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Topic Review
DfD of Concrete Slabs with Mortar Joints
Design for disassembly is currently conducted with costly and time-consuming mechanical joints. Now, mortar joints with much weaker mortar types are proposed for new buildings, enabling easier disassembly by new methods: removal by direct pulling and removal by use of a system of flat jacks. Different weak mortar types were tested in the lab to achieve the properties required to check the transfer of wind loads and the level of resistance to separation during disassembly. Using a modelled case study building, the results showed that weak lime cement-based mortars had the required properties to substitute regular cement-based mortar in joints between slabs and a stabilising wall during a critical wind load. Regarding disassembly, pulling concrete slabs out with a mobile crane would be possible if hydro demolition systems could be implemented to remove parts of the mortar joint beforehand.
  • 1.0K
  • 14 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Barriers to Attracting and Retaining Female Construction Graduates
Ongoing debates exist about making career decisions and increasing women’s representation in male-dominated professions. This is because countless efforts to increase this status quo across various sectors face different barriers.
  • 1.0K
  • 15 Nov 2023
Topic Review
The Causal Factors of Elevator Maintenance
Maintenance is crucial for healthcare facilities in terms of both the continuity of operations and annual costs. Many maintenance issues are associated with design decisions that pave the way for added costs in later lifecycle stages. Some systems, e.g., elevators, are sources of maintenance costs; additionally, elevator outages are significant issues for multi-floor healthcare facilities. Considering the maintainability of elevators from the early design stages helps to highlight potential maintenance issues in later stages. This also assists in mitigating costs by avoiding design decisions that result in future maintenance costs. 
  • 1.0K
  • 23 May 2022
Topic Review
Infrared Thermography in Building Diagnostics and Condition Monitorin
Infrared thermography is a non-destructive technique that uses infrared radiation to visualize surface temperature variations. It is a versatile tool that can be used to detect a variety of problems in buildings, including insulation deficiencies, moisture intrusion, structural compromise, and electrical faults.
  • 1.0K
  • 11 Feb 2024
Topic Review
Multi-Class Defect Detection
Defects in residential building façades affect the structural integrity of buildings and degrade external appearances. Defects in a building façade are typically managed using manpower during maintenance. This approach is time-consuming, yields subjective results, and can lead to accidents or casualties. To address this, we propose a building façade monitoring system that utilizes an object detection method based on deep learning to efficiently manage defects by minimizing the involvement of manpower. The dataset used for training a deep-learning-based network contains actual residential building façade images. Various building designs in these raw images make it difficult to detect defects because of their various types and complex backgrounds.
  • 1.0K
  • 22 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Antimicrobial Technologies for Built Environment
Every year, more than 4 million people are at risk of dying due to acquiring a microbial infection. As per the COVID-19 pandemic, such infections alone increase the cost and burden to the healthcare system. Therefore, mitigating the risk of microbial infection in the built environment is one of the essential considerations in preparedness for future pandemic situations. This is especially important for a dense population within urban cities and for indoor environments with higher concentrations of indoor contaminants due to poorer ventilation. The widely diverse types of built environments in public areas with their varying purpose, design, and surfaces also mean that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution for every space. In order to improve the adoption and consideration of antimicrobial surfaces, the built environment industry and stakeholders could benefit from more in-depth and long-term evaluation of these antimicrobial technologies, which demonstrate their real-time impact on various built environment spaces.
  • 996
  • 19 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Framework for Evaluating the BIM Application Performance
Building information modeling (BIM) is one of the core applications of information technology (IT) in the construction industry. BIM technology builds virtual buildings with geometric information through digital means.
  • 977
  • 11 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Fly Ash-Based Eco-Efficient Concretes
Concrete as a construction material is extensively used in the construction industry, with global annual consumption of approximately 25 billion cubic meters. Such high usage is due to the concrete’s low cost, excellent durability, readily availability of the constituent materials, and capability to be molded into different shapes. Among different constituents of concrete, binder materials are highly important for development of hydration in the microstructure of the concrete.
  • 976
  • 24 Nov 2021
Topic Review
HBIM between Antiquity and Industrial Archaeology
Industrial heritage with secular production activity constitutes a specific field of application to refine digital tools for knowledge within the HBIM (Heritage Building Information Modeling) process. Industrial sites are traditionally linked to the exploitation of local resources, and, not infrequently, are settled by recovering the ruins of ancient buildings and monuments. There is the possibility of creating a diachronic HBIM to investigate a complex industrial heritage, its evolution and production phases, modeling components for this type of architecture, with the deepening of the LOD of BIM (Building Information Modeling) instances applied to machines. The application represents an augmented knowledge process applicable on industrial heritage through modeling instances of machines and industrial processes that would allow regional and transnational cross-sectional studies and the enhancement of fruition and reuse of these sites.
  • 965
  • 01 Feb 2022
Topic Review
BIM-Based Repair History Management for Architectural Heritage
Wooden architectural heritage, which is typically heavily influenced by climatic factors such as temperature and humidity, relies on information contained in records and reports, including past repairs and physical measurements, to analyze the cause of damage and determine potential repair and conservation measures.
  • 964
  • 21 Mar 2024
Topic Review
SRI Gaps and Future Perspectives
In 2018, the European Commission adopted the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) concept in the recast of the directive on the energy efficiency of buildings. The set of SRIs is a measure of the intelligence of buildings systems, and its promotion is expected to contribute to the energy savings of the building sector. T
  • 961
  • 09 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Towards Digital Twin Maintenance Management of Health Facilities
There is no doubt that the use of digital twin (DT) technology can enhance efficiency in carrying out maintenance activities, reduce the downtime of facilities, improve cost savings from the perspective of lifecycle evaluation, and improve the quality of constructed facilities; hence, there is a need for adequate documentation to attain the outcomes as mentioned above and benefits of DT. Therefore, asserts that maintenance documentation is a significant construct for efficient maintenance management and a prerequisite for the adoption of DT in the management of healthcare-constructed facilities in developing countries.
  • 939
  • 03 Jul 2023
Topic Review
3D-Printed Blocks
The building energy balance is strongly influenced by the heat transmission losses through the envelope. This justifies the growing effort to search for innovative and high-performance insulating materials. The 3D printing process, also known as additive manufacturing, is already used in various industrial applications thanks to its ability to realize complex structures with high accuracy. It also represents an emerging and still poorly explored field in the world of “building physics”. 
  • 937
  • 19 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Life Cycle Assessment for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Mitigation
The issue of environmental sustainability is increasingly topical, and one of the most impactful sectors is the construction industry. As stated in the GlobalABC reports, the building sector is the main sector responsible for GHG emissions, generating about 37% of global CO2e emissions.
  • 932
  • 19 Jul 2023
Topic Review
Polish Transition towards Circular Economy
The Polish economy as the sixth largest EU economy, with its GDP per capita amounting to 71% of the EU average in 2018, painfully experiences the e ects of natural resource exhaustion, which includes rising prices and increasing dependence on foreign suppliers. The situation is particularly onerous in construction, which is among the most resource- and energy-consuming economic sectors, and which has already been struggling with severe labor shortages for the past few years. The domestic consumption of raw materials reveals an increasing trend, whose dynamics vary depending on the material group. For instance, between 2015 and 2018 the domestic consumption of non-alloy aluminum went up by 97.7%, plastics by 29.9%, float glass by 28.2%, metallurgical products by ca. 38.0%, wood-based materials (chipboard) by 25.6%, cement by 21.7%, and paper and cardboard by 10.0%, while the construction industry reported an increase as high as 23.2% in construction and assembly outputs. Poland's economy as the sixth largest economy in the EU is painfully experiencing the effects of natural resource depletion, which extend to increasing prices and the growing dependence on foreign suppliers. The concept of the Circular Economy assumes the existence of an industrial economy which is renewable by assumption; its supreme objective is to ensure the effective flow of raw materials, power, labor and information so that it is possible to “rebuild” environmental and human resources.
  • 925
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Integrated Systems of Light Pipes in Buildings
Artificial lighting comprises nearly one-third of the total electrical load of buildings, resulting in significant carbon emissions. Reducing the carbon emissions caused by artificial lighting is one of the ways to achieve low-carbon buildings. To meet the demand for high-efficiency, energy-saving, and comfortable lighting, light pipes are increasingly used in buildings. Sky conditions as a dynamic factor always affect the performance of light pipes. The combination of light pipes and an artificial lighting system can effectively solve this problem. A light pipe can be integrated with a ventilation stack to achieve the ventilation and cooling or heating of a building. A lighting-heating coupled light guide can improve the energy efficiency and sustainability in buildings, such as where antimony tin oxide nanofluid is introduced to absorb additional heat and then provide domestic hot water. The application of a photocatalyst to light pipes can realize air purification and self-cleaning. The use of light pipes does not consume electricity and can reduce the time spent using artificial lighting, thus allowing for power savings. From a whole life cycle perspective, the use of light pipes can be a balance of cost and benefit. In conclusion, such information could be useful for engineers, researchers, and designers to assess the suitability of applying integrated light pipes in different building types and examine the potential of energy and cost savings.
  • 925
  • 26 Feb 2024
Topic Review
Radiant Conditioning Retrofitting for Residential Buildings
In order to achieve Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, a majority of the existing residential building stock in Australia will require retrofitting in favour of energy-efficient solutions.
  • 911
  • 17 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Durability of Inorganic-Matrix Composites
Fabric-reinforced cementitious matrix (FRCM) composites, comprising high-strength fiber textiles embedded within inorganic matrices, represent an effective, cost-efficient, and low-invasive solution for strengthening and retrofitting existing masonry and reinforced concrete structures. Among different textiles employed in FRCM composites, polyparaphenylene benzo-bisoxazole (PBO) textiles are adopted due to their high tensile strength and good adhesion with the matrix. Although several experimental, numerical, and analytical works were performed to investigate the mechanical properties of PBO FRCM composites, limited information is available on their long-term behavior, as well as in the case of exposure to aggressive environments. 
  • 896
  • 02 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Australian Institute of Building
The Australian Institute of Building(AIB) is a professional society founded in 1951, incorporated in 1955 and granted a Royal Charter in 1969. The Institute is an association of building professionals, associate professionals and technicians engaged in building practice, teaching, or research throughout Australia and overseas. It has chapter offices in Hong Kong and Singapore and had a chapter office in New Zealand until the formation of the New Zealand Institute of Building in 1984.
  • 895
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
VR Systems into the Construction Industry
The construction industry is characterized by its diversity and competitiveness, encompassing a wide range of numerous and interconnected operations and materials. These factors have a significant impact on various aspects of society, such as culture, economy, and environment, throughout the entire lifespan of construction projects.
  • 892
  • 07 Jul 2023
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