Week 5 Term Project's Description and Outline

BIM's future application; what else can BIM do?

Description of project

Saving energy is one of the critical issues in the world. To solve the issue, many material engineer and mechanical engineers are working on the solution.  Meantime, these problems could be minimized by observing and analyze the building. In this project, we will discuss how BIM would be used efficiently to save building energy. The BIM programs that would be focused on will not only analyze and control thermal mechanisms like HVAC, but also physical mechanisms which could move overhang structure to create shades or the Sun light depending on the day and season.

Why chosen?

Since saving energy has been an issue in terms of money and global, transformable structure could be the solution. The number of transformable structures has been increasing around the world, and they became really efficient in saving energy. Therefore, we choose this topic due the amount of the studies that shows how transformable structure could save energy and money. We will try to focus on the current transformable building's abilities and outcome and what the expectation of transformable structure on the future.

Relation to Intelligent building

In construction, design wouldn’t do anything if the parts are not properly installed. Even with best HVAC system, there will be error and problems if the building itself has an unexpected problem. BIM is the most efficient way to analyze the building because they record and save data as-is based on installed sensors. This project would be all about BIM which possibly could be operated without any guidance of human.

Challenges

Although BIM users are increasing fast, still many people out there are not familiar with software. Since there aren’t many cases, it’s not so easy to find many case studies. Also the challenge we face in this project would be the transformable structure. Although transforming part could be as simple as small overhang shades, these structure designs and applications aren’t common these days. To get the best feed-backs  we should be contacting many different organizations.

Project Outline: 

1.    Introduction of BIM and Intelligent buildings

a.       Definition of Intelligent buildings

b.      Diversity of programs

2.       BIM system and HVAC

a.       Previous attempts and strategies of BIM system

b.      Newer methods and programs

c.       Case study

d.      Analysis

3.       Physical Mechanism

a.       BIM usages for advanced techniques

b.      Case studies

c.       Analysis

4.       Conclusion

Team Member:

yoon and Abdulrhman Alkraidees

Comments:

Comment on Brian Benson’s post:

I find your topic really interested since I was wondering what is the relation between   intelligent building and sustainability, what  it can do for the sustainability of the building, and whether it is  helpful or the opposite . Considering different system of standers like LEED are really important.  I really look forward to find out how can intelligent building affects the sustainability.

Comment on Teddy Bruder’s post

The 3d- printer is a wide topic to be covered. I was interesting on doing this topic at first but I guess many students will do this. While I was reading through your post, it seems that you will the major aspect of the 3D printer. I found the topic really interested, and what I like the most is considering current and future cost and comparing them to see the different. What makes me confused a little bit is how the 3D printer can be used in food, I truly look forward to find out about it.

Week 5: BIM's future application; what else can BIM do?

Project Outline: 

Kyung Yoon, Abdulrhman Alkraidees 

Description of project

Saving energy is one of the critical issues in the world. To solve the issue, many material and mechanical engineers are working on the solution.  Meantime, these problems could be minimized by observing and analyze the building. In this project, we will discuss how BIM could be used efficiently to save energy of building. The BIM programs we will be focusing on will not only analyze and control thermal mechanisms like HVAC, but also physical mechanisms which could move overhang structure to create shades or clear out for the Sun lights throughout the day and season.

Why chosen?

BIM's ability is almost infinite. Since the program is still in the early stage of developing, the growth of its power can be exponential. Working on the same program is challenging to improve; however, we decided to approach the challenge in different way. The way it doesn't only require the thermally efficient, but also it has a great aesthetics of it. When we think of BIM as a tool of communication between buildings and human, we also come up with an idea of building that has a life; buildings that can not only communicate, but also moves. Many cases and studies are taken for entertainment purposes in this stage, but they do have small cases being used in residential buildings. This project will make us understand what the real meaning of intelligent would be and the future of buildings.

Relation to Intelligent building

If the construction goes bad, no good design would work as it was calculated. Even with best HVAC system, there will be errors and problems if the building itself has an unexpected problem. BIM is the most efficient way to analyze the building because they record and save data as-is based on installed sensors. This project would be all about BIM which possibly could be operated without any guidance of human observation. With this project, classmates and presenters will learn alot about intelligent building and understand better for the future.

Challenges

Although BIM users are increasing fast, still many people out there are not familiar with software. Since there aren’t many cases, it’s not so easy to find many case studies. Also the challenge we face in this project would be the transformable structure. Although transforming part could be as simple as small overhang shades, these structure designs and applications aren’t common these days. To get the best feed-backs  we should be contacting many different organizations.

1.    Introduction of BIM and Intelligent buildings

a.       Definition of Intelligent buildings

b.      Diversity of programs

2.       BIM system and HVAC

a.       Previous attempts and strategies of BIM system

b.      Newer methods and programs

c.       Case study

d.      Analysis

3.       Physical Mechanism

a.       BIM usages for advanced techniques

b.      Case studies

c.       Analysis

4.       Conclusion


Comments to other colleagues:

 Our project seems very similar to Waiyang's group in sense of utilizing the physical mechanisms to control the indoor environment by using BIM. However, using the BIM with smaller scale plus using different UV lights would be closer to common BIM approach with no technology. This project could work with Signe's project as well how she would like to discuss about the Sun light effecting the indoor environment. For her case, it would be opposite of energy saving because she would like to have the Sun light to come into the building. Ivan's project also have slight similarity to ours as well since we are mainly focusing on the indoor air quality and human comfort. The difference we will have would be the progress of BIM system to visualize how it's been changed over time. Many of student other than dave would have project about 3D printing. Dave specifically 3-D printed house which is very interesting subject. A house could be modified, renovated, and expanded for many different purposes. Based on my understanding 3-D printer requires one consistent material. It is very interesting how things would be put together to build a building with 3-D printer.  

BIM: Advantages and Disadvantages

BIM is one of the newest technology that could hold Architecture, Engineering, and Construction together. BIM has many evolutionary features where it can change 2D to 3D drawings, have better communication among different departments by adjoining them, automatic updates respected on small detail changes, and etc. Advantages of BIM are well-known; however, disadvantages are something that can not be ignored.

BIM is mainly computer program oriented information system that require users to have basic computer programming skill. Older generations in construction, engineering, and architecture business are slowly adopting this new computer eras to stay in business. Although young engineers are adopting new programs faster, many of them are not used to BIM programming. For them to get used to it, it take a time and money. This convenient computer program is not so convenient to learn.

Another major problem would be the computer errors. The error in model could be not seen to designer or rendering person. Because of complex detail drawings or working in smaller scale view for faster rendering, these problems could cause bigger problems during the construction. Especially, when many people get to work on the same file, it has better chance to make errors when they race against deadline.

Other possible disadvantage changing stage of amount of effort put in. BIM lets designer to put more effort in the conceptual design and detail designing rather than toward construction which is typical without BIM program. BIM has ability to update easily when the changes or adjustments are in the BIM's capacity. This could be dangerous when the change of the project gets bigger due to unexpected event or change. If the designer has to re-design the whole thing because of sudden event like bad economy, change of materials, updating for new building code, or unexpected natural disaster. Since BIM requires so much effort into detail designing, sudden change of concept could waste all the effort that was put in before. It's rare, but possible and critical.

Like Mike said, BIM could save so much money in this business. It also is efficient for everyone including Architecture/Engineering/Construction. Would that necessarily improve buildings? It definitely is a good investment, but it could rather waste more money without considerable investment strategies. Moore's law says, every 18 month, computers are getting twice as faster and as smaller. All these are possible because technology growth always has been everyone's interest. If any events occur to distract the growth of technology like wars, cyber attacks, or even new era of computers which requires totally different coding than current computer coding, it could slow down the process that current problem will not be solved for along time.

David's post also mention how ineffective BIM is to learn. Studies from Illinois State University showed that only few people were successfully manage to learn BIM and use them as it supposed to. Rest had very slow progress. It is important to educate people when they are young in college. That's why many companies looking for young engineers. Making all the employees to study new thing would be beneficial as long as they accept them. Because, many people already knows that this newest technology won't be new anymore in few years.

So, is BIM worth a time and money? This debate has been going on quiet a bit while majority of people decide to watch where it goes rather than taking the challenge. There are many studies and information out there to find out what's good and bad about BIM. It is up to the user to decide based on user or a company's characteristics and analysis. At the end of Tyler's blog, BIM could be much more efficient and easier once it's mastered. People should make their own decisions rather than following the trend or merely listening to professional comments.

Al-Mannai 2008 Challenges of Building Information Modeling In a 

Construction Company in Qatar

Mike Wright 2014 BIM will improve building

David Barbalace 2014 Week 4 - BIM makes the Engineer's Work Easier vs. It makes the Engineer's work Harder

Tylor Woyshner 2014 Week 4 Blog Post - BIM vs. Drafting (CAD)

Topic and team member - Yoon

Topic:
Intelligent Buildings of Today and Tomorrow

Description:
Saving energy has always  been the issues in terms of money and global warming. Many different materials and solutions has been suggested, but there still isn't the definite answer. One of the solutions could be approached is applying transformable structure that could allow natural resources like wind, water, and the Sun light. Structures like Milwaukee Art Museum built by Santiago Calatrava utilizes Sun shades to let the Sun light comes into the building during the days and closes at nights. Recently, architect Shingeru Ban suggested transformable structure for M+ Museum in Hong Kong to save energy in indoor air quality. There are many more structures and ideas out there to reduce energy. This project would be focus on current transformable building's abilities and outcome and the expectation of future transformable structure and studies.

Team member:
Abdulrahman Alkraidess
Kyung Yoon

Week 3 - Chapter 4 BIM for Owners and Facility Managers - Yoon

Constructing a building requires many design calculations and intensive labors to make it stay up safely. Unfortunately, many calculations and intensive data collections still continues after the building is finished with constructions: it still requires efforts of project team and dedicated technical expertise to create an integrated model.[1] However, with BIM model, this could be done with a program in certain level. As an owner, who would be paying all the unnecessary maintenance cost, investing in BIM would be beneficial by increasing the building performance, reducing the financial risk, and shortening project schedule.

Many older generations refuse to adapt new technology. Many things have changed from manual to automatics; however, to understand or being comfortable with new programs take efforts to get used to it. That’s why many professions chose early retirements over learning something new because it’s not so simple to learn. Traditionally, building gets to be designed separately based on the critical aspects including structural, mechanical, and architectural. They don’t really get to put together until the construction. BIM, on the other hand, could put them together virtually to prevent potential problems. Without going through each expert, this could save much more time with higher accuracy. Unexpected computer errors might be the one that’s holding older generations to BIM adventures; however, computer programs develop very rapidly and there are enough cases done by BIM that computer errors are extremely low especially for typical models.

Ability of BIM still affects the building after being constructed. Interest of owners is always about how to save money. Well, at least that’s big portion of their interests. BIM’s one of the advantage is linking design information with cost estimating and sales forecasts. It could provide very accurate cost estimation for owner’s expanses. The estimation could avoid unnecessary overhead cost by changing the model easily. From customized individual human behavior to legality based on standard codes, ability of BIM is almost infinite. Revit is one of the good examples to use. Changing the dimension or usage purpose of a room could change the energy cost of the entire building and Revit can analyze it automatically. Nameita experienced that actual measures beyond the dimensional measure came out to be very similar through this program.[2] This simple program could do a very accurate and fast calculation without getting through all the engineers in different field.

[1]: Eastman, 2011, BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners, Mangers, Designers, Engineers, and Contractors.
[2]: Nameita Toure, 2014, BIM for Owners and Facility Managers

Week 2 - Robotic Capabilities (Group C)

Week 2 - Robotic Capabilities (Group C)

Robotic development has been continued rapidly. Nowadays, we can find robotic systems pretty much everywhere. Could robotic technology affect the building where humans find the comfort and safe in their lives?

Ever since the computer technology have been developed, they changed the way of life in the offices as well as the job sites. Since the performance of machines getting better and better, people started to adopting the era. Despite people still trying to fight for their rights to keep their jobs and possible computer errors that could cost human lives, researches and studies are coming up with convincing statistics and results to announce that the futuristic world is not too far way from now. One of the best example is Google self-driving car. The research is taken in the state of California to show the world that even computer programming error could bring better results than human errors. Along with Google, Volvo and Auidi's also perform self-driving program on the highway and streets with busy traffics.

Robotic actions does not stop on the road, but they also were taken into factories and commercial buildings. These robots are being more precise, small, durable, and cheaper as the technology advances. ABB's IRB 120 is one of the smallest robot arm that could work in the factory. That small robot arm, as small as 25kg can operate many repetitive works like what the robot arms that people could expect.

What if these technologies could be used for human comfort and safeties in buildings? There are many robots developed, but still in the progress of perfecting it. Quodrotor machines can build any types of figures as long as it could be generated in computer program and materials are light enough. Those machines are very effective since they have no limit of access during the construction and move whole lot faster than human workers. Like Nameita says, Robots also have sensors to operate HVAC construction to figure out the data that are changing throughout the construction. However, they are not precise enough and limits of weight for carrying. Also there is a limit of connection methods which has to require glues and magnetic connections. To be more realistic, they could be used for visual inspection for unreachable space by human.

Serviceability  is another important factor of the building that human expects. With technology nowadays, robot can find its location and remove obstacles to get to assigned locations. WooWee is one of the leading company that designs the machine to located and control robot itself to explore the building. If these machines get be developed further more, these machine can save human lives in the unlivable condition like fire or earth quakes. Like david mentioned, some of the schools are already using machines for human works. Even in a Japanese restaurant, machines are not only making ramen noodle to serve, but also they perform for entertainments.

If the Robot technologies keep developing as it is, one day, robots would become human's best friend. That would bring many advantages and disadvantages. It is good to keep the traditions, but sometimes, accepting new things could help to carry on the tradition in better ways. Future is almost here.


Nameita Toure, future robot capabilities
David Barbalace, future robot capabilities
Wowwee, Home robots
Quodrotor team, Construction footage with quodrotor
NTD TV, Japanese ramen making machine
Singularity HUB, ABB's sallest robot arms and many more
Chris Matzski, Google's self-driving car

Yoon's initial Blog Post

Background relevant to Intelligent Building

My father owns a business which supplies many products to construction companies. One of the supplies are sensors. As I was growing up, I watch many different types of sensors and what they can do to make life easier.

Expectation for this class

I wish to share and learn knowledge about newest technologies on buildings.

My initial definition of "Intelligent Building"

Intelligent Building I thought of was a kind of building that could communicate with people living in and working on the buildings. Any sort of response that could let people know for any kind of discomfort or danger so that people can avoid any problems for staying in that building.