Infrastructure Engineering - Research Publications

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    Understanding the Characteristics of Pedestrians when Passing Obstacles of Different Sizes: An Experimental Study
    Alhawsawi, AN ; Sarvi, M ; Felemban, E ; Rajabifard, A ; Wang, J (Forschungszentrum Julich, Zentralbibliothek, 2021-10-03)
    The aim of this study is to understand the collective movements of individuals and to observe how individuals interact within a physical environment in a crowd dynamic, which has drawn the attention of many researchers. We conducted an experimental study to observe interactions in the collective motions of people and to identify characteristics of pedestrians when passing obstacles of different sizes (bar-shaped, 1.2 m, 2.4 m, 3.6 m and 4.8 m), going through one narrow exit and employing three different flow rates in walking and running conditions. According to the results of our study, there were no differences in collision-avoidance behaviour of pedestrians when walking or running. The pedestrians reacted early to the obstacles and changed the direction in which they were walking by quickly turning to the left or to the right. In terms of the speed of the pedestrians, the average velocity was significantly affected while performing these tasks, decreasing as the size of the obstacle increased; therefore, the size of obstacles will affect flow and speed levels. Travel time was shorter when participants were in the medium-flow rate experiments. In terms of the distance of each individual’s travel, our data showed that there was no significant difference in all the flow rate experiments for both speed levels. Our results also show that when the pedestrians crossed an obstacle, the lateral distance averaged from 0.3 m to 0.7 m, depending on the flow rate and speed level. We then explored how the body sways behaved while avoiding obstacles. It is observed that the average sway of the body was less in the high-speed conditions compared to the low-speed conditions – except for the HF & 4.8 m experiment. These results are expected to provide an insight into the characteristics of the behaviour of pedestrians when avoiding objects, and this could help enhance agent-based models.
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    Building Information Modeling (BIM) for Construction and Demolition Waste Management in Australia: A Research Agenda
    Han, D ; Kalantari, M ; Rajabifard, A (MDPI, 2021-12)
    Construction and demolition waste (C&DW) contribute to approximately 30% of the total waste generation worldwide, by which heterogeneous ecological impacts, such as resource depletion, global warming, and land degradation, are engendered. Despite ongoing research efforts to minimize construction waste via the Building Information Modeling (BIM)-aided design, there is a paucity of research on integrating BIM in demolition waste management (DWM). This study investigates prominent barriers and future research directions toward the wider adoption of BIM in C&DWM by conducting a systematic literature review. First, this study identifies the barriers that hinder the implementation of C&DWM in Australia; then, it explores the benefits and challenges of leveraging BIM applications for C&DWM. The findings suggest that, for existing buildings without up-to-date design drawings, it is imperative to improve the accuracy of data capturing and object recognition techniques to overcome the bottlenecks of BIM-DWM integration. Moreover, the development of regional-oriented material banks and their harmonization with life cycle assessment databases can extend the potential of BIM-based sustainability analysis, making it applicable to the DWM domain. This study proposes a research agenda on tackling these challenges to realize BIM’s full potential in facilitating DWM.
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    Evaluating the role of partnerships in increasing the use of big Earth data to support the Sustainable Development Goals: an Australian perspective
    Mohamed-Ghouse, ZS ; Desha, C ; Rajabifard, A ; Blicavs, M ; Martin, G (TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2021-11-26)
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    ROOM-BASED ENERGY DEMAND CLASSIFICATION of BIM DATA USING GRAPH SUPERVISED LEARNING
    Kiavarz, H ; Jadidi, M ; Rajabifard, A ; Sohn, G (Copernicus GmbH, 2021-10-07)
    Abstract. Nowadays, cities and buildings are increasingly interconnected with new modern data models like the 3D city model and Building Information Modelling (BIM) for urban management. In the past decades, BIM appears to have been primarily used for visualization. However, BIM has been recently used for a wide range of applications, especially in Building Energy Consumption Estimation (BECE). Despite extensive research, BIM is less used in BECE data-driven approaches due to its complexity in the data model and incompatibility with machine learning algorithms. Therefore, this paper highlights the potential opportunity to apply graph-based learning algorithms (e.g., GraphSAGE) using the enriched semantic, geometry, and room topology information extracted from BIM data. The preliminary results are demonstrated a promising avenue for BECE analysis in both pre-construction step (design) and post-construction step like retrofitting processes.
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    Formative and Summative Validation of Building Information Model-Based Cadastral Data
    Asghari, A ; Kalantari, M ; Rajabifard, A (MDPI, 2021-08)
    Among 3D models, Building Information Models (BIM) can potentially support the integrated management of buildings’ physical and legal aspects in cadastres. However, there is not a systematic approach to author the cadastral information into the BIM models. Moreover, the common approaches for data validation only check the final cadastral output, and they ignore the data generation steps as potential avenues for validation. Therefore, this study aims to develop the criteria and standards to check the spatial consistency and integrity of BIM-based cadastral data in the process of generating the data. The paper utilises a case study approach as its methodology to investigate the requirements of generating a BIM-based cadastral model and identify the issues within the process. The results include a formative assessment (i.e., multistep validation approach during the data generation) alongside a summative assessment (i.e., one-step validation approach at the end of data generation). This study found the summative assessment alone insufficient for 3D cadastral data validation. The paper concludes that a formative and summative assessment together can improve the validity of the data. The results will potentially bring more efficiency to modern land administration processes by avoiding the accumulation of errors in 3D cadastral data generation.
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    Integration of cadastral survey data into building information models
    Atazadeh, B ; Mirkalaei, LH ; Olfat, H ; Rajabifard, A ; Shojaei, D (TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2021-07-03)
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    Underground Land Administration from 2D to 3D: Critical Challenges and Future Research Directions
    Saeidian, B ; Rajabifard, A ; Atazadeh, B ; Kalantari, M (MDPI, 2021-10)
    The development and use of underground space is a necessity for most cities in response to rapid urbanisation. Effective underground land administration is critical for sustainable urban development. From a land administration perspective, the ownership extent of underground assets is essential for planning and managing underground areas. In some jurisdictions, physical structures (e.g., walls, ceilings, and utilities) are also necessary to delineate the ownership extent of underground assets. The current practice of underground land administration focuses on the ownership of underground space and mostly relies on 2D survey plans. This inefficient and fragmented 2D-based underground data management and communication results in several issues including boundary disputes, underground strikes, delays and disruptions in projects, economic losses, and urban planning issues. This study provides a review of underground land administration from three common aspects: legal, institutional, and technical. A range of important challenges have been identified based on the current research and practice. To address these challenges, the authors of this study propose a new framework for 3D underground land administration. The proposed framework outlines the future research directions to upgrade underground land administration using integrated 3D digital approaches.
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    Investigating pedestrians’ obstacle avoidance behaviour
    Alhawsawi, A ; Sarvi, M ; Haghani, M ; Rajabifard, A (Forschungszentrum Julich, Zentralbibliothek, 2020-03-27)
    Modelling and simulating pedestrian motions are standard ways to investigate crowd dynamics aimed to enhance pedestrians’ safety. Movement of people is affected by interactions with one another and with the physical environment that it may be a worthy line of research. This paper studies the impact of speed on how pedestrians respond to the obstacles (i.e. Obstacles avoidance behaviour). A field experiment was performed in which a group of people were instructed to perform some obstacles avoidance tasks at two levels of normal and high speeds. Trajectories of the participants are extracted from the video recordings for the subsequent intentions:(i) to seek out the impact of total speed, x and yaxis (ii) to observe the impact of the speed on the movement direction, x-axis, (iii) to find out the impact of speed on the lateral direction, y-axis. The results of the experiments could be used to enhance the current pedestrian simulation models.
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    A Proposal for a User-Oriented Spatial Metadata Profile
    Kalantari, M ; Syahrudin, S ; Rajabifard, A ; Hubbard, H (MDPI, 2021-06)
    Spatial metadata profiles have been designed and evolved by data custodians to manage, share, discover, and use spatial data. The end-users of spatial data often do not have much input in designing the profiles. The spatial data infrastructure literature reveals that they question the usability of spatial metadata. This paper analyzes the usability of metadata profiles by engaging end-users and clarifying their requirements in response to this problem. Over 60 users from 18 countries were engaged using an online survey based on a purposive sampling method. The results show that the most widely used metadata standard, ISO 19115, provides metadata elements to accommodate most user requirements for searches. However, an extension to the standard is necessary to assist users in discovery and selection. Two new metadata elements are proposed as part of the extension. The extension also involves changing the obligation type of existing elements to improve data discovery.