construction Laborers Considering Risk-Taking Behavioral Heterogeneity, Ali Khodabandelu, Jee Woong Park, Seyedmohsen Kheyrandish Jun 2022

An Agent-Based Framework For Investigating Safety-Productivity Tradeoff Of Construction Laborers Considering Risk-Taking Behavioral Heterogeneity, Ali Khodabandelu, Jee Woong Park, Seyedmohsen Kheyrandish

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Construction laborers and crews play a critical role in achieving a safe and productive construction site. Many past research studies used top-down approaches/perspectives for studying the impact of laborers' performance on overall construction site outputs with limited flexibility in accounting for laborers' various characteristics. However, the recent reap in computational advances allowed applications of bottom-up architectures, which can potentially incorporate heterogeneous characteristics of laborers' individual behavioral and decision-making features effectively. Accordingly, agent-based modeling (ABM), as a tool to leverage a bottom-up methodological approach, has been widely adopted by recent research. Existing literature investigated the influence of changes in laborers' behaviors …


Steel Module-To-Concrete Core Connection Methods In High Rise Modular Buildings: A Critical Review, Bishal Poudel, Seungtaek Lee, Jin Ouk Choi Jun 2022

Steel Module-To-Concrete Core Connection Methods In High Rise Modular Buildings: A Critical Review, Bishal Poudel, Seungtaek Lee, Jin Ouk Choi

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Modularization in a high-rise building is different from a small building, as it is exposed to more lateral forces like wind and earthquakes. The integrity, robustness, and overall stability of the modules and their performance is based on the joining techniques and strong structural systems. High lateral stiff construction structures like concrete shear walls and frames, braced steel frames, and steel moment frames are used for the stability of high-rise modular buildings. Similarly, high-rise stick-built buildings have concrete cores and perimeter frames for lateral load strength and stiffness. Methods for general steel-concrete connections are available in many works of literature. …


The Current State And Future Directions Of Industrial Robotic Arms In Modular Construction, Seung Ho Song, Jin Ouk Choi, Seungtaek Lee Jun 2022

The Current State And Future Directions Of Industrial Robotic Arms In Modular Construction, Seung Ho Song, Jin Ouk Choi, Seungtaek Lee

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Industrial robotic arms are widely adopted in numerous industries for manufacturing automation under factory settings, which eliminates the limitations of manual labor and provides significant productivity and quality benefits. The U.S. modular construction industry, despite having similar controlled factory environments, still heavily relies on manual labor. Thus, this study investigates the U.S., Canada, and Europe-based leading modular construction companies and research labs implementing industrial robotic arms for manufacturing automation. The investigation mainly considered the current research scope, industry state, and constraints, as well as identifying the types and specifications of the robotic arms in use. First, the study investigated well-recognized …


Lessons Learned During The Early Phases Of A Modular Project: A Case Study Of Unlv's Solar Decathlon 2020 Project, Jin Ouk Choi, Seungtaek Lee, Eric Weber Jun 2022

Lessons Learned During The Early Phases Of A Modular Project: A Case Study Of Unlv's Solar Decathlon 2020 Project, Jin Ouk Choi, Seungtaek Lee, Eric Weber

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

The U.S. Department of Energy conducts the Solar Decathlon competition as a student-based achievement that encourages sustainable design with energy efficiency and solar energy technologies. In the 2020 competition, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) team designed, fabricated, and constructed a net-zero modular house that applies innovative and highly efficient building technologies. This paper focused on the lessons learned during the early phases of this ongoing modular project. The research methodology included obtaining feedback from key project participants using a well-structured questionnaire. The results showed that the major items/challenges in the project’s planning phase included selecting the modular size, …


Analysis Of A Long Volumetric Module Lift Using Single And Multiple Cranes, Ali Khodabandelu, Jee Woong Park, Jin Ouk Choi, Mahsa Sanei Jun 2022

Analysis Of A Long Volumetric Module Lift Using Single And Multiple Cranes, Ali Khodabandelu, Jee Woong Park, Jin Ouk Choi, Mahsa Sanei

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Industrialized and modular construction is a growing construction technique that can transfer a large portion of the construction process to off-site fabrication yards. This method of construction often involves the fabrication, pre-assembly, and transportation of massive and long volumetric modules. The module weight keeps increasing as the modules become more complete (with infill) to minimize the work at the site and, as higher productivity can be achieved at the fabrication shop. Thus, a volumetric module delivery gets more challenging and risky. Despite its importance, past research paid relatively insufficient attention to the problem related to the lifting of heavy modules. …


Long-Term Wildfire Reconstruction: In Need Of Focused And Dedicated Pre-Planning Efforts, William S. Harris, Jin Ouk Choi, Jaewon Lim, Yong-Cheol Lee Jun 2022

Long-Term Wildfire Reconstruction: In Need Of Focused And Dedicated Pre-Planning Efforts, William S. Harris, Jin Ouk Choi, Jaewon Lim, Yong-Cheol Lee

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Wildfire disasters in the United States impact lives and livelihoods by destroying private homes, businesses, community facilities, and infrastructure. Disaster victims suffer from damaged houses, inadequate shelters, inoperable civil infrastructure, and homelessness coupled with longterm recovery and reconstruction processes. Cities and their neighboring communities require an enormous commitment for a full recovery for as long as disaster recovery processes last. State, county, and municipal governments inherently have the responsibility to establish and provide governance and public services for the benefit and well being of community members. Municipal governments’ comprehensive and emergency response plans are the artifacts of planning efforts that …


Evaluating The Behaviour Of Centrally Perforated Unreinforced Masonry Walls: Applications Of Numerical Analysis, Machine Learning, And Stochastic Methods, Mohsen Khaleghi, Javid Salimi, Visar Farhangi, Mohammad Javad Moradi, Moses Karakouzian May 2022

Evaluating The Behaviour Of Centrally Perforated Unreinforced Masonry Walls: Applications Of Numerical Analysis, Machine Learning, And Stochastic Methods, Mohsen Khaleghi, Javid Salimi, Visar Farhangi, Mohammad Javad Moradi, Moses Karakouzian

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

The presence of openings greatly affects the response of unreinforced masonry (URM) walls. This topic greatly attracts the attention of many researchers. Perforated unreinforced masonry (PURM) walls under in-plane loads through the truss discretization method (TDM) along with several machine learning approaches such as Multilayer perceptron (MLP), Group of Method Data Handling (GMDH), and Radial basis function (RBF) are described in this paper. A new method named Multi-pier (MP) that is fast and accurate, is used to determine the behavior of PURM walls. The results of the MP method are expressed as a ratio of lateral load-bearing capacity and initial …


Flow Characteristics Through Granular Soil Influenced By Saline Water Intrusion: A Laboratory Investigation, Sudip Basack, Ghritartha Goswami, Hadi Khabbaz, M Karakouzian May 2022

Flow Characteristics Through Granular Soil Influenced By Saline Water Intrusion: A Laboratory Investigation, Sudip Basack, Ghritartha Goswami, Hadi Khabbaz, M Karakouzian

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

The coastal geoenvironment initiates saline water intrusion into the freshwater aquifers, producing a geohydraulic problem. Such intrusion not only contaminates the fresh groundwater resources, making them unsuitable for human use, but also alters the hydraulic conductivity of the aquifer materials, which affects the coastal groundwater flow, influencing the water resources planning and management. Past investigations reveal that the groundwater flow can be linear or nonlinear depending upon the hydraulic gradient. Thus, the coefficients of nonlinear hydraulic conductivities are affected by saltwater intrusion. The present study focuses on an in-depth laboratory investigation into the influence of saltwater submergence on the nonlinear …