Safety and Health Education for Demolition and Reconstruction

In the fall semester of 2005, the Department of Building Construction Management (BCM) at Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, offered their first course in Demolition and Reconstruction Management. This first college level course developed with input from the demolition industry, offered in the newly created demolition and reconstruction management area of concentration, mirrors many of the general requirements of a traditional construction management curriculum. These include coverage of construction science, planning, regulation, estimating, safety, project management, and business management as they apply to projects that do not begin with a vacant site and a blank sheet of paper. During course development it became apparent that demolition and reconstruction activities present specialised safety considerations due to the high risk of accidents, injury, and potentially deleterious health effects presented by these activities. As contractors participate with increasing frequency in projects that involve existing built environments, there is a growing need for expansion of the safety training provided. This paper examines areas of demolition and reconstruction related safety that are frequently overlooked in construction management safety and health training

Use of Concept Maps to Illustrate Barriers to Construction Industry Inter-Organizational Communication: a Comparative View from Students and Professionals

Because of the fragmented nature of construction industry inter-organizational communication, construction industry stakeholders must rely on information exchanges in order to produce new information and directives for the process. This communication process does not always happen smoothly due to possible barriers during the information flow. The purpose of this study is to understand these potential information flow barriers and to use concept maps to engage students in discussions about communication within the construction industry. Concept map activities performed with industry professionals and senior construction management students in separate phases are described. To complement the concept map findings, interviews with key professional stakeholders provide further depth on reasons for potential communication barriers in the construction industry. Findings from this study indicate that students’ lack a thorough understanding of the holistic communication process and information flow that is critical to many construction project stakeholders. Guidelines are suggested for the use of concept maps as an educational activity that is engaging to students and will enhance their knowledge of information flows in the construction process

Higher Hourly Cost Compensation for Heavy Equipment Used in Demolition Activity

Demolition activity is increasingly dependent on heavy equipment as the primary means of dismantlement. This mechanized wrecking process qualifies as a severe working condition for the heavy equipment employed. Demolition practitioners note that the severe conditions encountered increase the operating cost of the equipment employed. There are occasions when unexpected project conditions or disaster response necessitate negotiated compensation for demolition services. In these negotiations, hourly cost references are utilized by contracting agencies to benchmark hourly billings. Supervising engineers recommend using the hourly values quoted in national cost references for standard construction services because no specific guidance for cost adjustment is provided by the cost reference guides. Because this cost differential is not recognized by supervising engineers, it is important that the magnitude of severe duty demolition equipment costs be brought to the attention of the engineering community. This manuscript introduces the problem, describes survey research, compares the research outcomes with known data, and presents possible variables to consider in application of the results. Results provide support for an incremental increase in reimbursement rates of from 10% to over 200%. This wide reimbursement range results from the complexity and variety of heavy equipment utilized and the specific hydraulic demolition tools employed

Temperature, Relative Humidity, and Carbon-Dioxide Modulation in a Near-Zero Energy Efficient Retrofit House

The concept of Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) has reached a phase where countries all around the world are encouraging its implementation into mainstream construction. In the United States, both private and public sector buildings are incorporating energy efficient technologies to reduce their environmental impact, while increasing the productivity and comfort of its occupants. A Net Zero Energy Building (NZEB) performs as expected only when the building’s envelope, HVAC and other mechanical/electrical systems work in unison. Subsequently, once these buildings are occupied, the behavior of its occupants significantly influences the buildings energy performance. The authors have captured the modulation of temperature, relative humidity, and carbon-dioxide within one such Near-Net Zero Energy Building during the heating season. This house is a Deep-Energy Retrofit Home completed as a marketing and demonstration home for a joint neighborhood stabilization project and U.S. Department of Energy funded community-wide retrofit grant program in Lafayette, Indiana. The house includes an internet based real-time home energy monitoring system, which facilitates reviewing the changes in the houses energy performance as a consequence of fluctuating internal temperature settings and external climate conditions. Post retrofit blower-door test result conform that the house has been made fairly air-tight during the retrofit. Hence ventilation within the house is achieved via an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) with multiple stages of operation. To this end, the paper is an exploratory examination of the inter-relationships between occupancy, interior temperature, relative humidity, carbon-dioxide levels and energy consumption within the retrofitted residential Near-Net Zero Energy Building

Integrating Li-Fi Wireless Communication and Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor for Next Generation Building Management

Wireless sensors have been increasingly utilized in the design of next generation high performance buildings. When deploying wireless sensors, energy supply and data communication are the major concerns. Although energy harvest wireless sensors could automatically feed themselves by harvesting ambient energy, the presence of reliable energy sources to support dependable wireless transmission is a great challenge. The emerging Li-Fi technology is promising to fundamentally solve this problem. Li-Fi stands for Light-Fidelity, which is a new kind of wireless communication systems using light as a medium instead of traditional radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation. Li-Fi technology provides harvested energy to power wireless sensors with a unique advantage of power generation from the lighting system being controlled. The combination of Li-Fi and energy harvesting wireless sensor technologies could enable attractive features and bring in great benefits in the design of next generation high performance buildings because: (i) energy harvest sensors do not face the short-of-energy problem; (ii) Li-Fi enables much higher transmission speed compared to the existing RF electromagnetic technologies, thus, energy harvest sensors could easily deliver environmental parameters quickly for control purposes; (iii) energy harvest sensors could assist the building management team to understand the coverage area of the lighting system; (iv) the communication of sensor aggregated information can be naturally encrypted due to the combination of both technologies

First Responder/Private Industry Collaboration to Advance Disaster Response

In most developed countries, well-established communities of first responder organizations have formed to provide a quick and coordinated reaction to disasters. In most cases these response organizations are controlled, organized, and funded by related governmental agencies. Because their disaster response contributes to the good of the public, the existence of government funded and coordinated first responder organizations are considered by many to be the most effective approach to provide disaster response. Unfortunately, these organizations do not always have ready access to all of the skills and resources required to efficiently respond to many of the physical challenges that result from wide-ranging disasters. This paper provides a description of some of the resources and skills possessed by private demolition and disaster response companies that could be made available for widespread disaster response. If properly coordinated prior to a major disaster, these private organizations could be called upon to collaborate with first responders. Coordination challenges that commonly prevent first responder/private industry collaboration after widespread disasters are presented along with several examples of successful partnerships

Association of Researchers in Construction Management

Most research universities require some combination of standardized classroom teaching and independent research as part of a post-graduate level plan of study. Increasingly construction management, construction technology, architecture, and related programmes that award degrees related to the built environment (BE) are awarding post-graduate degrees. Frequently these degrees, unlike traditional engineering degrees which test theory from a quantitative or positivist position, relate to issues that are more difficult to measure using strictly quantifiable metrics. Because the managerial issues faced by these graduates deal with human interaction and behaviour, research in the BE often resembles social science research to a greater degree than traditional scientific research. As post-graduate programmes in the BE expand, there is an increasing need for student support in the research fundamentals that are required to complete valid research on construction and design issues. Small programmes can rely on the individual mentorship of students, but as student populations grow a more formalized approach is needed to support varying research methodologies employed by post-graduate students as they complete their thesis or dissertation obligations. This paper is an examination of the research fundamentals approach to post-graduate education being used by construction related research programmes in a sample of universities in the US and the UK/Ireland. Emphasis was placed on understanding the current educational support for the understanding of research fundamentals critical to research in the built environment. The paper utilizes both a literature review and a survey instrument. Specific areas of examination include information detailing the educational unit(s) within the university with responsibility for teaching research fundamentals, research fundamentals courses available, the research philosophy or approach emphasized, and the text or other literature support utilized to advance valid research design by post-graduate students. As academic processes develop at post-graduate level there appears to be a consensus that the need for research principles courses is accepted. Where the position differs is at what level this course should be offered

The Learning Styles of Undergraduate Students in CM Bachelor’s Degree Programs in the U.S.

This article presents the findings of a study analyzing the learning styles of undergraduate construction management (CM) students in bachelor’s degree programs in the United States. The study utilized the Felder-Silverman model and the Index of Learning Styles (ILS) as a survey instrument. The survey population consisted of 1,069 CM students from 36 university CM programs across the Associated Schools of Construction regions. Demographic information, the raw ILS responses, and the ILS web-based survey report were collected from the students. The results were analyzed and compared to both the CM students themselves and to similar studies done with engineering students. It was found that CM students were visual, active, sensing, and sequential learners. This study provides recommendations for how CM instructors might align their teaching styles with CM-student learning styles, and discusses impacts on the CM industry

ENVIRONMENTAL THERMAL ENERGY SCAVENGING POWERED WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK FOR BUILDING MONITORING

ABSTRACT: In recent years there has been increasing interest in innovative design and construction of sustainable highperformance buildings. Among the innovative techniques proposed to increase building performance is to dynamically sense, control and manage the ambient building environment, such as temperature, humidity, air quality, artificial lighting, etc. through the installation of a distributed wireless sensor network (WSN). It has been reported that such an intelligent building monitor and control system can result in an approximately 20% savings in energy usage, a substantial step toward the realization of smart building management. In conventional WSNs, battery power is used to energize these micro-scale sensors. The small space permitted for battery integration in these miniaturized systems is a limiting factor. The small battery will be quickly depleted requiring frequent battery replacement or the WSN system will cease operation. Frequent battery replacement is impractical due to the tremendous number of sensor nodes embedded in a typical WSN system. This key design challenge in WSN based building monitoring and control must be overcome in order to significantly prolong the life of the overall system operation. In this paper, the authors investigate the construction of a novel WSN system for intelligent building environment monitoring powered through the use of micro-scale thermoelectric generators (TEG). In the TEG, the ambient thermal gradient between two surfaces of the device is converted into electrical energy. To verify the feasibility of the proposed idea, an experiment was conducted and the results demonstrated the concept of harvesting ambient thermal energy to power wireless sensors

Assessment of webcam technology on teaching and learning in construction management education

A significant portion of the curriculum in construction management requires an understanding and appreciation for application of techniques in management and technology that are impacted by the conditions of the construction jobsite. When possible, field trips are arranged so students are able to observe the conditions and communications typical to jobsite activities. Unfortunately, field trips present numerous challenges. Even when they are available, the logistics of transportation and timing create problems. Jobsites may not be accessible to large numbers of students, or may present dangerous conditions for observation. As an alternative, it has been suggested that webcam technology could be utilized as a means to provide jobsite observation without many of the drawbacks experienced with field trips. The purpose of this study was to investigate available webcam hardware and software to identify cost-effective and functional systems for the university setting; to implement the use of this technology in construction management classes in the Department of Building Construction Management at Purdue University; and to survey students, professors, and field personnel who experienced the jobsite to classroom webcam educational activities. The wireless webcam equipment selection process, equipment description, and operating procedures that resulted from the study are detailed from both a technical standpoint as well from the perspective of educators who wish to utilize webcam technology to promote teaching and learning through jobsite contact. The students, faculty, and field personnel who participated in the webcam field trips implemented in this study perceived the use of webcam technology to be as good as or better than conventional field trips. Complexity of use was found to be a potential stumbling block to large-scale wireless webcam field trip implementation. In the study, planning helped alleviate much of the challenge presented by complexity and aided in making the connection between what was demonstrated in the field trips and the course objectives. Wireless webcam construction management field trip best practices, equipment operation and setup procedures, and a field trip lesson plan guide to assist in future webcam field trip planning, along with suggestions for future implementations and research, were developed by the researcher