Abstract
Soil excavation is a fundamental step of building and infrastructure development. Despite strong enforcement of construction best practices and regulations, accidents in construction industry are comparatively higher than other industries. Likewise, significant increase in injuries and fatalities are recently reported on geotechnical activities such as excavation pits and trenches. Academic researchers and industry professionals have currently devoted vital attention to acquire construction safety in preconstruction phase of the project. They have developed various algorithms to enhance safety in preconstruction phase such as automated generation of scaffolding and its potential risk analysis, checking BIM model for fall risks, and limited access zone allocation in wall masonry. However, safety in geotechnical works at preconstruction phase is yet unexplored. This paper proposed automatic safety rule compliance approach for excavation works leveraging algorithmic modeling tools and BIM technologies. The focused approach comprises of the following three modules: information extraction and logic design (IELD), information conversion and process integration (ICPI), and automodeling and safety plan generation (ASPG). Specifically, the scope of the paper is limited to major risks such as cave-ins, fall, safety egress, and prohibited zones risks. A set of rules-based algorithms was developed in commercially available software using visual programming language (VPL) that automatically generates geometric conditions in BIM and visualizes the potential risks and safety resources installation along with their quantity take-off and optimized locations. A case study has been presented to validate the proof of concept; automated modeling tool for excavation safety planning generated the required results successfully. It is anticipated that the proposed approach has potential to help the designers through automated modeling and assist decision makers in developing productive and practical safety plans compared to the conventional 2D plans for excavation works at the preconstruction phase. Moreover, it is realized that the same approach can be extended to other rule-dependent subjects in construction.
Highlights
Safety in construction is a major concern worldwide [1]
According to safety and health agency in the United States, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, hereinafter referred to as OSHA, excavation typically refers to any man made cut, trench, cavity, or depression made by removal of earth [4]
In order to understand the nature of hazards related to excavation, the study was commenced with a detailed study of accident cases and previous literature. ereafter, present status of safety management, related safety rules established by OSHA, and state-of-the-art of Building information modeling (BIM) technologies were reviewed
Summary
Safety in construction is a major concern worldwide [1]. Recent studies reported a significant increase in excavationrelated accidents [2] and could have been avoided with additional considerations. It is further observed that traditional safety planning in construction has been infrequent, manual, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and prone to human error by using twodimensional (2D) paper drawings and reports [5, 19, 21, 25] during the construction phase of the projects On these grounds, advancement and automation are required for the improvement of the existing 2D drawing-based manual safety management processes as well as early prevention in the design phase by using technologies. More specific objective of the study is to develop an automatic BIM-based safety planning tool specific to the excavation in construction that can identify potential hazards related to fall, cave-ins, and safety egress along with a visualized 3D model with built-in preventive solution for recognizing hazards. The scope of the study is limited to the major types of potential risks, including but not limited to cave-in, fall, and safety egress risks
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