Automation in Construction Toward Resilience: Robotics, Smart Materials, and Intelligent Systems

While the word "automation" may conjure images of robots taking over jobs, the reality is much more nuanced. In construction, for instance, automation is less likely to diminish employment opportunities than it is to increase productivity. Indeed, automation alongside the global need for new and updated infrastructure and better and more affordable housing can help shape the direction of the construction industry. The key will be anticipating and preparing for the shift, in part by developing new skills in the current and future workforce. This book presents all aspects of automation in construction pertaining to the use of information technologies in design, engineering, construction technologies, and maintenance and management of constructed facilities. The broad scope encompasses all stages of the construction life cycle from initial planning and design, through the construction of the facility, its operation, and maintenance, to the eventual dismantling and recycling of buildings and engineering structures.

Features:

• Examines Building Information Management systems, allowing on-site execution of construction more efficient, and for project teams to eliminate mistakes and better coordinate the workforce
• Presents the latest information on the automation of modular construction, production in factories, including 3-D printing of components such as facades, or even load-bearing and essential components

Dr. Ehsan Noroozinejad Farsangi is currently a senior researcher at UBC Smart Structures, Canada. Concurrently, he is a tenured faculty member at the Graduate University of Advanced Technology, Iran. He is also an adjunct associate professor at Southeast University, China. Dr. Noroozinejad is the director of the Resilient Structures Research Group consisting of tens of top-ranked international researchers. Besides, he is the founder and chief editor of the International Journal of Earthquake and Impact Engineering, the associate editor of the ASCE Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction, the associate editor of the IET Journal of Engineering, the associate editor of Frontiers in Built Environment: Earthquake Engineering Section, the editor of the Journal of Reliability Engineering and Resilience, and the engineering editor of ASCE Natural Hazards Review. He has published over 120 high-impact journal papers in indexed journals and five books with reputed publishers in his field of expertise. His main research interests include smart structures, resilience-based design, reliability analysis, artificial intelligence, construction robotics, intelligent infrastructure, and digital twins in construction. Dr. Noroozinejad is also the recipient of many national and international awards, including the prestigious Associate Editor Award in 2022 by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), because of his consistent and exemplary service to enhance ASCE’s publication activities.

Dr. Mohammad Noori is a professor of mechanical engineering at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, a fellow and life member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and a recipient of the Japan Society for Promotion of Science Fellowship. Noori’s work in modeling the complex hysteretic behavior of structural systems, including pinching phenomenon, cited in the literature as the Bouc-Wen-Baber-Noori model, is an original contribution that has been widely utilized in nonlinear random vibrations for seismic response analysis of concrete structures and has been incorporated in Open Sees seismic analysis program. His work in non-zero mean, non-Gaussian response analysis, and the first passage of hysteretic systems are also original contributions. Over the past 25 years, he has also carried out extensive work in seismic isolation of secondary systems, and the application of artificial intelligence methods for structural health monitoring, which have been widely cited. He has authored over 300 refereed papers, including over 150 journal articles, 12 scientific books, and has edited 25 technical and special journals and volumes. Noori has supervised over 100 graduate students and post-doc scholars and has presented over 100 keynotes, plenaries, and invited talks. He is the founding executive editor of an international journal and has served on the editorial boards of over ten other journals and as a member of numerous scientific and advisory boards. He has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at several highly ranked global universities and directed the Sensors Program at the National Science Foundation in 2014. He has been a founding director or co-founder of three industry-university research centers and held chair professorships at two major universities. He served as the dean of engineering at Cal Poly for five years, served as the chair of the National Committee of Mechanical Engineering Department heads, and was one of seven cofounders of the National Institute of Aerospace, in partnership with NASA Langley Research Center. Noori also serves as the chief technical advisor for several scientific organizations and industries.

Dr. Tony T.Y. Yang is a professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada. He is a world-renowned researcher in structural and earthquake engineering, with over 200 high-impact refereed papers, books, and reports with over 2,300 citations. He has developed numerous novel technologies that have enhanced the practice of smart and sustainable infrastructure internationally. He is an active member of numerous national and international code committees, including one of the 19 voting members of the Standing Committee for Earthquake Design, which is responsible for writing the seismic design provision of 2020/2025 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC). He has supervised over 170 highly qualified personnel and received over ten coveted international awards. He is the recipient of the 2014 CISC H.A. Krentz award, 2019 Technology award from the New Zealand Concrete Society, and 2020 Meritorious achievement award from Engineers & Geoscientists British Columbia, Canada, the most prestigious award given to a professional engineer (P.Eng.) in the province of British Columbia, Canada. He has worked with multiple engineering firms in Canada and around the world. His exemplary contributions to structural and earthquake engineering have significantly impacted earthquake engineering communities internationally.

Dr. Paulo B. Lourenço is a professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minho, Portugal, and head of the Institute in Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering, with 250 researchers. Experienced in the fields of non-destructive testing, advanced experimental and numerical techniques, innovative repair and strengthening techniques, and earthquake engineering. He is a specialist in structural conservation and forensic engineering, with work on 100+ monuments, including 17 UNESCO World Heritage; leader of the revision of the European masonry code (EN 1996-1-1); coordinator of the European Master on Structural Analysis of Monuments and Historical Constructions, with alumni from 70+ countries and the European Heritage/Europa Nostra Award (the most prestigious in Europe); editor of the International Journal of Architectural Heritage and advisor of the Conference Series on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions. He has supervised more than 60 PhD theses and coordinated multiple national and international research projects; awarded an Advanced European Research Council Grant to develop an integrated seismic assessment approach for heritage buildings; and coordinator of an Innovative Training Network on sustainable building lime applications via circular economy and biomimetic approaches with 15 PhD students across Europe.

Dr. Paolo Gardoni is the Alfredo H. Ang Family Professor and an Excellence Faculty Scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also a professor in the Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, and a fellow of the Office of Risk Management & Insurance Research in the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prof. Gardoni is the director of the MAE Center, which focuses on creating a Multi-hazard Approach to Engineering, the editor-in-chief of the journal Reliability Engineering and System Safety, and the founder and former editor-in-chief of the journal Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure. His research interests include probabilistic mechanics; reliability, risk, and life cycle analysis; decisionmaking under uncertainty; performance assessment of deteriorating systems; modeling of natural hazards and societal impact; ethical, social, and legal dimensions of risk; optimal strategies for natural hazard mitigation and disaster recovery; and engineering ethics. Prof. Gardoni is the 2021 recipient of the Alfredo Ang Award on Risk Analysis and Management of Civil Infrastructure from the American Society of Civil Engineers for his contributions to risk, reliability, and resilience analysis, and his leadership in these fields.

Dr. Izuru Takewaki is a professor of building structures at Kyoto University and was the 56th president of the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ) during 2019-2021. He is the field chief editor of Frontiers in Built Environment (Frontiers SA in Switzerland), which includes 15 specialty sections related to various fields of built environment. His main interests are passive structural control, robust and resilient structural design of buildings, structural optimization, inverse problem in vibration, soil-structure interaction, critical excitation method for worst-case analysis, etc. He has published over 230 international journal papers and six monographs in English. The most recent one is ‘An Impulse and Earthquake Energy Balance Approach in Nonlinear Structural Dynamics' from CRC Press in 2021. He was awarded numerous prizes, e.g., the Research Prize of AIJ (2004), the 2008 Paper of the Year in J. of The Structural Design of Tall and Special Buildings, the Prize of AIJ for Book (2014).

Dr. Eleni Chatzi is an associate professor and chair of Structural Mechanics and Monitoring at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering of ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Her research interests include the fields of structural health monitoring (SHM) and structural dynamics, nonlinear system identification, and intelligent life cycle assessment for engineered systems. She has authored more than 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, and further serves as an editor for international journals in the domains of dynamics and SHM. She led the recently completed ERC Starting Grant WINDMIL on the topic of “Smart Monitoring, Inspection and Life-Cycle Assessment of Wind Turbines”. Her work in the domain of self-aware infrastructure was recognized with the 2020 Walter L. Huber Research prize, awarded by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Dr. Shaofan Li is currently a professor of applied and computational mechanics at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Li graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the East China University of Science and Technology (Shanghai, China) with a bachelor of science (B.S.) degree in 1982; he also holds master of science (M.S.) degrees in applied mechanics (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China) and in aerospace engineering (the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA) in 1989 and 1993, respectively. In 1997, Dr. Li received a PhD degree in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL, USA), and he had been a post-doctoral researcher at Northwestern University during 1997–2000. In 2000, Dr. Li joined the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Shaofan Li is the recipient of the Fellow Award of the International Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM), the U.S. Association of Computational Mechanics (USACM) Fellow Award (2013), and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award (2003). Dr. Li has published more than 200 technical papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals with an h-index of 53 (Google Scholar), and he also co-authored three research monographs/graduate textbooks.