Integration of BIM and Immersive Technologies for AEC: A Scientometric-SWOT Analysis and Critical Content Review

Energy retrofitting strategies for existing buildings in Malaysia: A systematic review and bibliometric analysis

This paper comprehensively examines passive and active energy retrofit strategies as a highly effective approach for reducing building energy consumption and mitigating CO2 emissions while enhancing comfort and sustainability. The paper further examines energy simulation software and assesses the integration of renewable energy systems in building to improve energy efficiency. The review used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology, ensuring a rigorous and comprehensive analysis. In addition, the study utilized bibliometric analysis with VOSviewer to provide valuable insights into the research trends and influential publications in building energy retrofits. Bibliometric analysis reveals strong collaboration among 17 authors, emphasizing their significant contributions. Keywords like energy retrofitting and efficiency are prominent, indicating their importance in academic literature. Findings show passive strategies are more effective in reducing energy consumption, though a combined approach with active strategies can yield optimal results. Retrofitting presents challenges, such as substantial initial costs and regulatory barriers. User acceptance is crucial, considering potential disruptions. The review highlights the importance of energy simulation software, with tools like EnergyPlus, eQUEST, and IES VE identified for evaluating and identifying cost-effective retrofit measures in building performance. By providing comprehensive insights into the various strategies and tools available for retrofitting buildings to achieve energy efficiency and sustainability goals, this review serves as an authoritative resource for building owners, managers, and professionals in the building industry. It offers invaluable guidance for informed decision-making and facilitates implementing effective, energy-efficient, and sustainable building retrofitting practices.

Investigating the Impact of Augmented Reality and BIM on Retrofitting Training for Non-Experts

Augmented Reality (AR) tools have shown significant potential in providing on-site visualization of Building Information Modeling (BIM) data and models for supporting construction evaluation, inspection, and guidance. Retrofitting existing buildings, however, remains a challenging task requiring more innovative solutions to successfully integrate AR and BIM. This study aims to investigate the impact of AR+BIM technology on the retrofitting training process and assess the potential for future on-site usage. We conducted a study with 64 non-expert participants, who were asked to perform a common retrofitting procedure of an electrical outlet installation using either an AR+BIM system or a standard printed blueprint documentation set. Our findings indicate that AR+BIM reduced task time significantly and improved performance consistency across participants, while also decreasing the physical and cognitive demands of the training. This study provides a foundation for augmenting future retrofitting construction research that can extend the use of [Formula: see text] technology, thus facilitating more efficient retrofitting of existing buildings. A video presentation of this article and all supplemental materials are available at https://github.com/DesignLabUCF/SENSEable_RetrofittingTraining.

A systematic review of the application of immersive technologies for safety and health management in the construction sector

INTRODUCTION

The construction industry employs about 7% of global manpower and contributes about 6% to the global economy. However, statistics have depicted that the construction industry contributes significantly to workplace fatalities and injuries despite multiple interventions (including technological applications) implemented by governments and construction companies. Recently, immersive technologies as part of a suite of industry 4.0 technologies, have also strongly emerged as a viable pathway to help address poor construction occupational safety and health (OSH) performance.

METHOD

With the aim of gaining a broad view of different construction OSH issues addressed using immersive technologies, a review on the application of immersive technologies for construction OSH management is conducted using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) approach and bibliometric analysis of literature. This resulted in the evaluation of 117 relevant papers collected from three online databases (Scopus, Web of Science, and Engineering Village).

RESULTS

The review revealed that literature have focused on the application of various immersive technologies for hazard identification and visualization, safety training, design for safety, risk perception, and assessment in various construction works. The review identified several limitations regarding the use of immersive technologies, which include the low level of adoption of the developed immersive technologies for OSH management by the construction industry, very limited research on the application of immersive technologies for health hazards, and limited focus on the comparison of the effectiveness of various immersive technologies for construction OSH management.

CONCLUSIONS AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

For future research, it is recommended to identify possible reasons for the low transition level from research to industry practice and proffer solutions to the identified issues. Another recommendation is the study of the effectiveness of the use of immersive technologies for addressing health hazards in comparison to the conventional methods.

Towards an Evolved Immersive Experience: Exploring 5G- and Beyond-Enabled Ultra-Low-Latency Communications for Augmented and Virtual Reality

Augmented reality and virtual reality technologies are witnessing an evolutionary change in the 5G and Beyond (5GB) network due to their promising ability to enable an immersive and interactive environment by coupling the virtual world with the real one. However, the requirement of low-latency connectivity, which is defined as the end-to-end delay between the action and the reaction, is very crucial to leverage these technologies for a high-quality immersive experience. This paper provides a comprehensive survey and detailed insight into various advantageous approaches from the hardware and software perspectives, as well as the integration of 5G technology, towards 5GB, in enabling a low-latency environment for AR and VR applications. The contribution of 5GB systems as an outcome of several cutting-edge technologies, such as massive multiple-input, multiple-output (mMIMO) and millimeter wave (mmWave), along with the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techniques towards an ultra-low-latency communication system, is also discussed in this paper. The potential of using a visible-light communications (VLC)-guided beam through a learning algorithm for a futuristic, evolved immersive experience of augmented and virtual reality with the ultra-low-latency transmission of multi-sensory tracking information with an optimal scheduling policy is discussed in this paper.

Impacts of building information modelling (BIM) on communication network of the construction project: A social capital perspective

Building information modelling (BIM) is considered to be significant for organisational communication in construction projects. However, the role of BIM has not been fully shown in practice. To this end, this study examined the impact of BIM on communication network from inter- and intra- organisational relationships in the construction project. First, the structures of the communication networks before and after the use of BIM in a project in China were determined based on the social capital perspective. Then, the social network analysis was adopted to measure the changes in network metrics (i.e., number of ties, density, centrality, centralisation, and clique). Results shows that the connections among nodes are denser, and all the values of the network centralisation decrease after BIM application compared with the situation before BIM use. Nevertheless, results also shows that some construction project participants, who originally have interaction and communication needs, remain unable to establish effective connections among one another even after BIM use. Accordingly, some suggestions were proposed to solve the issues and deficiencies. This research contributes to (a) the state of knowledge by proposing social capital perspective that can identify inter- and intra-organizational relationships of the construction project from social interaction and common cognition to build communication network, and (b) the state of practice by identifying conditions and proposing strategies for strengthening organisational communication and collaboration in BIM-enabled network relationships.

Global Research Trends on Building Indoor Environmental Quality Modelling and Indexing Systems—A Scientometric Review

The purpose of this study is to provide a holistic review of two decades of research advancement in the indoor environmental quality modelling and indexing field (IEQMI) using bibliometric analysis methods. The explicit objectives of the present study are: (1) identifying researchers, institutions, countries (territories), and journals with the most influence in the IEQMI topic; (2) investigating the hot topics in the IEQMI field; and (3) thematically analysing the keyword evolution in the IEQMI field. A scientometric review was conducted using the bibliometric data of 456 IEQMI research articles published in the past two decades. VOSviewer software was employed for bibliometric analysis, and the SciMAT tool was used to investigate the keywords’ thematic evolution in three sub-periods (2004–2009; 2010–2015; 2016–2021). Results show that there is a continuous increment in the number of published papers in the field of IEQMI, and 60 out of 193 countries in the world have been involved in IEQMI studies. The IEQMI research mainly focuses on: (a) thermal comfort and energy efficiency; (b) occupant satisfaction and comfort; (c) IAQ and health issues; (d) methods and procedures. This field has undergone significant evolution. While ‘indoor environmental quality was initially the only theme in the first period’, ‘occupant satisfaction’, ‘buildings’, ‘impact’, ‘building information modelling’, and ‘health’ were added as the main thematic areas in the second period; ‘occupant behaviour’ and ‘energy’ were novel themes in IEQMI studies receiving much attention in the third period.

Extended Reality for Smart Building Operation and Maintenance: A Review

The operation and maintenance (O&M) of buildings and infrastructure represent a strategic activity to ensure they perform as expected over time and to reduce energy consumption and maintenance costs at the urban and building scale. With the increasing diffusion of BIM, IoT devices, and AI, the future of O&M is represented by digital twin technology. To effectively take advantage of this digital revolution, thus enabling data-driven energy control, proactive maintenance, and predictive daily operations, it is vital that smart building management exploits the opportunities offered by the extended reality (XR) technologies. Nevertheless, in consideration of the novelty of XR in the AECO sector and its rapid and ongoing evolution, knowledge of the specific possibilities and the methods of integration into the building process workflow is still piecemeal and sparse. With the goal to bridge this gap, the article presents a thorough review of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) technologies and applications for smart building operation and maintenance. After defining VR, AR, and MR, the article provides a detailed review that analyzes, categorizes, and summarizes state-of-the-art XR technologies and their possible applications for building O&M along with their relative advantages and disadvantages. The article concludes that the application of XR in building and city management is showing promising results in enhancing human performance in technical O&M tasks, in understanding and controlling the energy efficiency, comfort, and safety of building and infrastructures, and in supporting strategic decision making for the future smart city.

Drivers towards Adopting Modular Integrated Construction for Affordable Sustainable Housing: A Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM) Method

This study features the development of a framework to identify drivers towards increasing adoption of modular integrated construction (MiC) methods for affordable sustainable housing (ASH). The rise of offsite construction (OSC) techniques, especially MiC, has been evident in recent years. MiC’s adoption in ASH is still underdeveloped; however, due to various benefits of MiC over conventional construction methods, it is envisioned to be a significant emerging approach for tackling growing housing demand, and ASH in particular. Although a few prior studies identified some factors for utilization of MiC towards ASH, studies to date have not provided a holistic review of drivers or a comprehensive framework of the interrelationships between such drivers. To address this issue, this study utilizes a three-way process including a systematic literature review, semi-structured interviews and the Total Interpretive Structure Modelling (TISM) method to study the drivers for MiC adoption in ASH. Initially, 111 drivers were extracted from a review of 40 studies in the existing literature. Following that, the significant drivers of MiC adoption for ASH were grouped into cost, time, productivity, quality, environmental, social, policy and demand. Drawing on concepts of systems thinking and graph theory, the TISM model for eight drivers was developed from both the literature review and the interview results. Four levels of hierarchy were found among drivers containing linkage, driving, depending and autonomous. Succeeding the steps of TISM and Reachability Matrix (RM) and Matrice d’ Impacts Croises-Multipication Appliqué a Classement (MICMAC) analysis, social drivers were found to have the highest driving and lowest dependency power, followed by productivity and policy drivers. This signifies the importance of social factors for enhancing MiC adoption for ASH. In addition, a strategic framework of boosting MiC adoption in ASH is also presented, highlighting the key stakeholders and strategies for transformation along with conclusions. This study delivers a wider landscape of drivers for MiC-ASH synergy that may assist practitioners, policy makers and relevant stakeholders to better understand the relationships between the drivers.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Integration with Digital Technologies toward Construction 4.0: A Systematic Literature Review

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been employed in the construction industry in the last decade for various purposes such as progress monitoring and building inspection. Recently, there has been a rising trend of employing UAVs with other digital technologies (DTs), such as Building Information Modeling and Extended Reality. The integration of these technologies encourages automation and digitization toward better project performance. However, little is known about the implementation of UAVs in conjunction with other DTs. Therefore, this study performs a systematic literature review to determine application areas and technology trends regarding UAVs’ integration with other DTs. The search yielded 287 articles, of which 36 satisfied the established inclusion criteria and formed the foundation of this systematic review. Seven application areas of UAV integration with other DTs were identified: progress monitoring, historic building conservation, information management, construction safety, construction education, structural and infrastructure inspection, and transportation. This study also revealed UAV technology trends encouraging automation and digitization: automated progress monitoring, automated UAV inspection planning, real-time video streaming, and parametric model development of historicbuildings. This study is expected to be a starting point of future in-depth research by providing a general understanding of the current applications of UAVs integration with other DTs.

Proposal for the Deployment of an Augmented Reality Tool for Construction Safety Inspection

The construction site is a hazardous place. The dynamic, complex interaction between workers, machinery, and the environment leads to dangerous risks. In response to such risks, the goal is to fulfill the zero accidents philosophy, which requires the development of safety skills among workers and the provision of tools for risk prevention. In pursuit of that vision, this work studies collective protective equipment (CPE). Traditional methodologies propose visual inspections using checklists, the effectiveness of which depends on the quality of the inspection by the safety advisor (SA). This paper analyses the traditional process of safety inspections in building projects: the traditional methods, main pain points, and bottlenecks are identified, along with the key performance indicators (KPIs) needed to complete these processes correctly. Because of this, a methodology that digitises the CPE inspection process is proposed. Augmented reality (AR) is used as a 3D viewer with an intuitive interface for the SA, and, accordingly, functional requirements are detailed and different information layers and user interfaces for AR applications are proposed. In addition, the workflow and KPIs are shown. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposal, a proof of concept is developed and evaluated. The relevance of this work lies in providing background for the use of AR in safety inspection processes on construction sites and in offering methodological recommendations for the development and evaluation of these applications.

Immersive Technology Implementation in the Construction Industry: Modeling Paths of Risk

The purposes of this paper are to identify risk factors impacting the successful implementation of immersive reality technology (ImT) in the construction industry, analyze these risk factors (impact and probability), assess the relationships among different categories of risk factors, and provide recommendations to improve ImT implementation. A literature review, a pilot test based on expert interviews, and a questionnaire survey were used. First, the risk factors of ImT applications were identified by consulting the relevant literature on virtual reality, mixed reality, and augmented reality; these were subsequently grouped into five categories—technology, operation, individual/worker, investment, and external. Next, a questionnaire survey was designed and distributed to relevant construction practitioners in South Africa (usable response = 175). Twenty-one ImT implementation risk factors were identified, and risk criticality scores ranged from 2.02 to 3.18. High investment cost, the need for extensive worker training, and the possible introduction of new risks for workers were rated as significant risks. The present study confirmed three statistically significant hypothesized risk paths—namely, those between external issues and individual/worker’s concerns, between external issues and investment limitations, and between individual/worker’s concerns and technology concerns. The present study contributes to the literature regarding the adoption of construction technology by providing a list of critical risk factors that could be used to develop models and tools for assessing ImT adoption and guide practitioners involved in integrating ImTs.

Designing Construction 4.0 Activities for AEC Classrooms

This article describes the outcomes of the development of the project MATES to STEAM. The project is aimed at integrating Construction 4.0 content to a recently started new degree on Technologies on Civil Engineering. This integration is underpinned by the creation of STEAM-rich activities that can complement such degree. The philosophical design of these activities followed three requirements: (i) the activities should infuse Construction 4.0-related technologies, (ii) the activities should foster motivation among students with a STEAM vision by-design and (iii) the activities should be designed with a hardware-software independent perspective (open-source, accessible, affordable). Cornerstone and capstone projects as well as a set of workshops represent the demonstrators of these activities. All these demonstrators are knitted together in a single path in which an educational attempt to fill the identified Construction 4.0 gaps is proposed. The STEAM perspective provides completeness to the whole development. During the last two years, the project was developed and the design, the development and implementation of several demonstrators were completed. In the years to come, a systematic deployment and analysis of such demonstrators is expected when a full implementation of the new degree of Technologies in Civil Engineering will be addressed.

Differentiating Digital Twin from Digital Shadow: Elucidating a Paradigm Shift to Expedite a Smart, Sustainable Built Environment

Construction projects and cities account for over 50% of carbon emissions and energy consumption. Industry 4.0 and digital transformation may increase productivity and reduce energy consumption. A digital twin (DT) is a key enabler in implementing Industry 4.0 in the areas of construction and smart cities. It is an emerging technology that connects different objects by utilising the advanced Internet of Things (IoT). As a technology, it is in high demand in various industries, and its literature is growing exponentially. Previous digital modeling practices, the use of data acquisition tools, human–computer–machine interfaces, programmable cities, and infrastructure, as well as Building Information Modeling (BIM), have provided digital data for construction, monitoring, or controlling physical objects. However, a DT is supposed to offer much more than digital representation. Characteristics such as bi-directional data exchange and real-time self-management (e.g., self-awareness or self-optimisation) distinguish a DT from other information modeling systems. The need to develop and implement DT is rising because it could be a core technology in many industrial sectors post-COVID-19. This paper aims to clarify the DT concept and differentiate it from other advanced 3D modeling technologies, digital shadows, and information systems. It also intends to review the state of play in DT development and offer research directions for future investigation. It recommends the development of DT applications that offer rapid and accurate data analysis platforms for real-time decisions, self-operation, and remote supervision requirements post-COVID-19. The discussion in this paper mainly focuses on the Smart City, Engineering and Construction (SCEC) sectors.