Engineering Commons^™

Improving The Sustainability Of The Built Environment By Training Its Workforce In More Efficient And Greener Ways Of Designing And Constructing Through The Horizon2020 Bimcert Project, Barry Mcauley, Avril Behan

Conference papers

The construction industry consumes up to 50% of mineral resources excavated from nature, generates about 33% of CO2 present in the atmosphere and is responsible for 40% of total global energy through both construction and operation of buildings. The realisation that current pervasive construction practices now face globalization, sustainability, and environmental concerns, as well as ever-changing legislation requirements and new skills needed for the information age has resulted in technologies such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) becoming a key enabler in navigating these barriers. To assist in overcoming these barriers, a number of funding initiatives have been put in place …

Centres Of Excellence And Roadmaps For Digital Transition: Lessons For Ireland’S Construction Industry, Barry Mcauley, Alan Hore, Roger West

Conference papers

Like most sectors in today’s working world, construction businesses are challenged to work in an increasingly digitised world with sophisticated demands from intelligent clients. So much has been written about the inefficiencies of the construction industry, its fragmentation, lack of collaboration, low margins, adversarial pricing, poor productivity, financial fragility, lack of research and development, poor industry image and relatively weak use of digital solutions. The Irish government recognises the importance of digital innovation to address many of the challenges the construction industry faces. With recent high profile reports of escalating spend on signature public sector projects and weak productivity performance …

Bim In Ireland 2019: A Study Of Bim Maturity And Diffusion In Ireland, Barry Mcauley, Alan Hore, Roger West

Conference papers

In 2017, the BIM Innovation Capability Programme team applied five macro BIM maturity conceptual models to capture the capability of the Irish construction industry and assess its BIM maturity. The results found that while Ireland is mature for modelling processes, it is less developed with regards to collaboration processes and policies. Ireland also ranked poorly when it came to regulatory frameworks, measurements and benchmarks compared to a number of countries which also applied the same conceptual models. At the time, the findings highlighted that Ireland’s diffusion dynamic was middle out, meaning that larger organisations or industry associations were pushing the …

An Investigation Into Current Procurement Strategies That Promote Collaboration Through Early Contractor Involvement With Regards To Their Suitability For Irish Public Work Projects, Barry Mcauley, Frederic Lefebvre

Conference papers

Previous research has established that multi-disciplinary collaboration will benefit a construction project throughout its lifecycle. While Lean Construction, Building Information Modelling (BIM), and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) can all be viewed as separate processes which add independent value to a project, they are more effective when used in partnership with each other. In order to ensure the high levels of collaboration expected for these processes to work in unison, the early involvement of the Contractor is paramount. Early contractor involvement within the design process can ensure a more focused integrated project team, improvement of both constructability and cost certainty, as …

From Roadmap To Implementation: Lessons For Ireland’S Digital Construction Programme, Barry Mcauley, Alan Hore, Roger West

Conference papers

As part of their Future of Construction initiative in 2018 the World Economic Forum published an action plan to accelerate Building Information Modelling adoption. The WEF report highlighted actions that companies, industry organisations and governments are advised to implement to accelerate BIM adoption and better capitalise on delivering better project outcomes. According the authors of the report BIM is seen as the centrepiece of the construction industry’s digital transformation, however they acknowledged that BIM adoption globally remain slow. Anecdotal experience would suggest that BIM usage in Ireland is also very low and that a similar initiative or an adaptation of …

Delivering Energy Savings For The Supply Chain Through Building Information Modelling As A Result Of The Horizon 2020 Energy Bimcert Project, Barry Mcauley, Avril Behan

Conference papers

The global buildings sector is now responsible for 40% of final energy consumption as well as accounting for 33% of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. This has resulted in a growing urgency to address energy and emissions from buildings and construction, to meet restrictive 2020 targets as specified by the European Union (EU). To achieve these targets a number of funding initiatives have been put in place through Horizon 2020 with a focus on BIM, due to it having the potential to rapidly produce energy outputs that enable design teams to analyse and compare the most cost-effective, energy-efficient options. However, despite …

Modelling The Addition Of Limestone In Cement Using Hydcem, Niall Holmes, Denis Kelliher, Mark Tyrer

Conference papers

Hydration models can aid in the prediction, understanding and description of hydration behaviour over time as the move towards more sustainable cements continues.

HYDCEM is a new model to predict the phase assemblage, degree of hydration and heat release over time for cements undergoing hydration for any w/c ratio and curing temperatures up to 450C. HYDCEM, written in MATLAB, complements more sophisticated thermodynamic models by predicting these properties over time using user-friendly inputs within one code. A number of functions and methods based on up to date cement hydration behaviour from the literature are hard-wired into the code along with …

Hydcem: A New Cement Hydration Model, Niall Holmes, Denis Kelliher, Mark Tyrer

Conference papers

Hydration models are useful to predict, understand and describe the behaviour of different cementitious-based systems. They are indispensable for undertaking long-term performance and service life predictions for existing and new products for generating quantitative data in the move towards more sustainable cements while optimising natural resources. One such application is the development of cement-based thermoelectric applications.

HYDCEM is a new model to predict the phase assemblage, degree of hydration, heat release and changes in pore solution chemistry over time for cements undergoing hydration for any w/c ratio and curing temperatures up to 450C. HYDCEM, written in MATLAB, is aimed at …

Development Of A Framework To Support The Effective Adoption Of Bim In The Public Sector: Lessons For Ireland, Shiyao Kuang, Alan Hore, Barry Mcauley, Roger West

Conference papers

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been formally adopted by many countries with the promise of creating greater economic, social and sustainability benefits. Several authors and institutions have presented alternative BIM policies and tactics which have been adopted by developed countries. However, there is evidence to indicate that BIM adoption theories are not well established and, in particular, the linkage between BIM public sector adoption strategy outcomes and their contribution to achieving Government policy objectives are underdeveloped. This paper will present the outcome of the first phase of a systematic literature review of published studies (including journal papers and noteworthy international …

Influence Of Limit Equilibrium Methods In The Design Of Contiguous Cantilever Sheet Pile Walls Through Reliability-Based Analysis, Alvaro J. Mattos, Juan Camilo Viviescas, Juan Pablo Osorio

Conference papers

In geotechnical engineering the design of bored- pile walls is commonly performed in terms of the embedment length (D) defined according to the limit equilibrium methods (also known as balance methods) formulated by Krey, Blum, Rowe, Hansen and the empirical method of Look in sandy soils. The limit equilibrium methods are calculations associated with the shape of the earth pressures distributions in the shaft, earth pressures theories, geotechnical properties and safety factors, while the empirical criteria establish that the relationship between embedment and the free height (H) is of the order of D/H = 1.5. These design methods are complemented …