Abstract
Abstract. The design and maintenance of buildings and infrastructures relies on digital tools such as Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Building Information Modelling (BIM) methods, Geographic Information System (GIS) datasets and other kinds of digital representation of knowledge. The innovations in digital technologies in Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operations (AECO) sector are not just related to the enhancement of consolidated processes, but they open new collaboration methods and integration with other Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) such as Internet of Things (IoT), additive manufacturing, automation, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. As domain-specific software solutions are expanding their features over different sources and datasets, the need for integration and standardization of information storage and exchange arises. Semantic Web technologies are one of the emerging solutions for solving such issues, as they offer the possibility to combine data from diverse data models and multiple domains using the web. Among the ontologies developed in the last decade for the construction sector, one specific reference should be made on the ifcOWL, an IFC-based ontology representing the most used data schema industry. Nonetheless, from the standardization point of view, so far ontologies have not been considered among the standard methods for information exchange in the AEC, unlike in other sectors (e.g. ISO 15926 was firstly developed for the integration of life cycle data for process plants of oil and gas facilities). This paper aims at showing a standardization and harmonization perspective for ontologies in the AECO industry, starting from the results achieved in the BIM4EEB project.
Highlights
Actors of the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operations (AECO) industry exchange heterogeneous information among multiple stakeholders, using tools and datasets of different nature
Some other notable ontologies for the AECO sector are: Building Topology Ontology (BOT), a minimal ontology developed by W3C for the representation of topological concepts of buildings (Rasmussen, et al, 2017); Ontology for Property Management (OPM), which allows the possibility of definition of property state (Rasmussen, et al, 2018); RealEstateCore, designed to manage real estate assets information (2); Flow Systems Ontology (FSO), which models energy systems and has already had market applications (3)
During the ontology development the considerations has been taken on the following questions: 1. What terms shall be included in our BIM4EEB modular ontologies?
Summary
Actors of the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operations (AECO) industry exchange heterogeneous information among multiple stakeholders, using tools and datasets of different nature. Building Information Modelling (BIM) represents the most effective attempt to improve information management in construction It consists in a set of methods, technologies and processes designed for the collaboration of multiple stakeholders along the entire life cycle of a built asset. With the concept of BIM level (NBS, 2019), Linked Data technologies represent the technologies for the industry to evolve from a federated building information model level to an ontology-enabled full integrated model for building information This paper investigates the topic of knowledge management in the construction sector by proposing an approach for the definition and harmonization of an ontology framework for the construction industry, starting from the first outcomes of the EU-funded research project BIM4EEB (BIM4EEB, 2019).
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