Integrated Design with Reclaimed Steel: Development of a Design Workflow and Computational Tool to Facilitate the Reuse of Structural Steel in New Building Designs

The rapid growth in building stock and the demand for new construction present significant challenges in terms of material scarcity, waste production, and greenhouse gas emissions. To address these challenges, a fundamental shift in the construction industry's approach is needed, viewing waste as a resource through circularity principles. This...

An Integrated Modelling Approach for the Seismic Collapse Assessment of Masonry Towers

Failure of tall slender masonry structures during earthquakes often involves partial collapse of the structure well-above ground level. Consequently, the elastic response of the structure needs to be considered, which often requires modal analysis using finite element models — the generation of which can be labour-intensive and time-consuming...

StructuralComponents7.0: A study of rigid frames behaviour and a computational tool prototype for the early design of mid-rise buildings

During the early stages of the construction process of a building, the potential impact of design decisions is at its greatest. One of the reasons is the lack of computational tools at these stages. The main objective of this research project was the expansion of StructuralComponents by the development of a parametric real-time computational...

Induction heating-assisted compaction in porous asphalt pavements: A computational study

Low temperature asphalt (LTA) technologies, such as warm-mixed asphalt mixes, are utilized in the paving industry to lower energy demands and greenhouse gas emissions during asphalt mixing and pavement construction. However, the asphalt mixes developed that incorporate LTA additives are more sensitive than hot-mixed asphalts to temperature...

Embodied energy optimization tool

About 40-50% of global raw materials are currently used in the building industry in the assembly/construction phase and in the use phase of the building and are responsible for 40-45% of total worldwide anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions (Huovila [5]). These problems have led to the development of legislative policies, regulations and...

State on the art of computational tools for conceptual structural design

This paper presents a review of existing research, projects, developments and applications in the domain of design tools for conceptual structural engineering. The availability of these tools and research into software for conceptual structural design stages has shown a number of interesting developments over the last past few years. The purpose...

Embodied Optimisation Tool for low-rise office buildings in steel

This thesis investigates the development and application of a computational tool that optimises the conceptual stage design of a building to have minimum embodied energy and some aspects of the operating energy, depending on the adaptability required. For this purpose, a parametric computational framework for sustainable building design was...