Heterogeneous integration of BIM with low-cost indoor mobile laser scanning method for building fabric maintenance in China

Abstract

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry is one of the most energy consuming and waste producing sectors in recent decades. Now it is facing the challenges of technological innovation and structural upgrading due to the increase requirements of sustainable development such as less wastes, lower energy consumption and higher productivity. As the largest AEC market in the world, China is exploring an innovative way based on digitalization and informatization to realize sustainable development of its local AEC industry. However, the conservative management mechanism of China’s AEC industry can no longer fulfill the increased demands and requirements of modern AEC projects from planning phase to operation and maintenance (O&M) stage, which is also the longest and most costly phase of a building project lifecycle. The maintenance, particularly the maintenance of building fabric components, is the key to ensure stable physical and operational performances of a building. As uncertainty caused by labors, natural environments, materials and other impact factors can highly influence the maintenance of building fabric components including costs and durations, it is significant to conduct a study for implementing reliable maintenance cost and schedule planning for building fabric maintenance during the O&M phase in China. To support such an implementation, emerging digital technologies are adopted in this study. Building Information Modelling (BIM), which is a promising digital technology embraced by global and Chinese governments and organizations to help realize digitalization and innovation of the conservative management mechanism of the AEC industry. Compared with traditional Computer-Aided Design (CAD), BIM brings a N-dimensional concept, which includes the benefits of three-dimensional (3D) visualization, four-dimensional (4D) schedule simulation, five-dimensional (5D) cost estimation and six-dimensional (6D) facility management for improving productivity and minimizing energy consumptions and wastes throughout the project lifecycle. In addition, through technical integration with other heterogeneous digital technologies, such as 3D laser scanning, which is widely used in reality captures from construction environments for quality control purpose, it is applicable to find a low-cost and time-saving method to implement a reliable and efficient economic planning for building fabric maintenance. Therefore, this study aims to develop a low-cost and efficient mobile laser scanning method that can be integrated with 5D BIM to realize indoor mapping and digital modelling for maintenance cost estimation and planning of building fabric components under the indoor environment of a typical case study in China. In this study, the low-cost and efficient mobile laser scanning method is developed based on an integration of two common indoor positioning techniques - the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) system with an inexpensive and portable 2D laser scanner. By using developed algorithmic solutions, a motion trajectory provided by the indoor positioning techniques can be combined with 2D scan profiles from the laser scanner to generate a 3D point cloud, which shows reality captures from building fabric components existing in the indoor environment. This developed mobile laser scanning method can make a significant contribution to discovering the real conditions of fabric components for better maintenance planning. In addition, through the empirical investigations of BIM-based workflows for design coordination and impact factors influencing both construction process and maintenance management, a knowledge link between the O&M phase with design and construction phases also has been discovered to help explore solutions for improving the performances and productivities throughout the project lifecycle in the future. As there are a few studies that focus on the BIM applications in the cost estimation and planning for the maintenance purpose of building fabric components, even there are rare case studies about indoor mapping and digital modelling applied into building fabric maintenance, this PhD study realizes significant achievements to narrow the knowledge gap between the global BIM development and China’s local BIM development through the heterogeneous integration of laser scanning with 5D BIM particularly for digitalization of building fabric maintenance in China. Meanwhile it organically establishes a consistent knowledge link between facility O&M phase with design and construction phases to implement a sustainable project lifecycle management. Therefore, the novelty of the study has been guaranteed and its value to relevant research domains including 3D imaging and facility management also has been proved in the thesis. Future improvements and research work based on the outcome of this study also have been discussed.

Date of Award	6 Jun 2019
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Univerisity of Nottingham
Supervisor	Llewellyn Tang (Supervisor) & Craig Matthew Hancock (Supervisor)