Sistemas voluntarios de gestión de playas de uso intensivo

El artículo destaca la importancia de la adopción voluntaria de sistemas de gestión de las playas como soporte de gran parte de la actividad turística española. Se describen brevemente las normas específicas desarrolladas recientemente para las playas turísticas de uso intensivo, en especialla norma UNE 150104 Y el proyecto de norma PNE 187001. Además, un análisis de la evolución de los certificados de gestión en las playas de la Comunidad Valenciana permite comprobar la aplicabilidad de estos sistemas y la compatibilidad entre ellos. El trabajo concluye que los sistemas de gestión y los distintivos de calidad de las playas suponen una oportunidad de mejora en los aspectos sociales, económicos y medioambientales del litoral. Sin embargo, se hace necesaria una revisión de estas normas en el marco de una gestión integrada dellitoral, pues en este momento se encuentran excesivamente orientadas hacia la satisfacción de los consumidores turísticos. No hacerlo supone olvidar aspectos fundamentales que podrían acarrear una pérdida de los atractivos naturales y paisajísticos que motivan, entre otros, los viajes turísticos.This paper highlights the importance of voluntarily adopting quality and environmental management systems in beaches to support the main Spanish tourism activity. Specific standards recently developed for intensively used tourism beaches are described; in particular, standard UNE 150104 and standard project PNE 187001. Additionally, an analysis of the evolution of management certificates in the beaches of the region of Valencia allows for testing the applicability of these systems and their compatibility. The study concludes that beach awards and management systems represent a chance for improvement on the social, economical, and environmental aspects of the coast. Nevertheless, a review of these standards is necessary under an integrated coastal zone management approach since at the present time they are mainly focussed on user satisfaction. Failure to do this would result in essential aspects being forgotten, which would in tum represent a loss of the natural and landscape attractions which are the main motivation for tourist visits

Gestión de coste y producción de maquinaria de construcción

Este manual trata de los fundamentos de la gestión del coste y la producción de la maquinaria empleada en la construcción. Se desarrollan los aspectos relacionados con la selección de las máquinas, su vida económica y estructura de coste. Se introducen los conceptos básicos sobre disponibilidad, fiabilidad y mantenimiento de equipos, así como otros referentes a la gestión de inventarios y parques de maquinaria. Se analizan los aspectos fundamentales del estudio del trabajo aplicables a los equipos. Se desarrollan los conceptos relacionados con la constructividad y constructabilidad, la medida y los incentivos a la productividad, el fenómeno del aprendizaje. Además, se explican aspectos necesarios para el cálculo de la producción de máquinas y conceptos relacionados con el estudio de métodos y medición del trabajo, el cronometraje, el rendimiento y los factores de producción, entre otros. El libro se complementa con un listado de referencias, así como numerosas cuestiones de autoevaluación y problemas resueltos que permiten al estudiante ampliar y aplicar los conocimientos desarrollados. Este manual tiene como objetivo apoyar los contenidos lectivos de los programas de los estudios de grado relacionados con la ingeniería civil, la edificación y las obras públicas. No obstante, también resulta útil en otros estudios relacionados con la ingeniería de la construcción y la minería y a aquellos profesionales que desarrollan sus tareas en estos ámbitosYepes Piqueras, V. (2023). Gestión de coste y producción de maquinaria de construcción. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/19150

Correspondencia jerárquica entre las competencias y los resultados de aprendizaje. El caso de “Procedimientos de Construcción”

[EN] This paper aims to establish a hierarchical corresponding structure between the competencies and the learning outcomes of a subject. To this end, after checking the different interpretations that exist between the two concepts, one chooses to consider that the learning outcomes are concretions of the competences for a certain level and that they are the result of the teachinglearning process. In addition, the necessary alignment between the programs of a subject, the acquisition of competencies and learning outcomes and the evaluation of the student, recommends to prioritize the learning results in two levels. As a result of the foregoing, this paper shows the applicability of this hierarchical correspondence to two subjects of the degree of Civil Engineering of the Universitat Politècnica de València: "Construction Procedures I and II".[ES] El objetivo del artículo es establecer una estructuración de correspondencias jerárquicas entre las competencias y los resultados de aprendizaje de una asignatura. Para ello, tras comprobar las distintas interpretaciones que existen entre ambos conceptos, se opta por considerar que los resultados del aprendizaje son concreciones de las competencias para un determinado nivel y que son el resultado del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Además, el necesario alineamiento entre los programas de una asignatura, la adquisición de competencias y resultados de aprendizaje y la evaluación del estudiante, aconseja jerarquizar los resultados de aprendizaje en dos niveles. Como resultado de lo anterior, se muestra la aplicabilidad de esta correspondencia jerárquica a dos asignaturas del Grado de Ingeniería Civil de la Universitat Politècnica de València: “Procedimientos de Construcción I y II”.El autor agradece el apoyo recibido por la Universitat Politècnica de València (Equipo de Innovación y Calidad Educativa EXCELCON)Yepes Piqueras, V. (2018). Correspondencia jerárquica entre las competencias y los resultados de aprendizaje. El caso de “Procedimientos de Construcción”. En IN-RED 2018. IV Congreso Nacional de Innovación Educativa y Docencia en Red. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1107-1121. https://doi.org/10.4995/INRED2018.2018.8882OCS1107112

Environmental Assessment of Concrete Structures

[EN] In recent decades, with the objective of reaching a more sustainable development, worldwide society has increased its concern about environmental protection. Nevertheless, there are still economic sectors, such as the construction industry, which produce significant environmental impacts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool that enables identifying environmental issues related to both finished products and services, and allows focusing efforts to resolve them. The main objective of this paper is to asses LCA applicability on concrete structures so that construction s environmental performance can be improved. For this purpose, an attempt is made to provide a decision-making tool for construction-sector stakeholders with reliable and accurate environmental data. The research methodologies used in this paper are based on a literature review and are applied to a case study. This review was performed to collect information on LCA methodologies currently in use and their practical application. The case study subsequently described in this paper involved identification of the most sustainable type of slab for a reinforced concrete structure in a residential building, using two different databases. It was observed that, depending on the database selected and inherent assumptions, results varied. Therefore it was concluded that in order to avoid producing incorrect results when applying LCA, it is highly recommended to develop a more constrained methodology and grant access to reliable construction-sector data.The research and case study performed would not have been possible without the technical support offered by Alberto Criado, from CYPE INGENIEROS, S.A. Also special thanks for revision performed by Dr. Victor Torres Verdín. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Research Project BIA2011-23602).García Rey, J.; Yepes Piqueras, V. (2012). Environmental Assessment of Concrete Structures. International Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. 1(3):33-41. https://doi.org/10.5923/j.ijcem.20120103.04S33411

METHOD FOR ESTIMATING THE SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY OF INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

[EN] Nowadays, sustainability assessments tend to focus on the biophysical and economic considerations of the built environment. Social facets are generally underestimated when the appraisal of investment in infrastructure projects is carried out. This study proposes a method to estimate the contribution of infrastructure projects to social sustainability. This method takes into account the interactions of an infrastructure with its environment, in terms of the potential for short and long-term social improvement. The method is structured in five stages:(1) social improvement criteria and goals to be taken into account are identified and weighed; (2) an exploratory study is conducted to determine transfer functions;(3) each criterion is homogenized through value functions; (4) the short and long-term social improvement indices are established; and finally, (5) social improvement indices are contrasted to identify the socially selected alternatives and to assign an order of priority. The method was implemented in six alternatives of road infrastructure improvement. The results of the analysis show that the method can distinguish the contribution to social sustainability of different infrastructure projects and location contexts. This article proposes a mechanism to measure the social efficiency of projects according to the early benefits and potential long-term equitable improvement. This method can be applied prior to the implementation of a project and can complement environmental and economic sustainability assessments.This research was funded by the Government of Chile under Doctoral Fellowship Program Abroad (grant CONICYT-2015/ 72160059) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness along with FEDER funding (project BIA2014-56574- R). The authors are grateful to the United Nation Development Programme and the Ministry of Public Works, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, both of El Salvador, for their participation in the implementation of the proposed method (Project 00074250).Sierra Varela, LA.; Pellicer Armiñana, E.; Yepes Piqueras, V. (2017). METHOD FOR ESTIMATING THE SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY OF INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS. Environmental Impact Assessment Review. 65:41-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2017.02.004S41536

Memetic Algorithm Approach to Designing Precast-Prestressed Concrete Road Bridges with Steel Fiber Reinforcement

[EN] This paper describes the influence of steel fiber-reinforcement on the design of cost-optimized, prestressed concrete, precast road bridges, with a double U-shaped crosssection and isostatic spans. A memetic algorithm with variable-depth neighborhood search is applied to the economic cost of these structures at different stages of manufacturing, transportation, and construction. The problem involved 41 discrete design variables for the geometry of the beam and the slab, materials in the two elements, active and passive reinforcement, as well as residual flexural tensile strength corresponding to the fibers. The use of fibers decreases the mean weight of the beam by 1.72% and reduces the number of strands an average of 3.59%, but it increases the passive reinforcement by 8.71% on average, respectively. Finally, despite the higher cost of the fibers, their use is economically feasible since the average relative difference in cost is less than 0.19%.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Research Project BIA2011-23602) and the Universitat Politècnica de València (Research Project PAID-06-12).Martí Albiñana, JV.; Yepes Piqueras, V.; González Vidosa, F. (2015). Memetic Algorithm Approach to Designing Precast-Prestressed Concrete Road Bridges with Steel Fiber Reinforcement. Journal of Structural Engineering. 141(2):1-9. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0001058S19141

Assessing the social sustainability contribution of an infrastructure project under conditions of uncertainty

[EN] Assessing the viability of a public infrastructure includes economic, technical and environmental aspects; however, on many occasions, the social aspects are not always adequately considered. This article proposes a procedure to estimate the social sustainability of infrastructure projects under conditions of uncertainty, based on a multicriteria deterministic method. The variability of the method inputs is contributed by the decision-makers. Uncertain inputs are treated through uniform and beta PERT distributions. The Monte Carlo method is used to propagate uncertainty in the method. A case study of a road infrastructure improvement in El Salvador is used to illustrate this treatment. The main results determine the variability of the short and long-term social improvement indices by infrastructure and the probability of the position in the prioritization of the alternatives. The proposed mechanism improves the reliability of the decision making early in infrastructure projects, taking their social contribution into account. The results can complement environmental and economic sustainability assessments.This research was funded by the Government of Chile under the Doctoral Fellowship Program Abroad (grant CONICYT-2015/ 72160059) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness along with FEDER funding (project BIA2014-56574-R). The authors are grateful to the United Nations Development Programme and the Ministry of Public Works, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development of El Salvador, for their participation in the implementation of the proposed method (Project 00074250).Sierra Varela, LA.; Yepes Piqueras, V.; Pellicer Armiñana, E. (2017). Assessing the social sustainability contribution of an infrastructure project under conditions of uncertainty. Environmental Impact Assessment Review. 67:61-72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2017.08.003S61726

Durability damage indicator in BIM environments

[EN] As Building Information Modelling (BIM) is being increasingly adopted through private businesses in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operation (AECO) Industries, new tools, procedures, and functionalities appear. In the last years, BIM has proven its advantages by providing benefits to professionals and guiding them towards a new horizon. Currently, the industry is changing in the Spanish market, and refurbishment projects are more demanded than construction projects involving the design of buildings from scratch. As Spanish housing stock grows older, durability and damage in existing structures need to be analyzed during the refurbishment project's early stages. Structural durability is a critical factor in extending the life span of a building and improving the industry's sustainability. This paper presents a tool integrated into BIM environments that can evaluate the durability index in a specific structural element based on data from a visual inspection. This automated analysis shows if any damage is caused by durability factors, such as steel rebar corrosion, and how much time is left until the damage is critical. This tool enables new functionality in BIM environments to control durability and determine when it is critical to rehabilitating the structure.Fernández Mora, V.; Yepes Piqueras, V.; Navarro Martínez, IJ. (2023). Durability damage indicator in BIM environments. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 270-280. https://doi.org/10.4995/VIBRArch2022.2022.1519127028

Appraisal of infrastructure sustainability by graduate students using an active-learning method

Currently many university programs in the construction field do not take sustainability into account from a holistic viewpoint. This may cause a lack of sensitivity from future professionals concerning sustainability. Academics in construction must endeavor to instill a culture of sustainability in the curricula of their students. Therefore, this study proposes an active-learning method that allows graduate students in the construction field to take into consideration infrastructure sustainability from a variety of perspectives in a participatory process. The students applied an analytical hierarchical process to determine the appraisal degree of each criterion. A cluster statistical analysis was carried out, aiming to identify the profiles that influence decision-making. This method was applied to two classes of graduate students enrolled in the Master of Planning and Management in Civil Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de València. This method identified a correlation between the profiles toward sustainability and the characteristics of the chosen infrastructure. It was also found that the method fulfills educational purposes: most of the students obtained more than 65% of the target learning outcomes. This approach promotes awareness and sensitivity to different points of view of the sustainability in a participatory context. It can be replicated in other contexts so as to obtain appraisals regarding various criteria that help enhance decision-making.This research was made possible by the support of the Academic Head of the MSc in Planning and Management in Civil Engineering at the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia. The authors are grateful to the students of the sixth and seventh editions of this program for taking part in this educational experiment, as well as to Joaquin Catala, Juan Jose Clemente, Jaime Jimenez and Oscar Roselle, for participating in the focus group. This research was also partially funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus Mundus Lindo 450 Program (grant EMA-2-2012-2658) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness along with FEDER funding (project BIA2014-56574-R).Pellicer Armiñana, E.; Sierra Varela, LA.; Yepes Piqueras, V. (2016). Appraisal of infrastructure sustainability by graduate students using an active-learning method. Journal of Cleaner Production. 113:884-896. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.11.010S88489611

Carbon embodied optimization for buttressed earth-retaining walls: Implications for low-carbon conceptual designs

[EN] This paper shows the differences between the design of a reinforced concrete structure considering two objectives to minimize; economic cost and CO2 emissions. Both objectives depend on the amount of two high carbon intensive materials: cement in the concrete and steel; therefore, these objectives are related. As the balance between steel and cement per m3 of concrete depends on several factors such as the type of structure, this study focuses on buttressed earth-retaining walls. Another factor that determines the balance between steel and concrete is the height of the wall. Thus, the methodology considers a parametric study for optimal designs of buttressed earth-retaining walls, where one of the parameters is the wall height. One of the objectives is to show the variation in cost when CO2 is minimized, respectful of minimizing the economic cost. The findings show that wall elements under bending-compressive strains (i.e. the stem of the buttressed retaining wall) perform differently depending on the target function. On one hand, the study reveals an upward trend of steel per unit volume of concrete in emission-optimized earth-retaining buttressed walls, compared to the cost-optimized. On the other hand, it is checked that unlike the cost-optimized walls, emission-optimized walls opt for a higher concrete class than the minimum class available. These findings indicate that emission-optimized walls penalize not only concrete volume, but also the cement content, to the extent that a higher concrete class outperforms in reduced emissions. Additionally, the paper outlines how and to what extent the design of this typology varies for the two analyzed objectives in terms of geometry and amount of materials. Some relevant differences influencing the geometry of design strategies are found.This research was funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology under grant agreement no 20140262 Low Carbon Strategy in the Construction Industry (PGA_A-PED0094_2014-2.1-278_P066-10) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness along with FEDER funding (Project BIA2014-56574-R). The authors are grateful for the through revision of the manuscript by Tatiana Garcia-Segura.Molina Moreno, F.; Martí Albiñana, JV.; Yepes Piqueras, V. (2017). Carbon embodied optimization for buttressed earth-retaining walls: Implications for low-carbon conceptual designs. JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION. 164:872-884. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.246S87288416