Abstract
Falling from height (FFH) is a major safety accident in the architectural/engineering/construction industry and should be prevented as early as possible. Although the current building information modeling (BIM)–based FFH identification methods can locate the FFH hazards. they have various limitations including additional modeling workload, high computational intensiveness, and unreliable performance. In this research, we propose a novel BIM-based method that uses voxels to detect FFH hazards. The result of the validation test shows that the method can generate a more accurate and informative output within less elapsed time than the traditional geometry-based method. The primary contribution of the research lies in that by introducing voxels, the proposed method not only can detect where the FFH hazards are but also can tell if they can be accessed, thus increasing the accuracy of the FFH hazard identification output. Therefore, this method is significant for the early detection and elimination of the potential FFH hazards in building information models.
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Data Availability Statement
The Revit add-ins and source code developed in this study are part of the test models described in the “Validation Test” section; they are available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355437829_Supplemental_Material.
Acknowledgments
The research was supported by the Major Science and Technology Projects of Sanya Yazhouwan Science and Technology City Administration Bureau (SKJC-KJ-2019KY02), Sanya Science and Education Park Open Fund of Wuhan University of Technology (2020KF0012), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (WUT: 203106006). Mr. Xiongjin Ye from Beijing GLS Software Co., Ltd. provided suggestions for developing the tool. The stadium and conference center BIM model were provided by WHUT Design & Research Institute Co. Mr. Zhao Chi, Kai Xiong, and Weiwei Lu from the BIM center of the WHUT Design & Research Institute Co. Ltd. participated in the tests, and four anonymous reviewers provided valuable suggestions on this research. The authors greatly appreciate their help.
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Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 148 • Issue 2 • February 2022
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: May 1, 2021
Accepted: Oct 22, 2021
Published online: Dec 14, 2021
Published in print: Feb 1, 2022
Discussion open until: May 14, 2022
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