By the turn of the century, there is good potential for increased use of self-directed robots controlled by expert systems. Such advanced-application robots would finish concrete and spray paint buildings already being done in Japan , apply sprayed insulation to structural steel members, and even install structural steel. Robots in construction would differ from those in a manufacturing or production line setting, where the robotic units generally are stationary and tasks are performed on products as they move by.
In construction, the building is stationary and the robot would have the ability to move about in the performance of its tasks. Technologies such as laser range-finding and geodetic positioning can be used to pinpoint exact locations, to automate storage areas on the job site, and to set guide tracks for remotely operated vehicles. These technologies will gradually be integrated into a coherent system for the highly automated control of certain job site activities. Automation in the construction sector is usually seen in terms of robotics, and the development and application of robotic systems in all industry sectors is relatively new.
Moore, T. Robots join the nuclear workforce. EPRI Journal 9 9 :6— According to Robotic Industries Association estimates, the total number of robots installed in the United States rose to more than 20, at the end of , up from 14, at the end of Some experts predict that as many as , robots may be at work in this country by , with more than 1 million projected worldwide. These are classic robots—programmed, repetitive machines such as those that are used in production line operations.
However, the technology is directly transferable to remotely controlled robots more applicable to the construction site, and it is expected that the development and application of such robots will parallel the expansion of production line robots. First-generation construction robots now on job sites are really microprocessor controllers retrofitted to conventional construction equipment.
The use of remote technology is accelerating in areas where laborers are performing repetitive tasks or working in a hazardous environment, or where quality can be improved by continuous inspection of the operation or product. For example, at the Three Mile Island TMI nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, certain areas of Unit 2 are too highly contaminated for workers to enter and perform cleanup activities. As a result, robots—or more precisely, remotely controlled vehicles—have been used instead of humans to carry out decontamination assignments such as surveillance, washing of walls, removing radioactive materials from concrete surfaces, and suctioning sediment from the floor.
It is a six-wheel-drive robot that can negotiate turns and climb over obstacles. It is operated by tether from a control room. Feedback of as-built conditions is the step that closes the design-construction loop and will enhance robotic applications in construction. In this process, erection data from construction are fed back in real time and compared with the design data.
Installations that exceed tolerances can then be corrected. Of critical significance in the field is the accumulation of deviations; although each of these deviations may be individually within construction tolerances, together they may be enough to defeat automated equipment.
The feedback of as-built dimensions can eliminate this problem, as it is usually not necessary to construct to exacting tolerances, but only to know exactly where the construction is located. With feedback, succeeding elements can be adjusted to fit. The use of robotics for construction, operations, and maintenance or design engineering activities has applications worldwide.
For example, a Japanese company has used an articulated robot to weld small-diameter pipe. As a result of the high quality of the weld, the finishing process became unnecessary, and plans are being made to automate all processes by combining the robotized system with computer-aided design and computer-aided man-. A Finnish firm is developing a gantry-type welding robot capable of automatically joining ship sections up to 15 meters long. The robot is able to learn from its mistakes and make the needed adjustments.
Other firms have developed an approach to the robotization of painting and blasting and the development of wall-walking robots that use vacuum pads or magnets. The construction management process—the system of controls that optimize the design, procurement, and construction process—is key to the ability of the construction industry to capitalize on technological innovations.
The process of planning, scheduling, and cost control must address the interfaces between all disciplines and provide the framework that allows new technological developments to be assimilated efficiently into a construction project. From the management perspective, such technological trends as the increased use of job site robots, with their high capital costs and hour availability, demand improved just-in-time delivery systems for precise material scheduling.
This, in turn, requires sophisticated computer data bases linked to design, purchasing, and warehousing systems to ensure effective management. In this sense, most large-scale construction work is becoming essentially fast tracked. In the fast-track approach, design and construction proceed simultaneously rather than waiting for engineering to be completed in advance of construction. This technique is intended to require less time for engineering and construction than is required in a conventional one-step-at-a-time approach.
Fast-track construction can be used on any size project and refers to speed of completion rather than size. In addition to these general trends, specific evidence of the impact of technology on the construction management process can be cited, particularly in the areas of bulk staging activities, inventory, construction start-up, training, quality control, and information handling.
Earlier identification of bulk component requirements, allowing earlier bulk staging of commodities at predescribed locations, is a consequence of rapid design capability. We are essentially moving toward an assembly-line process for even the most complex construction sequences. The application of a modified just-in-time method of supply to construction sites can be used as a method to guide job site activity.
In this concept, minimum warehouse and lay-down areas are used, and only small items are inventoried. However, since the contract risks due to faulty delivery systems at the construction site are at least as onerous as those at the factory, we need to adapt factory-based just-in-time delivery schemes to the construction environment. Terminals and graphic workstations give access to the released design documentation. Paper plotting, to the degree required, will be done at the job site. These computers provide communications links with the engineering office, the client, and relevant vendors or fabricators.
Over time, the establishment of computer information networks will become a key start-up activity at construction sites, since it will be a crucial part of the construction management process. The size of the skilled labor force required at the job site will continue to shrink as machines are used for more complicated tasks and to help manage site logistics. However, the people still needed will have to have higher skill levels to operate more complex devices.
The required training process will place significant demands on the construction management staff. The impacts of continued technological change on quality control practices in the construction sector must also be considered. For example, with more accurate robotic machines, we may see dramatic changes in two areas: reduced need to check certain construction devices that already have imbedded high reliability, and the availability of machines that improve the quality-checking process itself.
All of these developments reinforce the emphasis the constructor must place on the reliability of the completed construction project. From an administrative standpoint, the proper management of change orders for a job already under way has always been a difficult task for the contractor, with often frustrating results for the entire project team. Improvements in information handling will include the gradual automation of much of the change order process, resulting in smoother activity on the project, savings in time and money, and added flexibility for the owner of the facility.
All of these developments point to the need for construction management personnel—especially site managers—who are able to marshal new technology and apply it effectively in an environment that historically has been less than progressive. Complex issues such as trade union practices and the inertia of field engineers and superintendents must be addressed. Restrictive craft union work rules and jurisdictional disputes have contributed to the steady advancement of the nonunion movement.
The application of robots, advanced modularization, and other new construction techniques and methods will be successful only if craft labor and its leadership make a quantum jump in acceptance of new technology.
If these new techniques are to be effective, they will require a level of organization and discipline seldom seen on a construction site. Thus, management must be skilled both in the assimilation of new technology and in. The challenge is significant and will require training in disparate fields including production control and human relations. The task is manageable, but past problems with the adaptation of limited technological advancements in the construction sector suggest that this issue may be the most difficult of all.
Since before the building of the Pyramids, a fundamental business relationship has existed in the construction sector among the owner, the designer, the material supplier, and the builder. Technological change cannot destroy this relationship, but it will continue to cause subtle alterations in the patterns that characterize it. In particular, the increased capability to catalog and manipulate knowledge will enhance the role of those owners who become more involved in the study of options available to them.
Further, the global availability of basic design-build capability will permit tighter competition on a technical level for conventional construction projects. The so-called first-of-a-kind projects involving sophisticated custom design and construction will still require specialized capabilities, and firms will meet these requirements using advanced tools and techniques.
In the widest sense, construction itself will feel the impact from several continuing global trends: 1 a shift toward more decentralized market activity with more players, both large and small; and 2 increasing access throughout the world to more information about basic human needs such as food storage and sanitation, particularly in developing countries.
The point here is that as knowledge is disseminated more broadly and deeply into global society, there will be increasing understanding of both the need for facilities that satisfy basic human needs and the knowledge of how these facilities can be built simply and cheaply.
Technology is changing the nature and shape of the markets served by the construction sector, just as it is changing specific activities in the construction process.
One of the most obvious of these changes is the addition of new markets because of technological progress in general. Two examples are the so-called clean rooms required for the assembly of complex electronic components, and the gradual expansion of construction work related to the containment and disposal of toxic wastes.
The design and construction of facilities for innovative sources of energy is an ongoing challenge. Extraterrestrial activity—construction in outer space—motivates unusual solutions and creates new possibilities.
The more prosaic but no less important requirements of infrastructure replacement, such as underground urban utilities, call for extensive application of new construction capabilities to minimize costs and disruptions.
Further, to the extent that technology allows a wider range of. Technology is also continuing to change the way we create and modify building codes. In the era before robotics and automation, code-setting required attention to a considerable number of safety factors based on the uncertainties allowed for in many design calculations. In the next 10 years, the greatest technical impact in the construction sector is expected to come from improved management methods and automation.
Advancements in management methods to improve productivity and schedule performance will employ automation and expert systems to a great degree.
Construction design will see increased sophistication in the conceptual phase and real-time data base communications networks to support estimating, scheduling, and project management. Procurement activities will improve by the use of CAD systems to provide a direct interface with major vendors and suppliers.
Automated warehouses, staging areas, and related support facilities will also play key roles. In the construction process itself, expanded use of computerized scheduling, tracking, and control using real-time networks and robotics-assisted operations will play increasing roles, where practical, to meet quality, safety, and cost objectives.
Several major companies and government institutions throughout the world have active and comprehensive construction research programs, including companies such as Bechtel and countries such as the Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These programs are executed sometimes in company laboratories. The companies are competing in all overseas markets. In Japan, for example, more than 50 construction companies have their own research facilities.
Such laboratories are part of parent company activity to expand vertical market positions. Significant efforts are expended worldwide on applied research to develop new construction technologies. Although some firms liberally promote the more glamorous aspects of construction research and development as a marketing tool, many have planned seriously for improvements to their knowledge base.
The knowledge gained by this research will undoubtedly improve their competitive edge for major construction jobs. All firms in the construction sector must reexamine the cost-effectiveness of their research and development commitments in relation to the competitive advantage they expect to derive.
In the future, design and construction, in general, will become ever more closely integrated. More effective design optimization studies and constructability decisions will be made during the engineering phase. We will, in effect, maximize the use of automated job site machinery by designing with it in mind. Procurement, as a generic process, will also be more closely tied to design decisions. Trade-offs among procurement, scheduling, and constructability will be more easily understood through improved, computerized analysis of procurement options.
Construction itself will undergo significant changes in methods of management and work performance. Technology is having major impacts on methods and systems for constructing all types of projects. The most significant challenge will be that of management coordination. Historically, the management of construction activity has been too reactive—dominated by archaic methods, restrictive trade union practices, and ineffective planning. In some ways, we are still building the cathedrals of the Middle Ages when we need to build space stations and advanced factories on earth.
The technological capability exists for vast improvement in our methods, and it will be our management effectiveness that determines our success in the long run. With the vision of what can be done and the commitment to make full use of available technology, the future for construction should hold many extraordinary developments. The technological revolution has reached around the world, with important consequences for business, government, and the labor market.
Computer-aided design, telecommunications, and other developments are allowing small players to compete with traditional giants in manufacturing and other fields. In this volume, 16 engineering and industrial experts representing eight countries discuss the growth of technological advances and their impact on specific industries and regions of the world.
From various perspectives, these distinguished commentators describe the practical aspects of technology's reach into business and trade. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website. Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.
There are lots of free Civil engineering books pdf like Civil Engineering Design Code, Composite Structure Construction, and building construction book, Engineering Material, estimating and costing in civil engineering. All the books are in pdf format and easily downloadable. All the Civil Engineering related professionals and students need all these books during their professional work and study.
More books to be added to the list soon. Get your desired free Civil engineering books PDF. So, getting free Civil engineering books PDF is easier for you. Just select one or more Civil Engineering books and download. Hope this post will be helpful for Civil engineering books PDF seeker. I am trying to add more books for Civil Engineering in this list. I have deep interest to learn and share knowledge.
Structuralbd is a Residential Engineering Services. Specialized in the structural design of various types of projects like concrete, steel, and timber structure. Special experience in structural design of US residential home for City Approval.
0コメント