IntroductionConstruction site layout planning can be defined as an effort to place different temporary facilities in available site locations such that multiple objectives are satisfied as much as possible. The site layout can have a considerable effect on the constructions operations and should cover several involved constraints [1]. In construction projects, besides the required resources like materials, machinery, manpower and the construction project time and budget, available spaces are vital for placing the facilities and construction requirements transportations [2]. Due to the limitations of the construction site space as a resource, its management is necessary [3]. With the extension of high-rise building construction and construction activities besides the lack of available spaces in construction sites, proper utilization of this resource has been highlighted because of its significant positive influences on direct cost, safety, and security of the site which consequently effects on the total cost and schedule of the project. Therefore, it can be considered as the heart of productivity in construction projects [4][5] [6]. In a construction project, contractors usually have the responsibility of an efficient site layout planning. This is considered as a complex task because of the numerous factors involved in such facilities, site surroundings, constraints and etc. [7]. An efficient construction site layout planning has to deal with many conflicting objectives and is a decision-making procedure [8]. Not paying attention to site layout planning will lead to inefficiency of the project, additional cost for material handling, reworking, further cost for setting up facility in dynamic sites, wasting time and creation of an unsafe site [9][4]. In recent decades, site layout planning problem has attracted researchers' attention and many researches were conducted on this issue.Site layout planning problem is an NP-Hard problem from the viewpoint of complexity [10]. This means there is no recognized algorithm that is capable of finding the optimum solution in polynomial time [11]. By passing of time and science development, trial and error or applying experts' opinions have been replaced by optimization methods and researchers have proposed a wide range of techniques and methods to
A significant number of injuries and fatalities occur annually due to fire in buildings. The proactive use of fire safety measures at the design stage can potentially lead to a considerable improvement in reducing casualties by assisting occupants in a safe evacuation. In this study, a framework is developed to obtain a set of appropriate fire safety measures while considering their effects on safe evacuation (i.e., increasing the percentage of survived occupants) and budget limits. The framework consists of four phases, namely (1) initial preparation, (2) optimisation with a meta-heuristic algorithm, (3) decision making when the designer should select appropriate measures considering the budget limit, and (4) applying the selected measures into BIM. A binary version of Billiards-inspired Optimisation Algorithm (BOA) is developed and utilised in the optimisation phase. A case study approach is adopted for this research and the performance of the proposed framework is evaluated by implementing it in two case projects: a residential building and a hospital building. The results indicate that the framework is a beneficial approach for designers to modify building designs in terms of safe evacuation at the design stage by using fire safety measures effectively and economically. It is expected that the output of this framework will help decrease fatalities of building users during a fire.
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