A Diagnostic Expert System to Overcome Construction Problems in Rigid Highway Pavement

Abstract

Constructing highway pavements faces complex problems, which are affected by multiple factors, where solution is nearly impossible without expert assistance. Diagnosing such construction problems and suggesting most suitable cost efficient solutions requires significant engineering expertise, which might not be available in all construction sites due to inadequate resource and remote locations. Developing an expert system in this domain is a very effective way to help novice engineers to overcome these problems and to learn about them. Moreover, the system can be used as an archive to document engineering knowledge and to share expertise among the experts in this domain. This article describes the development and evaluation stages of such a system, including knowledge acquisition, knowledge representation, system building, and system verification and validation. The initial knowledge is acquired from literature reviews. More expert knowledge is elicited through interviews and questionnaires. This knowledge is documented, analyzed, represented, and converted to computer software using the Visual Basic programming language and the system is called ES-CCPRHP. The system has been verified and validated in three ways: by extensive testing, comparison between system performance and expert reasoning, and case study. It can therefore be employed with confidence by end users.

Knowledge Management Research in the Construction Industry: a Review

“…Various knowledge-based systems were developed (Lin 2014;Mosa et al 2011;Sauce and Mommessin 1995). KM activities were promoted through product data modeling initiatives such as STEP, IFCs, and BIM (Rezgui et al 2010).…”

Software for Line of Balance in Projects of Highways

“…Construction of a highway system as a part of public infrastructure is a significant way for any country to improve its economy [1,2,3,4]. Transportation in developing countries typically depends on a road network rather than on other modalities.…”

“…Transportation in developing countries typically depends on a road network rather than on other modalities. Therefore, there is high demand for construction of new roads to connect city centres with the new expanding districts and other locations [5]. However, little researches on highway constructionare implemented [6], and research on this topic is in great demand [7].…”

“…Generally, construction projects are complex and require high management efforts [8].Planning which is the core of the effective project management [9,10,11]is a challenge in construction projects [8].Planning of highway construction can be considered as an essential process [12,13]to ensure efficient construction management that lead to attain project objectives in lowest time and cost. In addition, proper planning in highway projects eliminates work stoppage and prevents technical, economical, and legal problems.…”

Expert System to Control Construction Problems in Flexible Pavements

“…In the field of highway geometric design, Syamsunur et al (2011) designed a knowledge‐based system to select optimum routes for the alignment of new roads. In the highway pavement construction field, Mosa et al (2011a, b) attempted to develop a knowledge‐based system that only includes written sources to control construction problems in rigid pavements. Lee et al (2011) developed an expert system for auditing quality management in construction.…”