Matching Items (29)
Description
Productivity in the construction industry is an essential measure of production efficiency and economic progress, quantified by craft laborers' time spent directly adding value to a project. In order to better understand craft labor productivity as an aspect of lean construction, an activity analysis was conducted at the Arizona State University Palo Verde Main engineering dormitory construction site in December of 2016. The objective of this analysis on craft labor productivity in construction projects was to gather data regarding the efficiency of craft labor workers, make conclusions about the effects of time of day and other site-specific factors on labor productivity, as well as suggest improvements to implement in the construction process. Analysis suggests that supporting tasks, such as traveling or materials handling, constitute the majority of craft labors' efforts on the job site with the highest percentages occurring at the beginning and end of the work day. Direct work and delays were approximately equal at about 20% each hour with the highest peak occurring at lunchtime between 10:00 am and 11:00 am. The top suggestion to improve construction productivity would be to perform an extensive site utilization analysis due to the confined nature of this job site. Despite the limitations of an activity analysis to provide a complete prospective of all the factors that can affect craft labor productivity as well as the small number of days of data acquisition, this analysis provides a basic overview of the productivity at the Palo Verde Main construction site. Through this research, construction managers can more effectively generate site plans and schedules to increase labor productivity.
ContributorsFord, Emily Lucile (Author) / Grau, David (Thesis director) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
The overall energy consumption around the United States has not been reduced even with the advancement of technology over the past decades. Deficiencies exist between design and actual energy performances. Energy Infrastructure Systems (EIS) are impacted when the amount of energy production cannot be accurately and efficiently forecasted. Inaccurate engineering assumptions can result when there is a lack of understanding on how energy systems can operate in real-world applications. Energy systems are complex, which results in unknown system behaviors, due to an unknown structural system model. Currently, there exists a lack of data mining techniques in reverse engineering, which are needed to develop efficient structural system models. In this project, a new type of reverse engineering algorithm has been applied to a year's worth of energy data collected from an ASU research building called MacroTechnology Works, to identify the structural system model. Developing and understanding structural system models is the first step in creating accurate predictive analytics for energy production. The associative network of the building's data will be highlighted to accurately depict the structural model. This structural model will enhance energy infrastructure systems' energy efficiency, reduce energy waste, and narrow the gaps between energy infrastructure design, planning, operation and management (DPOM).
ContributorsCamarena, Raquel Jimenez (Author) / Chong, Oswald (Thesis director) / Ye, Nong (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Building construction, design and maintenance is a sector of engineering where improved efficiency will have immense impacts on resource consumption and environmental health. This research closely examines the Leadership in Environment and Energy Design (LEED) rating system and the International Green Construction Code (IgCC). The IgCC is a model code, written with the same structure as many building codes. It is a standard that can be enforced if a city's government decides to adopt it. When IgCC is enforced, the buildings either meet all of the requirements set forth in the document or it fails to meet the code standards. The LEED Rating System, on the other hand, is not a building code. LEED certified buildings are built according to the standards of their local jurisdiction and in addition to that, building owners can chose to pursue a LEED certification. This is a rating system that awards points based on the sustainable measures achieved by a building. A comparison of these green building systems highlights their accomplishments in terms of reduced electricity usage, usage of low-impact materials, indoor environmental quality and other innovative features. It was determined that in general IgCC is more holistic, stringent approach to green building. At the same time the LEED rating system a wider variety of green building options. In addition, building data from LEED certified buildings was complied and analyzed to understand important trends. Both of these methods are progressing towards low-impact, efficient infrastructure and a side-by-side comparison, as done in this research, shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of each method, allowing for future improvements.
ContributorsCampbell, Kaleigh Ruth (Author) / Chong, Oswald (Thesis director) / Parrish, Kristen (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This paper describes the research done to quantify the relationship between external air temperature and energy consumption and internal air temperature and energy consumption. The study was conducted on a LEED Gold certified building, College Avenue Commons, located on Arizona State University's Tempe campus. It includes information on the background of previous studies in the area, some that agree with the research hypotheses and some that take a different path. Real-time data was collected hourly for energy consumption and external air temperature. Intermittent internal air temperature was collected by undergraduate researcher, Charles Banke. Regression analysis was used to prove two research hypotheses. The authors found no correlation between external air temperature and energy consumption, nor did they find a relationship between internal air temperature and energy consumption. This paper also includes recommendations for future work to improve the study.
ContributorsBanke, Charles Michael (Author) / Chong, Oswald (Thesis director) / Parrish, Kristen (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The Chinese Construction Industry has grown to be one of the largest construction markets in the world within the last 10 years. The size of the Chinese Construction Industry is on par with many developed nations, despite it being a developing country. Despite its rapid growth, the productivity and profitability of the Chinese Construction Industry is low compared to similar sized construction industries (United States, United Kingdom, etc.). In addition to the low efficiency of the Chinese Construction Industry, there is minimal documentation available showing the performance of the Chinese Construction Industry (projects completed on time, on budget, and customer satisfaction ratings).
The purpose of this research is to investigate potential solutions that could address the poor efficiency and performance of the Chinese Construction Industry. This research is divided into three phases; first, a literature review to identify countries that have similar construction industries to the Chinese Construction Industry. The second phase is to compare the risks and identify solutions that are proposed to increase the performance of similar construction industries and the Chinese Construction Industry. The third phase is to create a survey from the literature-based information to validate the concepts with the Chinese Construction Industry professionals and stakeholders.
The purpose of this research is to investigate potential solutions that could address the poor efficiency and performance of the Chinese Construction Industry. This research is divided into three phases; first, a literature review to identify countries that have similar construction industries to the Chinese Construction Industry. The second phase is to compare the risks and identify solutions that are proposed to increase the performance of similar construction industries and the Chinese Construction Industry. The third phase is to create a survey from the literature-based information to validate the concepts with the Chinese Construction Industry professionals and stakeholders.
ContributorsChen, Yutian (Author) / Chong, Oswald (Thesis advisor) / Kashiwagi, Dean T. (Committee member) / Badger, Willliam (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Although Saudi Arabia is moving towards a sustainable future, Existing residential buildings in the country are extremely unsustainable. Therefore, there is a necessity for greening the existing residential building. Mostadam green rating systems was developed by the Saudi ministry of housing in 2019 to address the long-term sustainability vision in residential buildings in the country. By setting Mostadam requirements as an objective of the retrofit process, it will ensure that the building achieve sustainability. However, Mostadam is new and there is a lack of knowledge of implementing its requirements on existing buildings. The aim of this research is to develop a framework to green existing residential buildings in Saudi Arabia to achieve Mostadam energy and water minimum requirements. The framework was developed based on an extensive keyword-based search and an analysis of 92 relevant research. The process starts with assessing the building against the minimum requirements of energy and water of Mostadam. After that, optimization phase is conducted. Building information modelling is used in the optimization phase. Energy and water efficiency optimization measures are identified from the analysed literature. Revit is used in the base model authoring and Green building studio cloud is used to simulate the energy and water efficiency measures. Then, payback period is calculated for all the efficiency measured to assess the decision making. A case study of a villa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is provided. result shows that the implemented efficiency measures led to an increment of 37.5% in annual energy savings and 26.1% in the annual water savings. Results shows that the application of the proposed framework supports evaluating energy and water efficiency measures to implement it on the buildings to achieve Mostadam minimum energy and water requirements. Recommendations were made for future work to bridge the knowledge gap.
ContributorsMohamed, Sara Murad (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Thesis advisor) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Hurtado, Kristen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
As the construction industry in Saudi Arabia was on its way to thriving again. Their growth was due to the unprecedented volume of planned projects such as large-scale and unique projects. Suddenly, the world was faced with one of the most disrupting events in the last century which had a devastating impact on the construction industry specifically. This paper explores mainly the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on construction projects in Saudi Arabia. Particularly, this paper explores how the pandemic and its related events contributed to the projects' schedule disturbances. This is because most of the projects rely on manpower and supply chains which were heavily disrupted due to the protective measures. For that, a study was conducted to evaluate the impact on the construction projects in Saudi Arabia, to what extent the schedule projects were affected, and what were the main reasons for the schedule delays. The research relied on a field survey and schedule analysis for 12 projects which resulted in identifying several causes of delays and the delayed durations that the projects in Saudi Arabia were facing. This research allows those in construction fields to identify the main causes of delays in order to avoid or minimize the impact of these issues on future projects.
ContributorsObeid, Muhammad Hasan Hani (Author) / Ariaratnam, Samuel (Thesis advisor) / El Asmar, Mounir (Committee member) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
The consequences of failures from large-diameter water pipelines can be severe. Results can include significant property damage, damage to adjacent infrastructure such as roads and bridges resulting in transportation delays or shutdowns, adjacent structural damage to buildings resulting in loss of business, service disruption to a significant number of customers, loss of water, costly emergency repairs, and even loss of life. The American Water Works Association’s (AWWA) 2020 “State of the Water Industry” report states the top issue facing the water industry since 2016 is aging infrastructure, with the second being financing for improvements. The industry must find innovative ways to extend asset life and reduce maintenance expenditures. While are many different assets comprise the drinking water industry, pipelines are a major component and often neglected because they are typically buried. Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is a process used to determine the most effective maintenance strategy for an asset, with the ultimate goal being to establish the required function of the asset with the required reliability at the lowest operations and maintenance costs. The RCM philosophy considers Preventive Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance, Condition Based Monitoring, Reactive Maintenance, and Proactive Maintenance techniques in an integrated manner to increase the probability an asset will perform its designed function throughout its design life with minimal maintenance. In addition to determining maintenance tasks, the timely performance of those tasks is crucial. If performed too late an asset may fail; if performed too early, resources that may be used better elsewhere are expended. Utility agencies can save time and money by using RCM analysis for their drinking water infrastructure. This dissertation reviews industries using RCM, discusses the benefits of an RCM analysis, and goes through a case study of an RCM at a large aqueduct in the United States. The dissertation further discusses the consequence of failure of large diameter water pipelines and proposes a regression model to help agencies determine the optimum time to perform maintenance tasks on large diameter prestressed concrete pipelines using RCM analysis.
ContributorsGeisbush, James R (Author) / Ariaratnam, Samuel T (Thesis advisor) / Grau, David (Committee member) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
The world faces significant environmental and social challenges due to high economic development, population growth, industrialization, rapid urbanization, and unsustainable consumption. Global communities are taking the necessary measures to confront these international challenges and applying sustainable development principles across all sectors. Construction is a critical driving instrument of economic activity, and to achieve sustainable development, it is vital to transform conventional construction into a more sustainable model. The research investigated sustainable construction perceptions in Kuwait, a rapidly growing country with a high volume of construction activities. Kuwait has ambitious plans to transition into a more sustainable economic development model, and the construction industry needs to align with these plans. This research aims to identify the characteristics of sustainable construction applications in the Kuwaiti construction market, such as awareness, current perceptions, drivers and barriers, and the construction regulations' impact. The research utilized a qualitative approach to answer research questions and deliver research objectives by conducting eleven Semi-structured interviews with experienced professionals in the Kuwaiti construction market to collect rich data that reflects insights and understandings of the Kuwaiti construction industry. The Thematic analysis of the data resulted in six themes and one sub-theme that presented reflections, insights, and perspectives on sustainable construction perceptions in the Kuwaiti construction market. The research findings reflected poor sustainable construction awareness and poor environmental and social application in the construction industry, the determinant role of construction regulations in promoting sustainable construction. and barriers and drivers to sustainable construction applications. The research concluded with answers to research questions, delivery of research objectives, and an explanation of sustainable construction perceptions in the Kuwaiti construction market.
Contributorsalsalem, mohammad salem (Author) / Duran, Melanie (Thesis advisor) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Committee member) / Grau, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
During the rapid growth of infrastructure projects globally, countries pay high environmental and social costs as a result of the impacts caused from utilizing the traditional open-cut utility installation method that still widely being used in Egypt. For that, it was essential to have alternatives to reduce these environmental impacts and social costs; however, there are some obstacles that prevent the implementation and the realization of these alternatives.This research is conducted mainly to evaluate the environmental impacts of open-cut excavation vs. trenchless technology in Egypt, through two main methodologies. Firstly, a field survey that aims to measure knowledge of people working in the Egyptian construction industry of trenchless technology, and the harms caused from keeping utilizing open-cut for installing all kinds of underground utilities. In addition to investigating the reasons behind not relying on trenchless technology as a safe alternative for open-cut in Egypt.
Furthermore, in order to compare the greenhouse gases emissions resulted from both open-cut vs trenchless technology, a real case study is applied quantifying the amounts of the resulted greenhouse gases from each method. The results show that greenhouse gases emissions generated from open-cut were extremely higher than that of horizontal directional drilling as a trenchless installation method.
ContributorsKhedr, Ahmed Mossad Saeed Hafez (Author) / Ariaratnam, Samuel (Thesis advisor) / El Asmar, Mounir (Committee member) / Chong, Oswald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023