Completed Projects
Most Recent Projects:
Towards Unmanned Self-Navigable Real Time Location Sensing System for Construction Safety
Dr. Abiola Akanmu, PI
Despite increasing efforts to address safety concerns in the construction industry, construction sites still have high accident rates. Integrating information technologies with construction activities and environments can provide opportunities for real-time monitoring of resources, access to data on workers’ behavior, and prediction of construction accidents. Dr. Abiola Akanmu’s research will evaluate the performance of a commercially available real-time location sensing system that provides access to the location of workers, materials and equipment, enabling the design and development of an unmanned location tracking system that can self-navigate indoor construction environments.
Fire Safety in Smart Buildings – 4D Fire and Smoke Simulation
Dr. William Liou, PI
The nearly half million structure fires in the U.S. each year cause 17,000 injuries and deaths, and $10 billion in property losses. Dr. William Liou will build a predictive tool to simulate incidents of fire and smoke events and predict the location and likely growth of fire and smoke in smart buildings. The project will use computational fluid dynamics software and É«É«À²â€™s Floyd Hall in the model.
An Innovative Application of Construction Sealants and Adhesives to Enhance Resilience of Wood Residential Buildings to Natural Hazards
Dr. Xiaoyun Shao, PI
Hurricanes and earthquakes cause tremendous devastation around the world. Dr. Xiaoyun Shao’s research will study construction sealants and adhesives, their properties and application, and how to mitigate damage to low-rise wood buildings, which comprise 90 percent of residential structures. Dr. Shao plans to use analytical and statistical modeling to assess the effectiveness of construction sealants and adhesives in improving the resilience of structures in windstorms and earthquakes.
Means and Methods for Improving the Structural Integrity of Roof Systems
Dr. Upul Attanayake, PI and Kanchani Basnayake, M.Sc.
Roof covering failure is a common occurrence in hurricane and tornado disasters. Roof covering failure allows water penetration, leading to significant damage to a building’s interior, and in most cases, structural failure. Dr. Upul Attanayake’s research will evaluate various roof systems and materials for improving structural resilience in damaging winds.
A Holistic Framework to Support Compliance Checking in the Construction Domain
Drs. Wuwei Shen & Jiansong Zhang, PIs
Automated compliance checking is used in the construction industry to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a construction process. However, with increasing demands from clients and tightening regulatory requirements, current automated compliance checking techniques cannot tackle the complexity of a project’s lifecycle. Dr. Wuwei Shen and Dr. Jiansong Zhang are proposing a novel framework that uses a UML profile and then applies conformance checking to perform compliance checking through the lifecycle of the project.
Fire Safety for Smart Buildings – Big Data Analytics for Fire and Smoke Prediction
Dr. William Liou, PI
The nearly half million structure fires in the U.S. each year cause 17,000 injuries and deaths, and $10 billion in property losses. Dr. William Liou built a predictive tool to simulate incidents of fire and smoke events and predict the location and likely growth of fire and smoke in smart buildings. The project uses computational fluid dynamics software and É«É«À²â€™s Floyd Hall in the model. This second phase of research now being funded involves developing two datasets for predicting fire spread in smart buildings and then using those datasets to design an artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithm for big data analytics for fire safety in smart buildings.
Development of Simulation and Experimental Environment for Evaluating Structural System Performance Under Wind Loads
Dr. Upul Attanayake, PI & Dr. William Liou, Co-PI
Roof covering failure is a common occurrence in hurricane and tornado disasters. Roof covering failure allows water penetration, leading to significant damage to a building’s interior, and in most cases, structural failure. This grant will further Dr. Upul Attanayake’s recent research evaluating various roof systems and materials for improving structural resilience in damaging winds. His research has identified the need to develop numerical simulation expertise to assess the performance of roofing and structural systems. The grant also includes designing a mobile outdoor experiment facility to evaluate sensors and validate numerical simulation models. It also will be used for outreach activities such as the promotion of STEM education.
A Simulation-Based Investigation of Adhesive Construction to Enhance Hazard Resilience of Wood Frame Residential Buildings
Dr. Xiaoyun Shao, PI
Wood frame construction is predominantly used for homes in the United States and Canada. Damage from natural hazards, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, lead to tremendous economic loss, in addition to emotional loss and stress. Dr. Xiaoyun Shao’s recent research studied an innovative application of construction adhesives to enhance the resilience of wood frame buildings. This new grant will continue to investigate novel approaches to dramatically enhance the resilience of wood frame buildings using construction adhesives to improve strength and stiffness.