Geotechnical Property Modeling and Construction Safety Zoning Based on GIS and BIM Integration

Abstract

The increase in population and urbanization needs attention towards intense construction activities to meet the social and economic needs. Soil excavation is a primary step in every construction project that needs proper surface and subsurface information modeling since it is vulnerable to construction hazards. Geographic information system (GIS) provides significant information about the existing contextual surface information while building information modeling (BIM) gives information about the asset in a great detail that has been integrated into the construction industry for many applications. However, the integration of BIM and GIS for the subsurface geotechnical property modeling and classification into zones has been rarely explored. This paper presents the integration of BIM and GIS for modeling geotechnical properties and safe construction zones based on soil type. The use of open standard IFC classes such as IfcBorehole, IfcGeoslice, and IfcGeomodel enhances the collaboration and allows the exchange of geotechnical information among different stakeholders. The method has been applied to the in-situ and laboratory test dataset of the Peshawar, region, to validate the proof of concept. The results demonstrate that the proposed method successfully integrates BIM and GIS providing a three-dimensional surface and subsurface model. The 3D digital geotechnical model has excellent potential to provide information about soil type, properties, depth, and volume of each available soil layer that can be used by construction planners and managers to identify best construction practices and plan for safe construction.

BIM-GIS-Based Integrated Framework for Underground Utility Management System for Earthwork Operations

“…Geographic information system (GIS) contains information about the geographic location and spatial coordinates, while building information modeling (BIM) contains information about the geometry and semantics in every detail. BIM integration with the GIS technology has been used in the AEC industry for many purposes such as supply chain management [15], geotechnical property modeling [29], cost estimation of roads [30], tunnel facility management [31], heritage facility management [13], site layout and construction safety planning [32], and space planning. However, the use of such an integrated system is rarely explored for the underground utility infrastructure.…”

The Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Dynamic Site Layout Planning in Large-Scale Construction Projects

“…Research using radio-frequency identification (RFID) and GPS brought interesting contributions to this area of knowledge [65]. However, in recent years, the use of BIM models associated with GIS witnessed a drastic increase in interest amongst scholars in the field, especially in the construction sector [66][67][68][69]. According to [70], the use of GIS allows the storage of location data referring to a region or facility that can be integrated with satellite images and digital elevation models (DEM), therefore enabling the analysis of the project's evolution over time [71,72].…”

“…Research using radio-frequency identification (RFID) and GPS brought interesting contributions to this area of knowledge [65]. However, in recent years, the use of BIM models associated with GIS witnessed a drastic increase in interest amongst scholars in the field, especially in the construction sector [66][67][68][69].…”

BIM usage benefits and challenges for site safety application in Indian construction sector

“…In addition to that, the integration of BIM and Geographic Information System (GIS) are strong platforms widely used in the construction industry due to their various individual features and capabilities (Abd et al, 2020). It helps for providing safe construction zones (Khan and Park, 2021), linking BIM and GIS data for digital representation of the real world (Abd et al, 2020). Considering India, the utilization of BIM for safety, in particular, has been very limited.…”