New Trends in Smart Construction Education and Research

A special issue of J (ISSN 2571-8800). This special issue belongs to the section "Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 3521

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

University education related to architecture, engineering and construction is changing rapidly, especially in these challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodologies are changing: competency-based education is being imposed, online teaching, and affecting active participation of students in the learning process, among others. In fact, the education provided today at universities should be the basis for future graduates to be able to practice their profession in the coming decades. It cannot, therefore, be taught the same as it has been taught for the last 50 years.

In this educational context, the concept of “smart construction” takes on special importance. It is a concept that is associated with digital design, information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, BIM, Lean Construction, prefabrication, drones, robotization, the Internet of Things and automation, innovation and sustainability, among many other concepts. Among these concepts, one that particularly interests me is the association with new construction methods (a term that includes new products and new construction procedures). They aim to improve business efficiency, quality, customer satisfaction, environmental performance, sustainability and predictability of delivery times. Therefore, modern construction methods are more than just a particular focus on the product. They engage people to seek improvements, through better processes, in construction delivery and execution. For all this technological revolution to be possible, it is essential to change the current educational methods in universities, especially in those engineering studies related to the field of construction. The challenge is twofold: on the one hand, to teach those trends in smart construction that will become a reality in the coming years and, on the other hand, to change the way of teaching at the university, adapting to these new technologies.

This Special Issue aims at promoting original and high-quality papers on new trends in Architecture, Engineering and Education from a multidisciplinary perspective. In particular, the Special Issue seeks to collect best educational practices, innovations in the learning process, problem- and project-based education, collaborative learning, etc. It is about collecting the trends towards which university education related to the world of construction is heading.

We cordially invite you to submit a high-quality original research paper or review to this Special Issue,“ New Trends in Smart Construction Education and Research”.

Prof. Dr. Víctor Yepes
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. J is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • university education
  • collaborative learning
  • online teaching
  • new educational technologies
  • engineering and architecture
  • COVID-19
  • smart construction
  • lean construction
  • BIM
  • sustainability

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 8119 KiB  
Article
Formalising the R of Reduce in a Circular Economy Oriented Design Methodology for Pedestrian and Cycling Bridges
by Kostas Anastasiades, Thijs Lambrechts, Jaan Mennes, Amaryllis Audenaert and Johan Blom
J 2022, 5(1), 35-51; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/j5010003 - 17 Jan 2022
Viewed by 2274
Abstract
The construction industry consumes over 32% of the annually excavated natural resources worldwide. Additionally, it is responsible for 25% of the annually generated solid waste. To become a more sustainable industry, a circular economy is necessary: resources are kept in use as long [...] Read more.
The construction industry consumes over 32% of the annually excavated natural resources worldwide. Additionally, it is responsible for 25% of the annually generated solid waste. To become a more sustainable industry, a circular economy is necessary: resources are kept in use as long as possible, aiming to reduce and recirculate natural resources. In this paper, the investigation focuses on pedestrian truss bridges of the types Warren and Howe. Many pedestrian bridges currently find themselves in their end-of-life phase and most commonly these bridges are demolished and rebuilt, thus needing a lot of new materials and energy. The aim is thus first and foremost to reduce the amount of necessary new materials. For this reason, a design tool will be created, using the software ‘Matlab’, in which truss bridges can be evaluated and compared in the conceptual design stage. The tool is based on the theory of morphological indicators: the volume indicator, displacement indicator, buckling indicator and first natural frequency indicator. These allow a designer to determine the most material efficient Warren or Howe truss bridge design with user-defined constraints concerning deflection, load frequency, buckling and overall dimension. Subsequently, the tool was tested and compared to calculations made in the finite element modelling software Diamonds. In total, 72 steel bridge structures were tested. From these it could be concluded that the manual calculations in Diamonds in general confirmed the results obtained with the automated design tool based on morphological indicators. As such, it allows a designer to converge more quickly towards the best performing structure, thus saving time, materials, and corresponding costs and energy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Smart Construction Education and Research)
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