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Papers by Ruben Santos

Automation in Construction, 2019

There is a growing concern in society for the environmental impacts of a built environment. In th... more There is a growing concern in society for the environmental impacts of a built environment. In this regard, the use of building information modelling (BIM) tools has arisen as a new trend in the construction industry to improve the sustainable assessments of buildings in the design phase. For that purpose, current approaches either focus on the use of BIM together with several programmes, or solely use it for an automatic quantity take-off. However, as noted in the literature, the lack of semantic information within BIM models can lead to ineffective decision-making processes and models that are unsuitable for the operation and maintenance stages. Therefore, the present study explores the potential of BIM as a repository for the life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) information, and how that information should be used for an environmental and economic analysis. By doing so, the authors intend to discuss the potential of BIM as a data repository and its capacity for supporting an automatic/semi-automatic environmental and economic assessment.

Automation in Construction, 2019

The construction industry and researchers have been exploring new techniques to improve the susta... more The construction industry and researchers have been exploring new techniques to improve the sustainability of buildings. One such solution is the use of a recent technology such as building information modelling (BIM). Accordingly, the present article reviews the current state of literature on sustainable construction and BIM, including the latter’s evolution. In contrast to previous reviews on this subject, the present work has a broader scope that covers the environmental, economic, and social dimensions and their combinations. To obtain a comprehensive review, the authors conducted an informetric analysis of the literature and categorised it based on a content analysis. A total of 11 different terms and 28 combinations were used to collect relevant literature on this subject, resulting in a total of 317 journal articles for the period between 2008 and 2017. The information obtained from informetric analysis was later validated by a content analysis, in which gaps and trends were identified. It was observed that publications on this subject registered an exponential growth, with 90% of the articles being published in the last five years. The authors identified a gap in literature pertaining to the integration of the three dimensions of sustainability; however, literature on the integration of sustainable performance and BIM has grown considerably in recent years, which indicates that BIM is increasingly being used as a reliable method for sustainable construction practices.

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The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in b... more The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately.

Automation in Construction, 2017

10 The use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has increased in recent years, mostly due to t... more 10 The use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has increased in recent years, mostly due to the potential 11 of the methodology for improving construction project performance and efficiency. With a view to 12 achieving a better understanding of the research work on this subject, this paper conducts a bibliometric 13 analysis and a review of existing literature on BIM focusing on the last decade. The authors selected the 14 articles published in journals with an impact factor higher then 1.0, as well as the top 100 most cited articles. 15 The search resulted on 381 articles, which were then categorised in order to systematise the research 16 conducted over the years. The authors have not only analysed the existing literature but also highlighted 17 new emerging fields in BIM research, being possible to identify Collaborative Environments and 18 Interoperability, Sustainable Construction, BIM Adoption & Standardisation, and BIM Programming as 19 the categories with the most significant growth in the last years. It was also observed that the most 20 researched topics were related with the development of BIM tools, the study of BIM adoption worldwide, 21 the energy simulation using BIM-based information and, more recently, with the semantic interoperability 22 and ontology. On the other hand, the study on BIM at the academic level is very small, as well as parametric 23 modelling and quantity takeoff .

Conference Presentations by Ruben Santos

The growing concerns of global society on the consequences of climate changes and how to address ... more The growing concerns of global society on the consequences of climate changes and how to address them are shaping the way of living. In the construction industry, one of the greatest contributors to the total environmental impacts, this issue is particularly relevant. In this sense, the potential of Building Information Modelling (BIM) on sustainable construction is being increasingly acknowledged by society and in business-to-business relationships. BIM stores and analyses the project's information, being a unique tool with potential to perform several types of analysis, e.g. environmental sustainability analysis. In this study, the authors validate an existing tool for a semi-automatic BIM-LCA (Life Cycle Assessment): Tally (Revit's plugin). In order to perform this validation, the authors use a simplified building assembly consisting of external walls with environmental information (LCA based on site-specific data and Environmental Product Declarations-EPD) and compare these results with Tally's. By doing so, the authors answers the questions: i) do existing BIM-LCA tools offer an accurate environmental assessment of the projects?; ii) If not, how should that problem be addressed? In the end, this study contributes to the valuation of existing environmental sustainability tools integrated with BIM and estimates/judges/shows how suitable they are to answer the needs of the construction industry.

Currently, Construction industry is facing particularly difficult times due to the financial and ... more Currently, Construction industry is facing particularly difficult times due to the financial and economic crisis. However, it still is an important contributor to the economy of European Union (EU), representing 10% of EU's GDP in 2014 and 9% in 2016 [1, 2]. It is also the sector that has the largest share in final energy consumption of the EU, 40%, producing 38% of EU greenhouse gas emissions [3]. Those numbers have a deep impact on the ambitions of the European Union in achieving their sustainable targets as the increase of energy efficiency by promoting the construction Nearly-Zero Energy Buildings from 2020 onwards, increasing the share of renewable energy till 20%, and by reducing the greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95% by 2050, compared to the levels of 1990 [4][5][6][7][8].

1. INTRODUCTION Building sector in the European Union (EU) has currently the highest share in ene... more 1. INTRODUCTION Building sector in the European Union (EU) has currently the highest share in energy consumption (40%) and produces 38% of EU's greenhouse gas [1]. With the European Commission promoting sustainable targets, to be reached by 2020, as the increase of energy efficiency, 20% share of renewable energy sources, and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95% by 2050, compared to the levels of 1990, building sector must undergo deep changes [2-5]. In order to not only improve the competitiveness of European construction companies, but also to increase the sustainability of the building sector within the EU, it becomes crucial to improve the efficiency of built environment through renovations and promote the use of new technologies in the construction industry and the adequate training of its workers. European Commission believes that initiatives in EU Member States on sustainable aspects of built environment, such as energy efficiency, can lead to a 90% greenhouse gas emissions reduction until 2050, significantly contribute for the job creation, as well as improve the efficiency of resources usage in the building sector [1, 6]. Hence, construction companies must adapt and pursue innovative approaches that not only saves resources as time. An answer can be found in the Building Information Modelling (BIM) methodology. It is a methodology that is based on a rich information digital model (visualisation aspect) but also in the collaborative aspect of all involved parties, since the earliest stage of a project [7]. In 2014 the EU approved the European Union Public Procurement Directive (EUPPD) [8], which aims to modernise the existing EU public procurement rules by simplifying the procedures, making them more flexible and encouraging the use of BIM in public works. Taking into consideration this recent interest of European Commission in BIM, as well as the promotion of sustainable methodologies, such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC), to achieve their ambitious targets by 2020, it becomes imperative that the AEC sector adapts to this reality as soon as possible [6]. Portuguese construction companies must become aware of this situation in order to be at the same level as its European competition. For that purpose, guidelines and recommendations on BIM uses and methodological guides should be developed for Portuguese reality, based on current best-practices in other Member States. This paper sets out to provide the readers with: (i) European Commission instruments available for Member States, namely funds; (ii) BIM implementation in Portugal; and (iii) proposal of a BIM guide for Energy Analysis for Portuguese reality.

Automation in Construction, 2019

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Automation in Construction, 2017