The regulation constraint modeling and semantic inferring in construction quality checking

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the feasibility that an ontological approach can be applied to formalize the construction regulation constraint knowledge in a computer-interpretable way, for construction quality checking, during construction stage. Design/methodology/approach – The ontological and semantic web technologies are used to model the construction quality constraints knowledge into Axioms/OWL and SWRL rules. Protégé platform is selected to illustrate how the construction quality checking, based on the Axioms/OWL and SWRL rules, is achieved. Findings – The ontology and semantic web technologies can be an alternative way for modeling the construction regulation constraints in a computer-interpretable way, and can be implemented for the regulation-based construction quality checking. Research limitations/implications – The approach is illustrated only with given specific technical constraints examples, the generality and practicality of the approach need further investigation. Originality/value – The paper introduces an ontological and semantic approach to model and formalize the construction regulation constraints for construction quality checking, and proves the feasibility by the case studies. The proposed approach enables the regulations can be understood and retrieved semantically by computers, which facilitates the using of regulation codes.