Farnaz Sadeghpour

Dynamic Site Layout Planning Using MTPE Principle from Physics

Site layout planning is the task of determining optimum location for construction facilities on the site in order to increase productivity and safety of the project. Most of the existing studies assume all facilities are required for the entire duration of the project which is not a realistic scenario. More advanced studies have proposed dynamic models to reflect the changes in the project requirements over the course of time. They generate optimum layouts for a set of consecutive time intervals. However, combining individually optimized layouts does not necessarily guarantee globally optimum locations for facilities. In addition, forcing facilities to fit in a set of predetermined time intervals can lead to waste of space and inefficient layouts. This research adopts the Minimum Total Potential Energy (MTPE) principle from physics to develop a dynamic planning model which generates layouts that are globally optimized. It assumes construction site to be a physical system in which construction facilities represent particles and the internal forces among particles reflect the closeness constraints between facilities. The total potential energy of the system represents the fitness of the layout for the defined objective function. Based on MTPE principle, the internal forces cause particle to search for a location with lower potential energy until the system reaches equilibrium. The final state of particles represents the minimum total potential energy of the system, which reflects the fittest arrangement for the facilities on the site. A computational example is analyzed to investigate the accuracy of the proposed model and demonstrate its capabilities.

Measuring the Sustainability of Existing Communities Using LEED for Neighbourhood Development (LEED-ND) Rating System

With the increase of awareness on global warming, the interest in creating more sustainable communities is rapidly growing. Sustainable communities promote a lifestyle that is environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. In an effort to promote sustainable communities and provide standard guidelines, the U.S. Green Building Council developed the LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) rating system in 2009 as a tool to evaluate the sustainability of neighborhoods that get newly developed. While this is an important step in promoting sustainable communities, there is no rating system for existing communities. This research investigates the applicability of LEED-ND for assessing the sustainability of existing communities. Two communities in the city of Calgary, Canada, are evaluated using LEED-ND as case studies. The results suggest that LEED-ND provides a suitable evaluation basis, however, modifications are needed to make it fully applicable to existing communities. The paper provides suggestions as to how such modifications can be made.

Real-time accident detection using UWB tracking

Construction industry has one of the highest numbers of fatalities among Canadian industries. Despite ongoing efforts to improve safety through trainings and promoting personal protective equipment (PPE), the number of construction fatalities in Canada is actually on the rise. Studies show that systematically monitoring construction sites and providing immediate feedback to workers are instrumental in improving safety. In particular, close monitoring of the real-time status of moving objects has been shown to improve the safety, productivity and performance on construction sites. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and automation techniques have shown strong potentials for identifying hazards. As a result, automated data collection to monitor the status of the construction sites has received researchers’ attention in recent decades. The objective of this study is to develop a model that prevents the accidents on construction sites using automated real-time location estimations. A model is developed to detect situations that can lead to fall or colliding with moving objects based on proximity of workers to these situations. The system will use the readings from UWB tracking and generates a visualization of the moving objects on the job site in real time. When the possibility of an accident is detected, the system will send an alarm to warn the involved personnel. The functionality and efficiency of the model in detecting accidents is examined. The results of these experiments shed light on the importance of addressing the time delays caused by UWB tracking in actual real-time applications.