• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.177-194
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• 2016

The cable-supported ribbed beam composite slab structure (CBS) is a new type of pre-stressed hybrid structure. The standard construction method of CBS including five steps and two key phases are proposed in this paper. The theoretical analysis and experimental research on a 1:5 scaled model were carried out. First, the tensioning construction method based on deformation control was applied to pre-stress the cables. The research results indicate that the actual tensile force applied to the cable is slightly larger than the theoretical value, and the error is about 6.8%. Subsequently, three support dismantling schemes are discussed. Scheme one indicates that each span of CBS has certain level of mechanical independence such that the construction of a span is not significantly affected by the adjacent spans. It is shown that dismantling from the middle to the ends is an optimal support dismantling method. The experimental research also indicates that by using this method, the CBS behaves identically with the numerical analysis results during the construction and service.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2014

The objective of this study is to assess the requirements of tablet PC-based PMIS applications designed for use on construction sites to determine whether these new programs can play a significant role in increasing the efficiency of a project. In this research, the current market conditions of PMIS running on a tablet PC were analyzed. In addition, two industry surveys were conducted. A research team interviewed some industry experts and identified fourteen useful and desirable functions that can be incorporated into tablet PC-based applications and project management tools. Through a questionnaire survey, the most effective functions for the tablet PC-based PMIS were identified. The three top-rated functions among those suggested were Contact Information for Job-Related Personnel; Receive and Respond to Submittals, RFIs, and Notices; and Problem Solving for Design and Engineering Issues. The results of this research are expected to provide helpful information for mobile application developers and members of other interested groups in the construction industry.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.484-491
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• 2014

Objectives: A radon emission reducing agent was prepared using charcoal and zeolite, and the amount was measured after coating construction materials with the agent. The availability of the radon emission reducing agent was evaluated. Methods: Construction materials (red brick, cement brick, and gypsum board) coated with reducing agent were placed in a chamber to measure radon emissions. The construction materials were coated one through three times. The spread volume for brick and gypsum board was 50 mL and 75 mL per application, respectively. The amount of radon emitted was measured by RAD-7 after 48 hours. Results: The reduction ratio increased with the number of coatings, and the reduction ratios for red brick, cement brick, and gypsum board were 63.3, 73.6, and 58%, respectively, in the case of three coatings of RA-1. The reduction ratios for red brick, cement brick, and gypsum board were 42.8, 58.1, and 26.2%, respectively in the case of three coatings with RA-2. RA-1 was slightly better than RA-2 in radon emission reduction. Conclusions: Radon emissions from construction materials decreased according to the concentration of reducing agent coating, and it was more effective than existing methods.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.1597-1611
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• 2016

A numerical assessment using mesoscale-CFD (computational fluid dynamics) coupled A2C (atmosphere to CFD) model was carried out to analyze the variation of microscopic air flow pattern due to the construction of the Chilgok barrage in the Nakdong River. Scenarios with air flow patterns were classified into pre- and post-construction. The increased width of the river due to the construction of the Chilgok barrage induced obvious changes in moisture and the thermal environment around the river. However, air temperature variation was restricted within an area along the windward side in the numerical assessment. The impact of barrage construction on air temperature tends to be stronger during the nighttime than the daytime. It also stronger during the winter than the summer. In the simulation, the convergence of mesoscale wind is more pronounced after barrage construction than before. This is caused by the change of heat flux pattern induced by the widening of the river. Although this work is a case study with restricted atmospheric stability conditions that has several limitations in the numerical simulations, the impacts of the land-use changes brought about by the construction of the barrage in the river acceptable.

• Atmosphere
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.95-108
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• 2011

The effects of an apartment complex on flow and pollutant dispersion in an urban area are numerically investigated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The CFD model is based on the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations and includes the renormalization group k-${\varepsilon}$ turbulence model. The geographic information system (GIS) data is used as an input data of the CFD model. Eight numerical simulations are carried out for different inflow directions and, for each inflow direction, the effects of an apartment complex are investigated, comparing the characteristics of flow and dispersion before and after construction of the apartment complex in detail. The observation data of automatic weather system (AWS) is analyzed. The windrose analysis shows that the wind speed and direction after the construction of the complex are quite different from those before the construction. The construction of the apartment complex resulted in the decrease in wind speed at the downwind region. It is also shown that the wind speed increased partially inside the apartment complex due to the channeling effect to satisfy the mass continuity. On the whole, the wind speed decreased at the downwind region due to the drag effect by the apartment complex. As a result, the passive pollutant concentration increased (decreased) near the downwind region of (within) the apartment complex compared with that before the construction.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.259-266
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• 2008

In the past, MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) disposal was typically done by recycling, incineration, or landfilling. In South Korea prior to the late 1950's, land burial was usually accomplished by disposal in an open dump. Currently, with increasing concerns and environmental recognition, MSW disposal and landfilling is more restricted. MSW landfill facilities have been developed with certain design and construction specifications. However, these methods have a space for improvement. MSW landfill facilities follow a step wise approach of design, construction, operation and closure management after use in agreement with established environmental and sanitary standards. This study intends to give a technical guidance for installation and consideration of newly established MSW landfill facilities, and also provide an establishment and regular inspection of MSW landfill facilities.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.496-500
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• 2015

International construction projects are inherently more risky than domestic projects with multi-dimensional uncertainties that require complementary risk management at both the country and project levels. However, despite a growing need for systematic country evaluations, most studies have focused on project-level decisions and lack country-based approaches for firms in the construction industry. Accordingly, this study suggests data-driven approaches for evaluating countries using two quantitative models. The first is a two-stage country segmentation model that not only screens negative countries based on country attractiveness (macro-segmentation) but also identifies promising countries based on the level of past project performance in a given country (micro-segmentation). The second is a multi-criteria country segmentation model that combines a firm's business objective with the country evaluation process based on Kraljic's matrix and fuzzy preference relations (FPR). These models utilize not only secondary data from internationally reputable institutions but also performance data on Korean firms from 1990 to 2014 to evaluate 29 countries. The proposed approaches enable firms to enhance their decision-making capacity for evaluating and selecting countries at the early stage of corporate strategy development.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.81-90
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• 2023

Climate change has resulted in increased frequency and intensity of heat waves, which poses a significant threat to the health and safety of construction workers, particularly those engaged in labor-intensive and heat-stress vulnerable working environments. To address this challenge, this study aimed to propose an interpretable machine learning approach for forecasting personal heat strain by considering the cumulative effect of heat exposure as a situational variable, which has not been taken into account in the existing approach. As a result, the proposed model, which incorporated the cumulative working time along with environmental and personal variables, was found to have superior forecast performance and explanatory power. Specifically, the proposed Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) model achieved a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.034 (℃) and an R-squared of 99.3% (0.933). Feature importance analysis revealed that the cumulative working time, as a situational variable, had the most significant impact on personal heat strain. These findings highlight the importance of systematic management of personal heat strain at construction sites by comprehensively considering the cumulative working time as a situational variable as well as environmental and personal variables. This study provided a valuable contribution to the construction industry by offering a reliable and accurate heat strain forecasting model, enhancing the health and safety of construction workers.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.311-317
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• 2011

There is a growing concern in reducing greenhouse gas emissions all over the world. The U.K. has set 34% target reduction of emission before 2020 and 80% before 2050 compared to 1990 recently in Post Copenhagen Report on Climate Change. In practise, Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools have been introduced to construction industry in order to achieve this such as. However, there is clear a disconnection between costs and environmental impacts over the life cycle of a built asset when using these two tools. Besides, the changes in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) lead to a change in the way information is represented, in particular, information is being fed more easily and distributed more quickly to different stakeholders by the use of tool such as the Building Information Modelling (BIM), with little consideration on incorporating LCC and LCA and their maximised usage within the BIM environment. The aim of this paper is to propose the development of a model-based LCC and LCA tool in order to provide sustainable building design decisions for clients, architects and quantity surveyors, by then an optimal investment decision can be made by studying the trade-off between costs and environmental impacts. An application framework is also proposed finally as the future work that shows how the proposed model can be incorporated into the BIM environment in practise.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.869-875
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• 2009

Safety is a big issue in the construction sites. For safe and secure management, tracking locations of construction resources such as labors, materials, machineries, vehicles and so on is important. The materials, machineries and vehicles could be controlled by computer, whereas the movement of labors does not have fixed pattern. So, the location and movement of labors need to be monitored continuously for safety. In general, Global Positioning System(GPS) is an opt solution to obtain the location information in outside environments. But it cannot be used for indoor locations as it requires a clear Line-Of-Sight(LOS) to satellites Therefore, indoor location monitoring system could be a convenient alternative for environments such as tunnel and indoor building construction sites. This paper presents a case study to investigate feasibility of Wi-Fi based indoor location monitoring system in construction site. The system is developed by using fingerprint map of gathering Received Signal Strength Indication(RSSI) from each Access Point(AP). The signal information is gathered by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, which are attached on a helmet of labors to track their locations, and is sent to server computer. Experiments were conducted in a shield tunnel construction site at Guangzhou, China. This study consists of three phases as follows: First, we have a tracking test in entrance area of tunnel construction site. This experiment was performed to find the effective geometry of APs installation. The geometry of APs installation was changed for finding effective locations, and the experiment was performed using one and more tags. Second, APs were separated into two groups, and they were connected with LAN cable in tunnel construction site. The purpose of this experiment was to check the validity of group separating strategy. One group was installed around the entrance and the other one was installed inside the tunnel. Finally, we installed the system inner area of tunnel, boring machine area, and checked the performance with varying conditions (the presence of obstacles such as train, worker, and so on). Accuracy of this study was calculated from the data, which was collected at some known points. Experimental results showed that WiFi-based indoor location system has a level of accuracy of a few meters in tunnel construction site. From the results, it is inferred that the location tracking system can track the approximate location of labors in the construction site. It is able to alert the labors when they are closer to dangerous zones like poisonous region or cave-in..