Construction Engineering Commons^™

Implementation Of Integrated Project Delivery On Department Of Navy Military Construction Projects, Christopher S. Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The concept of the project delivery system refers to the overall processes by which a project is designed, constructed, and/or maintained. There are many different types of project delivery systems to fit particular situations involving the owner and his intended project. The project delivery system is what establishes the framework that enables a construction project to be developed and ultimately executed.

The construction industry has observed that projects (both private and public) frequently suffer from factors such as adversarial relationships, low roductivity, high inefficiency and rework, frequent contractual disputes concerning who was at fault, and lack of innovation. Not only …

Bs News July/August

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Bim Collaboration In Student Architectural Technologist Learning, Malachy Mathews

Articles

This paper is the result of a qualitative case study which investigated the influence of building information modelling (BIM) collaboration on the learning of student architectural technologists based around a studio group project. The purpose of the paper is to disseminate knowledge gained into a new learning environment facilitated by the collaborative properties of a BIM application. A qualitative case study approach has been used to undertake the examination of the learners’ experiences during the project. This approach allowed the author to map the complex interaction between the participants during the stages of the collaborative design project. The paper provides …

Seismic Performance Comparison Of A Fixed-Base Versus A Base-Isolated Office Building, Nicholas Reidar Marrs

Master's Theses

The topic of this thesis is base isolation. The purpose of this thesis is to offer a relative understanding of the seismic performance enhancements that a typical 12-story steel office building can achieve through the implementation of base isolation technology. To reach this understanding, the structures of a fixed-base office building and a base-isolated office building of similar size and layout are designed, their seismic performance is compared, and a cost-benefit analysis is completed. The base isolation system that is utilized is composed of Triple Friction Pendulum (TFP) bearings.

The work of this thesis is divided into four phases. First, …

Cal Poly Brocade Challenge 2013, Chandler Morehardt, Alexa Coburn, Juan Silva, Kerry Sun, Greg Wang, Raul Chagoya, Jd Torres

Architectural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Analyzing The Factors That Lead To Housing And Construction Cost Escalation: A Case Study Focused On Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Saleh Alfouzan

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Riyadh city suffers from high housing and construction costs, which have increased by more than 200% over the last 7 years. This problem led to a significant interest from the government and the citizens of the city in understanding the causes of housing and construction cost escalation and the best strategies to address this problem in the short and long-terms, in order to find solutions for affordable housing.

In response to the absence of research regarding this problem, the researcher has decided to conduct a scientific survey about the factors that might have led to this problem in Riyadh. While …

Precast/Prestressed Concrete Truss-Girder For Roof Applications, Peter S. Samir

Department of Construction Engineering and Management: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Steel trusses are the most popular system for supporting long span roofs in commercial buildings, such as warehouses and aircraft hangars. There are several advantages of steel trusses, such as lightweight, ease of handling and erection, and geometric flexibility. However, they have some drawbacks, such as high material and maintenance cost, and low fire resistance. In this paper, a precast concrete truss is proposed as an alternative to steel trusses for spans up to 160 ft. without intermediate supports. The proposed design is easy to produce and has lower construction and maintenance costs than steel trusses. The proposed design is …

Bs News May/June

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Vulnerability Of Progressive Collapse In Reinforced Concrete Flat-Plate Buildings, Jinrong Liu

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

• Progressive collapse is the spread of initial local failure, causing partial or
  even total collapse of a building.
• Flat plate structure is widely used for office and residential buildings.
• There is a large inventory of older flat plate building without continuous slab bottom reinforcement through columns.
• Limited knowledge exists regarding the risk of disproportionate collapse in
  older flat-plates under sudden column removal during abnormal events.
• Reliable mechanical model is needed for structural evaluation.

Developing A Standard Approach To The Value Engineering Process For The Civil Engineering Industry: A Theoretical, Case Study And Industry Perspective., Charles Anthony Mitchell

Conference papers

The original Value Engineering process developed in North America in the late 1940‟s, was primarily based on functional analysis. However; the North American Value Engineering process was not adopted in Europe. Instead various mixed methods were assembled under the umbrella term of Value Management. Nowadays there is much debate about what Value Engineering is and how is it defined? This question arises in part due to there being no standard approach in Europe as a whole in undertaking ValueManagement or Value Engineering exercises.With this in mind, Masters level research was undertaken from three perspectives (theory, case study and industry). The …

Precast Concrete Insulated Wall Panel Corbels Without Thermal Bridging, Mohamed Elkady

Department of Construction Engineering and Management: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The common practice in corbel design is to block out the insulation in order to provide a solid concrete area at the corbel location. This connection practice results in thermal bridging, which significantly reduces the energy performance of the panel. For example, the PCI Design Handbook indicates that the reduction in thermal resistance caused by a solid part with an area equal to 9% of the total panel surface area is as high as 42%. This paper presents a discussion of a new concept for corbel design of insulated wall panels with the thermal break totally preserved. Two different designs …

Assisting A Local Animal Shelter, J. J. Potvin, Jim Strande

Posters

Construction Technology students, JJ Potvin and Jim Strande assisted Pintler Pets, Montana's Anaconda-Deer Lodge Animal Shelter, with its recent major influx of feral cats by constructing a "lean to" addition to the building.

Students Helping Students, Pj Bonney, Tyler Cahoon, Tyson Dippold, Paul Hart, Jj Potvin, Jim Strande, Billy Walker, Keith West

Posters

A Montana Tech student was injured and his home needed to be made wheelchair accessible. Highlands College Construction Technology students designed and constructed an exterior ramp leading to the house as well as interior ramps between levels inside the house.

Restoring The Richard's Cabin - Nevada City Living History Museum, Paul Hart

Posters

Highlands College Historic Preservation student, Paul Hart, enjoyed an internship in which he researched and accurately reconstructed parts of the Richard's Cabin at the Nevada City Living History Museum.

Multi-Objective Time-Cost Optimization Using Cobb-Douglas Production Function And Hybrid Genetic Algorithm, Zhigang Shen, Ashkan Hassani, Qian Shi

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Existing research on construction time-cost tradeoff issues rarely explore the origin of the crashing cost. Crashing cost function was either assumed without much justification, or came from historical data of some real projects. As a result the conclusions of the papers can hardly be used to guide allocations of labor and equipment resources respectively. The authors believe Cobb-Douglas function provides a much-needed piece to modeling the cost functions in the construction time-cost tradeoff problem during the crashing process. We believe this new perspective fills a gap of existing time-cost tradeoff research by considering project duration, labor and equipment cost as …

Quantum Man, Julian Voss-Andreae

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

According to quantum physics, the world is fundamentally quite different than it seems. Drawing inspiration from the underlying nature of reality, former quantum physicist Julian Voss-Andreae created an image of a walking human as a quantum object. Made up of parallel sheets of steel, the sculpture is a metaphor for the counter-intuitive world of quantum physics. Symbolizing the dual nature of matter with the appearance of classical reality on the surface and cloudy quantum behavior underneath, the sculpture seems to consist of solid steel when seen from the front, but dissolves into almost nothing when seen from the side.

Survey Of Suitable Plants For Cal Poly's Green Wall, Katrina Burritt

Horticulture and Crop Science

Green wall technology is a growing industry in the United States and has been very successful for a several years throughout Europe. The objective of this survey was to study the success of several different species of plants on a vertical wall facing south at Cal Poly’s Horticultural Department Unit. At first the focus was aimed at using California native species, because it was thought that natives would be better acclimated to the exposure in this specific location. It became apparent that plants should not be selected for the wall based just on the fact that they are California natives. …

Structural Engineering Students For Haiti: A Student-Run, Student-Initiated Organization For The Benefit Of The Haitian People, Andrew Jimenez, Alex Daddow

Architectural Engineering

On August 2nd 2012, a group of 10 students from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo traveled to Léogâne, Haiti to construct a bell tower for the Saint Rose de Lima Parish. The trip consisted of four days of construction, and three days of touring. The seven days in Haiti were a result of three months of planning by a student-run, student-initiated group called Structural Engineering Students for Haiti, or SESH. The following report documents the planning, execution and lessons learned from this trip. The planning included everything from fund raising to disease prevention. The trip was successful because the bell …

Bs News March/April

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Internships As A Work Placement Option On Quantity Surveying Courses In Light Of The Current Economic Downturn In The Irish Construction Industry, Fiacra P. Mcdonnell

Other Resources

This research examines the concept of internships as a Work Placement option on undergraduate Quantity Surveying courses in light of the economic climate that prevails in Ireland at present. The Irish Construction Industry has experienced unprecedented decline over the last six years, with reduced employment prospects as a result. Graduates on construction related courses are having difficulties sourcing employment, and many feel that they are disadvantaged if they have not experienced work placement as part of their undergraduate course. The benefits of work placement as a mode of learning have been well documented, however this study explores work placement on …

Ua61/3 Health Sciences Complex: Nursing & Physical Therapy, Wku Health & Human Services

WKU Administration Documents

Booklet describing the Medical Center / WKU Health Sciences Complex facility. Floorplans are included.

Wind Loading On Trees Integrated With A Building Envelope, Aly Mousaad Aly, Alberto Zasso, Girma Bitsuamlak, Alberto Nicola Longarini, Arindam Gam Chowdhury

Faculty Publications

With the sustainability movement, vegetated building envelopes are gaining more popularity. This requires special wind effect investigations, both from sustainability and resiliency perspectives. The current paper focuses on wind load estimation on small- and full-scale trees used as part of green roofs and balconies. Small-scale wind load assessment was carried out using wind tunnel testing in a global-effect study to understand the interference effects from surrounding structures. Full-scale trees were investigated at a large open-jet facility in a local-effect study to investigate the wind-tree interaction. The effect of Reynolds number combined with shape change on the overall loads measured at …

Effects Of Reverberation And Noise On Speech Comprehension By Native And Non-Native English-Speaking Listeners, Z. Ellen Peng, Lily M. Wang, Siu-Kit Lau, Adam M. Steinbach

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Previous studies have demonstrated the negative impact of adverse signal-to-noise-ratios on non-native English-speaking listeners' performance on speech recognition using recall tasks, as well as implied that comprehension skills were more impaired than recognition skills under reverberation and noise. The authors have themselves previously conducted a pilot study on three native and three non-native Englishspeaking listeners to examine the effects of reverberation and noise using speech comprehension tasks. Those results suggested that speech comprehension performance is worse under longer reverberation times (RT), and that a longer RT is more detrimental to speech comprehension by non-native listeners than native listeners. This paper …

Acoustic Tweets And Blogs: Using Social Media In An Undergraduate Acoustics Course, Lily M. Wang

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Each fall, the author teaches an undergraduate architectural acoustics course to around 40 third-year architectural engineering students at the University of Nebraska. Beginning in 2011, a social media component was introduced to explore the use of this technology and how it may supplement the students' learning experience. Students were given an opportunity to receive extra credit by using Twitter and/or blogging about course material using a set hashtag (#AE3300) or through the course website. Results were positive, and the author will discuss pros and cons that she has experienced in adding this social media component. Suggestions for future implementations and …

Bs News January/February

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Building Fabric Design : Thermal Performance Standards, Joseph Little

Articles

This is the first of a series of articles using content from the new RIAI Building Fabric Design CPD which explores a range of themes of central importance to designing buildings that are highly energy efficient, genuinely compliant and perform to their design intent and specification. As the articles are short and the themes are often complex, they can be at best a short introduction to the issues raised. In this article we will look at the new minimum building fabric standards: these are far more onerous than much of the Industry understands.

Can We Teach Lean Construction Methods In Schools Of Architecture, Gary Graham

Fall 2012 Faculty Showcase

Traditionally, schools of architecture are not great laboratories to explore the collaborative processes and teamwork that are essential to integrated design and delivery practices as exemplified by Lean Construction. The pre-eminence of the “hero-architect” in the design studio is in direct conflict with methods that can reduce risk and improve the efficiency of the design and construction delivery process. Risk? Efficiency? Delivery Process?... not mention Cost Control, Schedule and Constructability, are foreign concepts to the predominant design studio culture.

Integrated practices and integrated project delivery are clearly “hot” topics in the design and construction industry today. They are a response …

Bs News November/December

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Lifecycle Energy Consumption Prediction Of Residential Buildings By Incorporating Longitudinal Uncertainties, Endong Wang, Zhigang Shen

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Accurate prediction of buildings’ lifecycle energy consumption is a critical part in lifecycle assessment of residential buildings. Longitudinal variations in building conditions, weather conditions and building’s service life can cause significant deviation of the prediction from the real lifecycle energy consumption. The objective is to improve the accuracy of lifecycle energy consumption prediction by properly modelling the longitudinal variations in residential energy consumption model using Markov chain based stochastic approach. A stochastic Markov model considering longitudinal uncertainties in building condition, degree days, and service life is developed: 1) Building’s service life is estimated through Markov deterioration curve derived from actual …

The Current State Of Wireless Information Technology Among Employers Of Bowling Green State University Construction Management Students, Aaron Seymour

Master of Technology Management Plan II Graduate Projects

Successful implementation of wireless technology in the construction industry has the potential to streamline the building process and improve the service that is delivered to the owners of projects. A need exists for improving access and transfer of digital communication and documentation, regardless of the time or location. Recent developing trends in technology promise to introduce efficiencies that were not previously available within the industry. This study seeks to identify the current state of wireless information technology among employers of Bowling Green State University Construction Management students. The research design analyzed quantitative data from a web-based survey that presented results …