Author(s)

NISHA PURI, YELDA TURKAN

Abstract

Dimensional quality control of precast concrete elements is one of the crucial tasks during concrete construction, where geometrical properties of precast concrete elements are inspected to determine whether the specified tolerances are satisfied or not. The failure of constructed elements to fall within the specified tolerances may be the result of an unsatisfactory level of precision applied during construction or the inability to interpret the information provided in the specifications correctly. The consequences of improper dimensional quality control measures have adverse effects on the aesthetics of the elements, and, in severe cases, the structural strength of the elements. The dimensional quality control practices that are prevalent in today’s industry do not only provide room for random errors associated with manual measurements, but also exploit two of the most valuable assets of a construction project: time and labor. Nevertheless, if appropriate steps are taken during the design phase, the majority of these tolerance issues during the construction phase can be prevented. Therefore, this study focuses on the tolerance issues arising during the construction phase by combining design BIM and tolerance specifications within the same database. A text-parsing algorithm in MATLAB environment was used to tag elements in an IFC Building Information Model (BIM) with textual-tolerance information. The output IFC BIM including textual-tolerance information would be used by project engineers and inspectors during the construction phase. This would enable access to all tolerance-compliance-related information within the same database, which would help make timely decisions to prevent rework and schedule delays.

Keywords

IFC BIM, tolerance compliance, quality control, text parsing