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Topic Review
GIS and BIM and HBIM Integration
3D virtual management is a topic of growing interest. The AEC industry is undergoing a real revolution because of the technological changes that are taking place. Synchronized 3D visualization is one of the tools being deployed at an accelerated pace. This, together with collaborative work, contributes to optimal management for all stakeholders. The integration of geographic information systems and building information modeling and heritage building information modeling (BIM) is one of the most innovative concepts; it enables the generation of collaborative, fluid systems. 
  • 1.4K
  • 09 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Water Treatment Residues and Methanogenic Activity in Wastewater-Sludge
The effect of adding alum water treatment residues (WTR) on the methanogenic activity in the digestion of primary domestic wastewater sludge was evaluated through laboratory experiments in sedimentation columns, using total suspended solids (TSS) concentrations from 0.37 to 1.23 g/L. The addition of WTR to primary clarifiers can benefit its effluent water quality in terms of colour, turbidity, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and TSS. However, the presence of WTR can negatively influence the production of methane gas during organic sludge digestion in primary clarifiers, for concentrations of TSS between 14.43 and 25.23 g/L and of VSS between 10.2 and 11.85 g/L. The activity of the Methanothrix sp., curved bacilli, methanococci, and Methanosarcina sp. decreases considerably after 16 days of anaerobic digestion, and methane production seems to only be associated with fluorescent methanogenic bacilli.
  • 1.4K
  • 17 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Cooling Loads of Buildings and Shading Devices
It is estimated that almost 40% of the world’s energy is consumed by buildings’ heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. This consumption increases by 3% every year and will reach 70% by 2050 due to rapid urbanisation and population growth. In Darwin, building energy consumption is even higher and accounts for up to 55% due to the hot and humid weather conditions. Singapore has the same weather conditions but less energy consumption, with only 38% compared to Darwin. Solar radiation can be defined as electromagnetic radiation emitted by the Sun and the Darwin area receives a large amount of solar radiation. Windows that are capable of blocking excessive radiation can improve the cooling load of a building. In contrast, windows and other façades with high transmission values can increase the cooling load
  • 1.4K
  • 19 Apr 2022
Topic Review
MOC and Wood as a Composite Building Material
Magnesium oxychloride cement (MOC) is one of the alternatives, also known as Sorel cement, this type of cement is formed by the reaction of light burned MgO with MgCl2 water solution.
  • 1.4K
  • 28 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Finite Element Modelling and Updating of Cable-Stayed Bridges
Finite element (FE) model updating is a well-recognised approach for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) purposes, as an accurate model serves as a baseline reference for damage detection and long-term monitoring efforts. One of the many challenges is the development of the initial FE model that can accurately reflect the dynamic characteristics and the overall behaviour of a bridge. Given the size, slenderness, use of long cables, and high levels of structural redundancy, precise initial models of long-span cable-stayed bridges are desirable to better facilitate the model updating process and to improve the accuracy of the final updated model. To date, very few studies offer in-depth discussions on the modelling approaches for cable-stayed bridges and the methods used for model updating. As such, this article presents the latest advances in finite element modelling and model updating methods that have been widely adopted for cable-stayed bridges, through a critical literature review of existing research work.
  • 1.4K
  • 24 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Ventilation System
An additional window frame with a ventilation function is applied to the existing window. Thus, when the window is closed, a cavity, which is created between window frames, serves as an air path for ventilation. The additional frame has the same material and finishing as the existing frame, thereby ensuring design consistency. On the outside, the frame does not show any application of the mechanical system. Another advantage of the proposed system is that, as the width is 65 mm, it occupies as small an area as possible and minimally affects the view from the inside. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a generally used material for windows, is used for the ventilation system, and this system is formed in a "U"-shape consistent with the existing window frame. This system can be attached or detached on the existing window frame and does not generate either a gap or a distance in the process of installation for airtightness. The cavity is 45 mm in width, 20 mm in depth, and 1940 mm in height and serves as an air path connected to the outdoor air intake and the indoor air supply outlet.
  • 1.4K
  • 26 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Building Plumbing and Opportunistic Pathogens
The growth of Legionella pneumophila and other opportunistic pathogens (OPs) in drinking water premise plumbing poses an increasing public health concern. Premise plumbing is constructed of a variety of materials, creating complex environments that vary chemically, microbiologically, spatially, and temporally in a manner likely to influence survival and growth of OPs. Plastic pipes can leach organic carbon, but demonstrate a lower disinfectant demand and fewer water chemistry interactions. Iron pipes may provide OPs with nutrients directly or indirectly, exhibiting a high disinfectant demand and potential to form scales with high surface areas suitable for biofilm colonization. While copper pipes are known for their antimicrobial properties, evidence of their efficacy for OP control is inconsistent. Under some as yet not fully understood circumstances, copper’s interactions with premise plumbing water chemistry and resident microbes can encourage growth of OPs. Plumbing design, configuration, and operation can be manipulated to control such interactions and health outcomes. Influences of pipe materials on OP physiology should also be considered, including the possibility of influencing virulence and antibiotic resistance. In conclusion, all known pipe materials have a potential to either stimulate or inhibit OP growth, depending on the circumstances.
  • 1.4K
  • 22 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Cementitious and Geopolymer Composites with Lithium Slag Incorporation
Lithium slag (LS)’s particle size distribution is comparable to fly ash (FA) and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), which suggests it can enhance densification and nucleation in concrete. The mechanical treatment of LS promotes early hydration by increasing the solubility of aluminum, lithium, and silicon. LS’s compositional similarity to FA endows it with low-calcium, high-reactivity properties that are suitable for cementitious and geopolymeric applications. Increasing the LS content reduces setting times and flowability while initially enhancing mechanical properties, albeit with diminishing returns beyond a 30% threshold. LS significantly improves chloride ion resistance and impacts drying shrinkage variably. 
  • 1.3K
  • 08 Jan 2024
Topic Review
Microbially Induced Calcium Carbonate Precipitation for Hydrological Applications
Microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) refers to a natural biochemical phenomenon wherein micro-organisms stimulate the formation of calcium carbonate precipitation. 
  • 1.3K
  • 30 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Road Accident Hotspots on Jordan’s Highway
One of the primary objectives of transportation engineering is to increase the safety of road infrastructure. This research seeks to determine the relationship between geometric design parameters in relation to road accident criteria based on accident hotspots on Jordan’s Desert Highway.
  • 1.3K
  • 10 Oct 2023
Topic Review
Framework for Building Resilient Water and Infrastructure Systems
Planning and developing resilient socio-technical and natural systems to cope with and respond to unprecedented changes has been one of the top goals of government bodies, researchers, and practitioners worldwide. 
  • 1.3K
  • 24 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Road Traffic Noise Wall Design
Despite the long-term experience in the application of noise walls, the uncertainty in wall panel service life efficiency is almost equal between panels built from established and new materials, which are—because of the desire to increase the sustainability of noise walls—developing at an ever-faster pace. The presented meta-analysis of data collected during a systematic review of concrete, metal, and wood panels’ acoustic and non-acoustic characteristics, long term performance, and cradle-to-gate sustainability aims to reduce this uncertainty and support the process of noise wall design and management by shifting the emphasis in decision making from construction costs to the long-term sustainability of the road traffic noise mitigation project. The multi-criterial analysis showed that when choosing a panel, preference should be given to those using lightweight concrete materials. 
  • 1.3K
  • 19 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Senior housing universal design
The senior housing universal design (SHUD) is relatively new, and uprising approach to primarily construct flats that would meet the needs of the elderly and/or disabled ones. These have been termed “barrier-free flats”. The necessary adaptations are implemented at the architectural design stage and involve modifications of bathroom, kitchen, household equipment, furniture, doors, as well as passageways. The primary SHUD of living spaces suitable for senior citizens (barrier-free flats) is more beneficial from the socio-economic perspective as compared to the adaptation of existing houses. 
  • 1.3K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Vision-Based Structural Vibration Tracking Using a Digital Camera
Computer-vision-based target tracking can be applied to structural vibration monitoring, but current target tracking methods suffer from noise in digital image processing. A new target-tracking method based on the sparse optical flow technique is introduced to improve the accuracy in tracking the target, especially when the target has a large displacement. The proposed method utilizes the ORB technique to maintain a variety of keypoints and combines the multi-level strategy with a sparse optical flow algorithm to search the keypoints with a large motion vector for tracking. Then, an outlier removal method based on Hamming distance and interquartile range (IQR) score is introduced to minimize the error. The proposed target tracking method is verified through a lab experiment---a three-story shear building structure subjected to various harmonic excitations. It is compared with existing sparse optical flow-based target tracking methods and target tracking methods based on three other types of techniques, i.e., feature matching, dense optical flow, and template matching. The results show that the performance of target tracking is greatly improved through the use of a multi-level strategy and the proposed outlier removal method. The proposed sparse optical flow-based target tracking method achieves the best accuracy compared to other existing target tracking methods.
  • 1.3K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Modularisation in Construction and Precast Building Systems
Modular precast construction is a methodological approach to reduce environmental impacts and increase productivity when building with concrete. Constructions are segmented into similar precast concrete elements, prefabricated with integrated quality control, and assembled just-in-sequence on site. Due to the automatised prefabrication, inaccuracies are minimised and the use of high-performance materials is enabled. 
  • 1.3K
  • 15 Apr 2024
Topic Review
Polyurea for Blast and Impact Protection
Polyurea has attracted extensive attention from researchers and engineers in the field of blast and impact protection due to its excellent quasi-static mechanical properties and dynamic mechanical properties. Its mechanical properties and energy absorption capacity have been tuned by means of formulation optimization, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and the addition of reinforcing materials. Owing to the special molecular structure of polyurea, the mechanism of polyurea protection against blasts and impacts is the simultaneous effect of multiple properties. For different substrates and structures, polyurea needs to provide different performance characteristics, including adhesion, hardness, breaking elongation, etc., depending on the characteristics of the load to which it is subjected. 
  • 1.3K
  • 11 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Soft Computing Applications
Air quality models simulate the atmospheric environment systems and provide increased domain knowledge and reliable forecasting. They provide early warnings to the population and reduce the number of measuring stations. Due to the complexity and non-linear behavior associated with air quality data, soft computing models became popular in air quality modeling (AQM). This study critically investigates, analyses, and summarizes the existing soft computing modeling approaches. Among the many soft computing techniques in AQM, this article reviews and discusses artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM), evolutionary ANN and SVM, the fuzzy logic model, neuro-fuzzy systems, the deep learning model, ensemble, and other hybrid models. Besides, it sheds light on employed input variables, data processing approaches, and targeted objective functions during modeling. The discussion in this paper will help to determine the suitability and appropriateness of a particular model for a specific modeling context.
  • 1.3K
  • 22 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Non-Invasive Indoor Thermal Discomfort Detection
Since 1997, scientists have been trying to utilize new non-invasive approaches for thermal discomfort detection, which promise to be more effective for comparing frameworks that need direct responses from users. Due to rapid technological development in the bio-metrical field, a systematic literature review to investigate the possibility of thermal discomfort detection at the work place by non-invasive means using bio-sensing technology was performed. Firstly, the problem intervention comparison outcome context (PICOC) framework was introduced in the study to identify the main points for meta-analysis and, in turn, to provide relevant keywords for the literature search. In total, 2776 studies were found and processed using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) methodology. After filtering by defined criterion, 35 articles were obtained for detailed investigation with respect to facility types used in the experiment, amount of people for data collection and algorithms used for prediction of the thermal discomfort event. The given study concludes that there is potential for the creation of non-invasive thermal discomfort detection models via utilization of bio-sensing technologies, which will provide a better user interaction with the built environment, potentially decrease energy use and enable better productivity. There is definitely room for improvement within the field of non-invasive thermal discomfort detection, especially with respect to data collection, algorithm implementation and sample size, in order to have opportunities for the deployment of developed solutions in real life. Based on the literature review, the potential of novel technology is seen to utilize a more intelligent approach for performing non-invasive thermal discomfort prediction. The architecture of deep neural networks should be studied more due to the specifics of its hidden layers and its ability of hierarchical data extraction. This machine learning algorithm can provide a better model for thermal discomfort detection based on a data set with different types of bio-metrical variables.
  • 1.3K
  • 11 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Computer Vision-Based Structural Deformation Monitoring in Field Environments
Computer vision-based structural deformation monitoring techniques were studied in a large number of applications in the field of structural health monitoring (SHM). Numerous laboratory tests and short-term field applications contributed to the formation of the basic framework of computer vision deformation monitoring systems towards developing long-term stable monitoring in field environments.
  • 1.3K
  • 08 Jun 2022
Topic Review
The Energy Potential of the Lower Vistula River
The Vistula River in Poland is considered an international waterway. The power production potential of the river has been taken into account over the years. However, further configurations are needed to obtain a more in-depth ecological knowledge-base and economic plans, which are socially approved.
  • 1.3K
  • 01 Mar 2022
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