Construction Management & Engineering

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Research from the Department of Construction Management & Engineering. The department website may be found at https://www.ndsu.edu/construction/

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Achieving a Sustainable Concrete Design and Construction
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Agrawal, Ankush Satishchandra
Concrete is one of the key materials in the construction industry. But today, the use of concrete and its production has become a matter of environmental concern throughout the world. This statement is true especially for the manufacturing process of cement. One of the major problems is emission of CO2 gas into the atmosphere during the manufacturing of cement. Every ton of concrete produced leads to emission of one ton of carbon dioxide gas. Hence replacement of cement by alternative materials has been investigated by many researchers. In the past, fly ash has been the most common replacement. This study, however, suggests replacing all the major components of concrete to the extent that would satisfy the standard strength requirements. This paper focuses on the development of a sustainable or green concrete and proposes a set of tools for a sustainable concrete design and construction. Many researchers have been trying to replace one component of concrete to make it more sustainable. Discussion in this paper will not only give a direction to produce more sustainable concrete but also eco-friendly concrete, thus addressing the two important issues of economy and environmental friendliness simultaneously. Defining the idea of sustainability with respect to the concrete and construction industry and doing a literature search on similar grounds was the first step taken towards completion of this research. The findings in the literature search made a survey necessary. This survey was done to have an idea of sustainability from the experts in the construction and cement industry. The survey was done by sending a questionnaire to concrete experts, engineers, designers and contractors to get their ideas for green concrete and its usage in the industry. The findings of the literature survey and inferences from the survey results made the generation of the proposed sets of tools possible. The concrete and the construction industry can achieve an overall sustainability by complete utilization of tools proposed in the paper. Strict usage of these tools will not only ensure environmental sustainability but will also satisfy the ends of economic and social aspects of sustainability.
Assessment of Owner Risk Associated with Airport Capital and Maintenance Projects
(North Dakota State University, 2013) Ehiemere, Chidozie
The thesis produces a risk management process that effectively determines risk and its effects on commercial airport owner activities. To achieve this goal, the thesis reviewed these objectives: 1) Determination of major risks in the US commercial aviation industry; 2) Assessment and analysis of these risks in US commercial facilities; and 3) Producing risk dynamic in a project cycle associated with airport owner activities. The owner of airport facilities faces multiple risks in planning, design & construction of commercial airports. Literature on airport risk and damages was reviewed and used to produce a survey sent to select facilities in the USA. Survey feedback was analyzed utilizing the probability impact matrix, risk ranking equations and normal descriptive statistics. Results of this analysis produced a top 10 risk list for project objectives affected by noted risks and a general top 20 risk list assigned to a project cycle risk dynamic.
Causes of Construction Delays for High Rise Buildings: a Quantitative Comparison between the USA and India
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Billa, Arun
High rise buildings are complex, high risk, and multi-contractor projects which make them prone to construction delays. Delays can lead to time overrun, affect the total project duration and the total cost, and could result in litigation. Most construction schedules are deterministic and do not include the uncertainty and risk inherent in the diverse activities which constitute the construction project. Generally, high rise buildings are expensive undertakings and a schedule overrun could lead to significant time and money losses. Therefore, a high rise project manager must be able to estimate the potential delays and eliminate them if possible in order to reduce their impact on the success of the overall project. The research study identified 42 possible construction delays through the literature study and grouped them into six categories according to their source and relevance. These groups include: general delays related to project, owner, contractor, consultant, resource, and miscellaneous delays. A questionnaire was developed to investigate severities of the identified six delay categories; in addition, some questions about project details, critical effects of delays, and most responsible people for the delays were added to ascertain more information from the survey. The questionnaire was sent to pre-identified construction professionals of the high rise construction industry all over the United States and India. The individual analysis of each country shows that change orders, given by the owner during construction, is the most severe cause of delay for the USA, followed by severe weather conditions, as well as mistakes or errors in design and drawing documents. For India, the most severe cause of delay is the lack of communication and coordination among all parties involved in the construction, followed by improper construction methods and payment delays by the owner. The comparative analysis of two countries shows that there is a difference between the results and demonstrates that the presence of construction delays and their effects are more often and severe for India than the USA. It also shows that consultant related delays and miscellaneous delays are more severe for the USA than India and vice versa for the rest of the delay categories (general, owner, contractor, and resource related). All the participants of the two nations agreed that time overrun and cost overruns are the critical effects of construction delays, followed by disputes and arbitration. The present research study also includes the recommendations made by the survey participants.
Characteristics of Concrete Building Units Containing Crushed Waste Glass
(North Dakota State University, 2013) Anna, Ahmad Shaker
"Glascrete" the term used for concrete in which all the aggregates or part of it are substituted by crushed glass. Glass is the only material that can be recycled many times without changing its properties; these properties making it an ideal material in concrete. The goal of this research was to evaluate the compressive and splitting tensile strength of concrete mixes containing different glass aggregate replacement up to 20 % by volume of sand; with and without admixtures. 144 cubes and 144 cylinders were prepared with different admixtures then tested for compressive and splitting tensile strength. The results indicate that the addition of glass replacements from 5% to 20% by volume of sand; led to 3.8% - 10.6% decrement in compressive strength and 3.9% - 16.4% decrement in tensile strength comparing with 21-day of control mix. However, the use of mineral admixture improved the mixes properties at all ages.
Characterization of Interfacial Bond Strength in Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Composites by a Modified Pullout Method
(North Dakota State University, 2017) Chada, Rajender Reddy
This document entails the research work carried out to propose a new method for quantifying the interfacial bond strength in fiber reinforced cementitious composites. A modified pullout test has been designed to determine the interfacial bond parameters for natural fibers with cementitious system, and were repeated for artificial fibers for comparison studies. Steel, polypropylene, and wheat straw fibers were tested with the modified pullout method. Surface roughness studies were conducted on the same fibers to establish a relationship between the roughness index of fibers and corresponding bond strengths evaluated from the new method. Also, standard single fiber pullout tests were conducted for steel and polypropylene fibers. The pulled-out fibers were further analyzed using scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy in conjunction. Peel test, an experimental study was also discussed in this research.
Characterization of Properties of Mortars Containing Clay Brick Aggregate
(North Dakota State University, 2017) Zhang, Wanting
Recycling clay brick becomes extremely urgent with the demolishment of residential buildings, and the most common processing option of clay brick waste is buried in landfills which lead to serious environmental pollution. Meanwhile, the process of recycling clay brick is immature and there is limited knowledge and standards of recycling clay brick waste. This thesis reports an experiment to test physical and mechanical prosperities of clay brick aggregate (CBA). Mortar specimens were conducted by using different prewetting times, replacement rates and water/cement ratios. Absorption and water-releasing abilities were discussed; compressive strength and flexural strength were conducted for strength test. Flowability and internal humidity tests were also presented. The results demonstrated that mortar specimens with 30% of replacement rate of CBA, and 0.28 of water/cement ratio of mixes present the optimal workability. By comparing with recycled concrete aggregate (RCA), CBA also showed satisfactory performance in the mortar specimens.
A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment Study of Wood and Steel Materials at Project End-of-Life Stage
(North Dakota State University, 2021) Bi, Bin
The disposal of construction and demolition waste will have an impact on the environment. However, the currently limited research on the end-of-life stage waste is too general lacking separation and comparison of different material types. This study focuses on the end-of-life stage to assess two primary construction materials (wood and steel) and an office building, used as a case study. This study is performed applying life cycle assessment (LCA) and used Athena software to assess the impact of both materials. The software quantifies the environmental impact of two materials into nine categories, including Global Warming Potential, Acidification Potential, etc. The results of this study show that steel generates more impact than wood on the environment. In the future, the results of this study can provide valuable information about the environmental impact of wood and steel materials to reduce the environmental impact at the end-of-life stage.
Comparing Cooling of Warm Mix to Hot Mix Asphalts
(North Dakota State University, 2015) Ahmed, Syed Owais
Warm mix asphalt (WMA) is increasingly being tried in highway paving in the United States. Apart from environmental benefits, WMA is being considered useful in projects involving long haul distances and late season paving operations due to its material characteristics and the rate of cooling during field compaction. This thesis investigates whether WMA cools at a slower rate than hot mix asphalt (HMA) to offer more compaction time. Following an indirect investigative approach, comparative analysis of field observations with software predicted values for two paving projects was carried out. The results indicated that some types of WMA cool at a slower rate than HMA and would allow a longer period of compaction time to achieve the same density as HMA. The findings presented here can be informative to the asphalt paving industry in considering WMA for use in long haul, nighttime, and late season paving.
Conceptual Cost Estimation Models for Bridge Projects
(North Dakota State University, 2021) Essegbey, Adikie Esinam
Conceptual cost estimating is typically completed early in the project lifecycle when little design work has been completed. Because little information is known at this early stage, the estimate usually deviates substantially from the actual construction cost. Therefore, the objective of this research is to develop a conceptual cost estimate model for bridge infrastructure projects. In this study, a systematic literature review and meta-analysis of Mean Average Percentage Errors (MAPEs) of cost models was undertaken to identify the various cost estimation methods, the input variables that have adopted in the development of models and determine the impact of cost estimation method on the accuracy of cost prediction. The research study utilized regression analysis, decision tree and random forest methods for cost prediction of Wisconsin bridges. A comparison of the three models that were developed revealed that random forest cost estimation method yielded better cost prediction.
Conceptual Cost Estimation of Highway Bid Items Using Geostatistical Interpolation
(North Dakota State University, 2021) Awuku, Bright
Challenges associated with ensuring the accuracy and reliability of cost estimation of highway bid items, especially during the conceptual phase of a project, are of significant interest to state highway agencies. Even with the existing research undertaken on the subject, the problem of inaccurate estimation of highway bid items still exists. A systematic literature review was performed to determine research trends, identify, categorize the factors influencing highway unit prices, and assess the performance of conceptual cost prediction models. This research proposes a geographic information system (GIS)–based methodology that leverages vast historical bid data for unit-price estimation and the robust GIS capabilities with consideration of the effects of project-specific location and variations due to cost escalation on different bid items. A comparison of the three spatial interpolation techniques operationalized in this research revealed that disjunctive and empirical Bayesian kriging models led to more accurate cost prediction than ordinary kriging algorithms.
Conceptual Cost Estimation of Highway Earthwork Construction in Iowa Using Spatial Statistical Modeling
(North Dakota State University, 2022) Hitsanu, Martha Sebsibe
Estimating cost at the conceptual phase of highway earthwork construction projects is challenging owing to the limited amount of information present at the initial stages. Methods that have been applied in the past to perform such estimates are regression, mathematical equations, artificial intelligence, and others. The objective of this research is to use two spatial statistical methods – indicator kriging and empirical Bayesian kriging – together with exponential, whittle, and k-Bessel semi-variograms to build an appropriate model to predict highway earthwork construction cost at the conceptual stage. Iowa Department of Transportation provided the data for the study. The cross-validation results were used to compare the performance of the kriging algorithms. It was observed that the exponential semi-variogram showed better performance for both types of kriging when they were analyzed separately. However, indicator kriging results were more accurate than empirical Bayesian kriging when they were compared for the same type of semi-variogram.
Construction Management Education in Canada: The History of the Establishment of Ontario's First Bachelor's Degree in Construction Management
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Durazno, Herman
This study examines the establishment of the first construction science and management degree program in Ontario. It illustrates the circumstances that led the Ontario construction industry to recognize the need for such an undergraduate degree program and to seek an educational institution as a partner in the planning, development and establishment of the undergraduate program. The paper displays how the industry faced obstacles such as a plan to regulate the industry by the Ontario government and the lack of incoming construction management degreed professionals from overseas. In addition, the paper displays the differences between existing engineering technology diplomas and the new bachelor degree in construction management and why the degree option will be beneficial to new students as well as graduates of the engineering technology diploma program. Finally, it displays how the Ontario construction industry leadership and reactiveness was the major factor in the establishment of the program and how industry participation and involvement is a key component in the success of undergraduate degree programs in construction management.
Contractor Prequalification Practices in Bangladesh
(North Dakota State University, 2013) Molla, Mohammad Mofigul Islam
Like many developing economies, the construction industry in Bangladesh is vital to its economic development and growth. However, the Bangladeshi construction industry is plagued by unethical practices, sub-standard construction work, and the inability of local contractors to partake in internationally funded (lucrative) contracts (as general contractors). A contractor prequalification process is proposed to address the problems facing the industry. In this work, an extensive literature review was used in combination with research surveys, statistical analyses of the literature and survey results, and the analytical hierarchy process to develop sets of factors and criteria pertinent to contractor prequalification/selection. A five-level framework involving regulatory verification, project-specific validation, performance evaluation, state-of-the-art best practices, and capacity assessment was developed to address the problem. This research developed innovative practices that could be used for the prequalification of contractors in Bangladesh and a method for implementing a recommended system for evaluating and prequalifying contractors.
Developing a Framework for Sustainable Design/Build/Own Buildings
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Gore, Alexander Keith
The objective of the research paper was to investigate the development of a workable framework for Sustainable Design/Build/Own buildings. Research from case studies, a literature review, and a design exercise was completed to form this framework. Currently certification programs have been slow to infiltrate small-to-medium markets. In this study, it was found that the current sustainability assessment guides can be improved by reorganizing information to reflect the driving factors of time and cost as well as by increasing access to information with the abundant sources of videos, on line guides, and internet references in a more approachable manner.
Developing an Image Capture Specification for Future Building Modifications
(North Dakota State University, 2018) Hussain, Syed Basim
In the construction industry, images taken by cameras have been used to extract information for a number of purposes. However, a review of the literature suggests that there is an absence of specifications regarding the equipment, the method by which the images are to be taken, as well as the method to retrieve and store these images. The purpose of this research is to formulate specifications for capturing images at construction sites to be used later, using an 'appropriate' camera. The research has concluded that any camera available in the market can be used to take these images using the specifications for capturing such images developed as a result of this study.
Developing an Interactive Model to Integrate Human Expertise with Building Information Modelling (BIM) Software
(North Dakota State University, 2022) Ahiable, Cyril
Considering the significant amount of time and money wasted yearly in fixing errors caused by miscommunication and inadequate information on project sites, relaying the knowledge of field experts through design software may reduce communication-based conflicts in projects. This study aimed at creating a model to integrate human field expertise in the construction process with BIM software and also explored strides made in a similar regard. The study also explored the various strides made in human expertise integration. Basement construction in Fargo-North Dakota was the construction scenario selected for scrutiny in this study. Surveys and in-person interviews were conducted with local contractors to ascertain valuable recommendations on basement construction in Fargo. Information from these contractors was validated and coded into two concept models to offer warnings and recommendations on the assessed basement construction activities to help Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) professionals with construction processes required before and during construction.
Development of a High-Efficiency, Cost-Effective Ground Source Heat Pump System for Single-Family Houses
(North Dakota State University, 2021) Hu, Xiaoou
Multi-Source Heat Pump systems are intended to achieve a high system efficiency through the combined or alternate use of two or more sources for a heat pump. This thesis entails the research work to develop a hybrid Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) system integrated with a dry cooler with vertical underground loops for single-family houses. TRNSYS is used to verify the feasibility of this integrated system, so as to optimize the control strategy and quantify the energy and energy cost savings. The primary objective is to demonstrate the improved system efficiency of the GSHP through the combined use of a dry cooler in a single-family house under the eight ASHRAE-defined climates. The results indicate that the integrated system would not be an optimal option for houses located in cold climates, but it is feasible to be implemented in hot/warm areas to increase system efficiency at low cost.
Development of Sustainable Construction Material From Fly Ash C
(North Dakota State University, 2016) Shrestha, Monisha
Environmental issues caused by the production of Portland cement have necessitated its replacement by waste materials like fly ash which has been proven to be quite beneficial environmentally and economically. Therefore, this research project was focused on the development of sustainable construction materials using 100% of high-calcium fly ash with KOH based alkaline solution. Experimental work was conducted to determine concrete properties like compressive strength, flexural strength, setting time, and slump. In the phase I of the research, CNTs were also used to study its effect on geopolymer mortar. The results derived from the experiments show that mortar and concrete made with 100% fly ash C needs alkaline solution to reach properties established by Portland cement concrete. However increased amount of KOH generates heat making the concrete to set faster without forming a proper bond. Furthermore, the addition of CNTs makes the mortar sturdier than the one without CNT.
Effects of Nano Silica and Basalt Fibers on Fly Ash Based Geopolymer Concrete
(North Dakota State University, 2018) Abu Bakar, Asif
Emission of carbon dioxide gas has been a source of major concern for the construction industry. To curb this emission, geopolymer concrete has been deemed as a potential alternative in the recent studies. Previous research also indicates that silica and fibers provide strength benefits to ordinary Portland cement concrete OPC. This study was undertaken to recognize the benefits of adding silica and basalt fibers in Class F fly ash based geopolymer concrete and comparing it with OPC concrete. One OPC and four Geopolymer mixtures were prepared. The results show a tremendous potential of using geopolymer concrete in place of OPC concrete with Nano silica proving to be the most advantageous. Nano silica provided 28% increase in compressive strength, 8% increase in resistivity when compared with normal Fly ash based geopolymer concrete. The SEM analysis of geopolymer concrete indicates that nano silica improved the compactness of concrete providing a dense microstructure.
Environmental and Economic Outlook of Construction and Demolition Waste Management Practices in a Mid-Sized City
(North Dakota State University, 2022) Boateng, Simon Boadi
Construction and demolition waste (CDW) left at landfill sites increases the burden on landfills, which are increasingly becoming scarce and costly to operate. In North Dakota, CDW generated is disposed of at the Fargo landfill. This practice may hamper the realization of value from construction and demolition waste. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) was used to evaluate the benefits of two CDW management scenarios. The study found that a 75% reduction in the CDW sent to the landfill can reduce the environmental burden by 35%. Furthermore, replacing raw materials with recycled materials creates net environmental savings by preventing the production of raw or virgin materials. This practice can reduce the environmental burden by 25% while generating an income of $61/ton for the city. The results of this study provide information on the value of recycling CDW and serve as a basis for decision-makers to rethink CDW waste management practices in North Dakota.

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