Post-construction Phases Research Articles

An Overview of Construction Claims: A Case Study of the Zambian Construction Industry

Construction projects are subject to implementation challenges which constitute risks that threaten their smooth execution. Once risks become a reality, they give rise to project cost escalation and time overruns, which can lead to claims. Claims are a major source of friction between contracting parties in the construction industry and can divert considerable resources in form of both finances and staff time from ongoing projects.An overview of issues related to construction claims, using the Zambian construction industry as a case study is presented in this paper. Three research methods: literature review, semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey were used in the study. The questionnaire survey formed the main data collection method for the study.The study reported in the paper established that claims normally result from omissions and actions during the pre-tendering and contract formulation phases of projects, although they usually manifest during the construction and post-construction phases. Once a claim is presented, contracting parties develop negative perceptions which create adversarial relationships between them. Fair and expeditious settlement of claims in Zambia was established to be difficult mainly due to: untimely notification, poor record keeping, inadequate legal and factual justification and poor presentation.

Beyond Design: The Importance of Construction and Post-Construction Phases in Green Developments

Green developments are becoming a popular land use planning concept that attempts to accommodate growth while minimizing impacts on natural resources. Various policies encourage conservation designs that usually translate into the clustering of homes and the conservation of some percentage of open space. However, the success of a design is determined by what happens during the construction and post-construction phases of a subdivision project. These two phases are often ignored in land use planning and given only minimal attention by built environment professionals. As a result, green developments may not be functioning as originally intended. This essay discusses the importance of construction and post-construction and a way forward to create functional, sustainable communities. Construction activities and decisions, such as impacts from earthwork machines, improper protection of conserved open spaces and trees, the choice of plants used for yards and common areas, and the storage of construction material all can lead to severe impacts on natural areas both within and surrounding a development site. During post-construction, a variety of improper management practices by homeowners can compromise the sustainability of a development. Developers and associated environmental consultant teams could implement approaches that would engage contractors and residents, such as environmental construction covenants and the installment of a neighborhood, environmental education program. To increase the adoption of relevant construction and post-construction practices, appropriate policies need to be created. However, the shift will only occur once the planning and built environment community acknowledges that design is only the first step towards sustainability. Academic design studios and continuing education courses can help with this culture shift by including construction and post-construction considerations within their curriculum.

Duties and Responsibilities of Construction Managers: Perceptions of Parties Involved in Construction

This paper reports the findings of a study conducted by researchers at Illinois Institute of Technology under the direction and supervision of the ASCE Committee on Management Practices in Construction to investigate the expectations of the parties involved in the construction process, including designers, owners, general contractors, subcontractors, construction managers, and educators, relative to construction managers’ duties. The findings suggest that while there is some consensus among parties to a construction project relative to CM duties particularly in the construction phase, there is also some disagreement, most of which appear to be between contractors and designers. Most disagreements are related to CM duties performed in the bidding and postconstruction phases of projects.

Damage to Treasury: Abnormally Low Tenders in Public Construction Works

The purpose of this paper is to determine the adverse effect of abnormally low tenders (ALTs) on public construction works in Turkey. A comprehensive literature review was performed to investigate the reasons of ALTs. This paper categorizes the reasons behind ALTs with the help of a questionnaire to which 430 construction companies responded. A detailed analysis of the submitted questionnaires revealed a number of reasons for ALTs and their adverse effect on the construction industry. Staying in the business, miscalculation of bid price, work experience document, and inaccuracy of the conceptual cost were found to be the main reasons behind ALTs. A better database system for contractors on market unit prices, a better quality control assessment in construction and postconstruction phases, full complete design documents in tender packages, and a better evaluation system on the assessment of ALTs are recommended by the study.

Visual representation of construction management data

Construction projects are associated with voluminous and often unstructured data sets, generated in support of construction management functions. Project managers face the challenge of making meaningful deductions from this data. A central contribution of this paper is that visual analytics can provide a means of analyzing data from various dimensions of a project to extract information in aid of decision making and helping to explain reasons for performance to date. Questions posed relate to the role of visual analytics in the execution and post-construction phases of a project, data representations and transformations of specific interest, and the kinds of visual representations and interactions that provide useful insights to management personnel, help explain performance, or assist with communication. Principles of designing effective visual analytics solutions for various construction management functions and applicable to the associated analytic reasoning tasks, data representations and transformations, and visual representations including relevant interaction features are described. Emphasis is placed on the choice of visual representations along with discussion of approaches for validating the usefulness of the visual analytics solutions proposed. The notion of context dimensions and performance dimensions for representing construction projects is introduced as part of the formulation of visual representation designs. To demonstrate the application of the concepts presented, data sets from two different projects were used to produce visual representations helpful for analytical reasoning about change order management data. A detailed assessment is given of several of the images presented in terms of strengths and weaknesses, and interaction features desired. The findings of the paper in terms of principles, concepts and lessons learned should prove helpful to those wishing to apply visual analytics to a broad range of construction management functions.

Sustainability in Public Facilities: Analysis of Guidance Documents

With increasing evidence that sustainable design and construction results in more energy-efficient, lower-cost, less environmentally damaging, and more occupant-friendly facilities, organizations have begun to seek guidance on integrating concepts of sustainability into their capital programs. A growing number of guidance documents have been developed to support these sustainability efforts. While these documents contain a broad spectrum of information on sustainable buildings, they are not necessarily written or organized suitably for stakeholders associated with the postconstruction phases of the facility life cycle. This paper presents a critical parametric analysis of nine such documents intended to educate facility decision makers on sustainability. The analysis revealed that these documents, with some exceptions, do not address all of their intended audiences equally, with most information focusing on designers and owners and comparatively less information targeted to others such as facilities managers. Given the crucial role facilities managers play in ensuring the ongoing sustainable performance of facilities, there is a need to modify or extend existing guidance documents to better address the needs of facilities managers.

Behavior of a welded wire wall with poor quality, cohesive–friction backfills on soft Bangkok clay: a case study

A full-scale and extensively instrumented experimental mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall with steel grid reinforcements was built on soft clay foundation. Three different locally available poor to marginal quality backfills were used in each of three sections along its length. The soft Bangkok clay in the subsoil is about 6 m thick, overlain by a surficial 2 m thick weathered clay crust and underlain by a layer of stiff clay. It was observed that the amount of subsoil movement greatly influenced the variation in the vertical pressure beneath the wall, as well as the tension in the reinforcement. Pullout resistances in the field were also found to be very much affected by the arching effects due to the presence of inextensible reinforcement in combination with the subsoil movements. The wall showed no signs of instability both during construction and in the postconstruction phases, despite the large settlements and lateral movements. Its overall performance has been satisfactory. It was concluded that the steel grid reinforcement can be effectively used to reinforce poor to marginal quality backfill in walls and embankments on soft clay foundations. Key words: mechanically stabilized earth, inextensible reinforcements, soft clay foundation, poor quality backfills, base pressures, settlements, lateral movements, lateral pressures, compaction, arching.

Marina developments as sources of hydrocarbon inputs to estuaries

The intense development of marinas, especially within estuaries on the coastline of southern England, has led to major inputs of potentially toxic organic compounds. During a research programme on the occurrence, transport and fate of volatile organic compounds within the estuarine water and sediments of Southampton Water, we discovered massive inputs of hydrocarbons, both during and after construction phases. In one instance, measurements made before development and at 3-monthly intervals over a 3-year period showed a 10-fold increase of a range of aromatics, alkanes cycloalkanes and organohalogens. Our investigations show that, during construction phases, the local aquatic environment becomes a major sink for anthropogenic wastes relating to construction activities. At post-construction phases, yachts and small boats continue to act as major sources of hydrocarbons to the estuary.

Transient Dynamics During Extension of Flexible Members

Using a relatively general formulation procedure, the paper reviews complex interactions between deployment, attitude dynamics and flexural rigidity for configurations representing deployment of beam and tether type appendages. The governing nonlinear, nonautonomous and coupled hybrid set of equations are extremely difficult to solve even with the help of a computer, not to mention the cost involved. Results suggest substantial influence of the flexibility, deployment velocity, initial conditions, and appendage orientation on the response, and under critical combinations of parameters the system can become unstable. The information has relevance to the design of control systems for: (i) the next generation of communication satellites; (ii) the Orbiter based experiments such as SAFE (Solar Array Flight Experiments), SCOLE (Structural Control Laboratory Experiment), STEP (Structural Technology Experiment Program), and-the NASA/CNR tethered subsatellite system; as well as (iii) the evolutionary transient and postconstruction operational phases of the proposed space station.

ANÁLISE DA QUALIDADE DA ÁGUA POR METODOLOGIA ESTATÍSTICA MULTIVARIADA NA REPRESA VELHA (CEPTA/IBAMA/PIRASSUNUNGA/SP)

Inúmeras questões de difíceis soluções surgem durante as fases de planejamento, construção e pós-construção de reservatórios que necessitam serem abordadas de forma interdisciplinar, destacando-se dentre estas o processo de deposição de sedimentos. Com a finalidade de analisar o comportamento deposicional de um conjunto de variáveis em represa, este trabalho foi executado, durante os anos de 1998 e 2000, na represa Velha, no Centro de Pesquisa e Gestão de Recursos Pesqueiros Continentais (CEPTA/IBAMA), município de Pirassununga (SP). Esta represa abastece 128 tanques e viveiros para piscicultura, onde foram estabelecidos 6 pontos de coletas de amostras de água, realizadas nos períodos seco e chuvoso. Algumas variáveis quanto à qualidade das águas foram determinadas nas amostras coletadas. Os dados foram submetidos ao método estatístico multivariado da análise de agrupamentos demonstrando que no período seco, os parâmetros tiveram comportamento diferente daquele encontrado para os mesmos parâmetros no período chuvoso. Neste último, apesar do número de agrupamentos ser o mesmo do período seco, ocorrem alterações quanto à natureza dos parâmetros agrupados. Assim, os radicais fosfatos e fósforo total se relacionam diretamente com o material de suspensão no período seco, o mesmo não observado no período chuvoso. O efeito deposicional neste foi mais disperso entre os pontos de coleta em relação àquele verificado no período seco.