Strategies for minimising the whole of life cycle cost of reinforced concrete bridge exposed to aggressive environments

n design of bridge structures, it is common to adopt a 100 year design life. However, analysis of a number of case study bridges in Australia has indicated that the actual design life can be significantly reduced due to premature deterioration resulting from exposure to aggressive environments. A closer analysis of the cost of rehabilitation of these structures has raised some interesting questions. What would be the real service life of a bridge exposed to certain aggressive environments? What is the strategy of conducting bridge rehabilitation? And what are the life cycle costs associated with rehabilitation? A research project funded by the CRC for Construction Innovation in Australia is aimed at addressing these issues. This paper presents a concept map for assisting decision makers to appropriately choose the best treatment for bridge rehabilitation affected by premature deterioration through exposure to aggressive environments in Australia. The decision analysis is referred to a whole of life cycle cost analysis by considering appropriate elements of bridge rehabilitation costs. In addition, the results of bridges inspections in Queensland are presented

Challenges in residual service life assessment for refurbishment

A need for an efficient life care management of building portfolio is becoming increasingly due to increase in aging building infrastructure globally. Appropriate structural engineering practices along with facility management can assist in optimising the remaining life cycle costs for existing public building portfolio. A more precise decision to either demolish, refurbish, do nothing or rebuilt option for any typical building under investigation is needed. In order to achieve this, the status of health of the building needs to be assessed considering several aspects including economic and supply-demand considerations. An investment decision for a refurbishment project competing with other capital works and/or refurbishment projects can be supported by emerging methodology residual service life assessment. This paper discusses challenges in refurbishment projects of public buildings and with a view towards development of residual service life assessment methodology

Re-life of buildings - decision support tools for maximising project efficiency

This paper describes the process adopted in developing an integrated decision support framework for planning of office building refurbishment projects, with specific emphasize on optimising rentable floor space, structural strengthening, residual life and sustainability. Expert opinion on the issues to be considered in a tool is being captured through the DELPHI process, which is currently ongoing. The methodology for development of the integrated tool will be validated through decisions taken during a case study project: refurbishment of CH1 building of Melbourne City Council, which will be followed through to completion by the research team. Current status of the CH1 planning will be presented in the context of the research project.

Learning support : what do students want?

Assumptions are often made about students' needs, especially in the area of learning support. In this study 89 students were asked 8 questions relating to receiving learning support. The results are presented both qualitatively and quantitatively, and indicate that all students have individual needs that cannot be assumed. The findings reveal that the most common area of perceived need was in literacy. There were some differences between primary and middle school students' responses to withdrawal from the classroom, but the majority of students in both groups indicated a preference for withdrawal because they could concentrate better in an environment that was less noisy and because they felt they might look 'stupid' if they remained in class.

Understanding the literacy difficulties of students with Asperger's syndrome in middle years' classrooms

Among the students in Australian classrooms who are experiencing learning difficulties are increasing numbers of children who have been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. Although the general cognitive and language abilities of these students are comparable with most of their peers, they experience significant difficulties with social communication, social interactions and social-emotional/behavioural functioning. Despite indications that there are features inherent in Asperger's syndrome that are likely to have a negative effect on the development of advanced literacy skills, studies to date have primarily focused on social-emotional/behavioural challenges. Without effective literacy skills, however, students' access to educational and career opportunities may be curtailed. This article reviews features of Asperger's syndrome that appear to have a negative impact upon the development of advanced literacy skills and suggests ways in which inclusive classroom teachers could support the development of their learners.

Defining reference service life : an open innovation approach

The endeavour to obtain estimates of durability of components for use in lifecycle assessment or costing and infrastructure and maintenance planning systems is large. The factor method and the reference service life concept provide a very valuable structure, but do not resolve the central dilemma of the need to derive an extensive database of service life. Traditional methods of estimating service life, such as dose functions or degradation models, can play a role in developing this database, however the scale of the problem clearly indicates that individual dose functions cannot be derived for each component in each different local and geographic setting. Thus, a wider range of techniques is required in order to devise reference service life. This paper outlines the approaches being taken in the Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation project to predict reference service life. Approaches include the development of fundamental degradation and microclimate models, the development of a situation-based reasoning ‘engine’ to vary the ‘estimator’ of service life, and the development of a database on expert performance (Delphi study). These methods should be viewed as complementary rather than as discrete alternatives. As discussed in the paper, the situation-based reasoning approach in fact has the possibility of encompassing all other methods.

At-risk students and classroom engagement : listening to “voices of possibility and hope"

In my work with secondary school students who have disengaged from mainstream classrooms, I have often been surprised at the ways they enthusiastically engage with the projects on offer. They have demonstrated that, in apparent contradiction of their classroom behaviour, they still maintain hope in achieving a positive outcome from education. In a long-running schools-university project employing a “students-as-researchers” approach to investigating educational disadvantage, “at-risk” students have produced high quality results. Naturally, I wanted to know what it was about this sort of pedagogy that seemed to work for them. In this chapter, then, I outline the project and discuss some reasons for disengagement. I then address the features of the project that the participants themselves have identified as being instrumental in their re-engagement with formal education. Finally, I consider how these features may be transposed to maintaining the educational engagement of at-risk students in mainstream classrooms.

A45 ICT curriculum design to bridge the gap between industry and academia

Building Information Model (BIM) software, collaboration platforms and 5D Construction Management software is now commercially available and presents the opportunity for construction project teams to design more cost effectively, plan construction earlier, manage costs throughout the life cycle of a building project and provide a central asset management register for facilities managers. This paper outlines the merits of taking a holistic view of ICT in curriculum design. The educational barriers to implementation of these models and planning tools are highlighted. Careful choice of computer software can make a significant difference to how quickly students can master skills; how easy it is to study and how much they enjoy learning and be prepared for employment. An argument for BIM and 5D planning tools to be introduced into the curriculum to assist industry increase productivity and efficiencies are outlined by the authors.

Teaching business process modelling : experiences and recommendations

A curriculum for a university-level course called Business Process Modeling is presented in order to provide guidance for the increasing number of institutions who are currently developing such contents. The course caters to undergraduate and post graduate students. Its content is drawn from recent research, industry practice, and established teaching material, and teaches ways of specifying business processes for the analysis and design of process-aware information systems. The teaching approach is a blend of lectures and classroom exercises with innovative case studies, as well as reviews of research material. Students are asked to conceptualize, analyze, and articulate real life process scenarios. Tutorials and cheat sheets assist with the learning experience. Course evaluations from 40 students suggest the adequacy of the teaching approach. Specifically, evaluations show a high degree of satisfaction with course relevance, content presentation, and teaching approach.

Risk assessment in life-cycle costing for road asset management

Queensland Department of Main Roads, Australia, spends approximately A$ 1 billion annually for road infrastructure asset management. To effectively manage road infrastructure, firstly road agencies not only need to optimise the expenditure for data collection, but at the same time, not jeopardise the reliability in using the optimised data to predict maintenance and rehabilitation costs. Secondly, road agencies need to accurately predict the deterioration rates of infrastructures to reflect local conditions so that the budget estimates could be accurately estimated. And finally, the prediction of budgets for maintenance and rehabilitation must provide a certain degree of reliability. This paper presents the results of case studies in using the probability-based method for an integrated approach (i.e. assessing optimal costs of pavement strength data collection; calibrating deterioration prediction models that suit local condition and assessing risk-adjusted budget estimates for road maintenance and rehabilitation for assessing life-cycle budget estimates). The probability concept is opening the path to having the means to predict life-cycle maintenance and rehabilitation budget estimates that have a known probability of success (e.g. produce budget estimates for a project life-cycle cost with 5% probability of exceeding). The paper also presents a conceptual decision-making framework in the form of risk mapping in which the life-cycle budget/cost investment could be considered in conjunction with social, environmental and political issues.

Life cycle inventory for Australian building materials

This paper discusses challenges to developers of a national Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) database on which to base assessment of building environmental impacts and a key to development of a fully integrated eco-design tool created for automated eco-efficiency assessment of commercial building design direct from 3D CAD. The scope of this database includes Australian and overseas processing burdens involved in acquiring, processing, transporting, fabricating, finishing and using metals, masonry, timber, glazing, ceramics, plastics, fittings, composites and coatings. Burdens are classified, calculated and reported for all flows of raw materials, fuels, energy and emissions to and from the air, soil and water associated with typical products and services in building construction, fitout and operation. The aggregated life cycle inventory data provides the capacity to generate environmental impact assessment reports based on accepted performance indicators. Practitioners can identify hot spots showing high environmental burdens of a proposed design and drill down to report on specific building components. They can compare assessments with case studies and operational estimates to assist in eco-efficient design of a building, fitout and operation.

Redefining life cycle for a building sustainability assessment framework

Understanding the differences between the temporal and physical aspects of the building life cycle is an essential ingredient in the development of Building Environmental Assessment (BEA) tools. This paper illustrates a theoretical Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) framework aligning temporal decision-making with that of material flows over building development phases. It was derived during development of a prototype commercial building design tool that was based on a 3-D CAD information and communications technology (ICT) platform and LCA software. The framework aligns stakeholder BEA needs and the decision-making process against characteristics of leading green building tools. The paper explores related integration of BEA tool development applications on such ICT platforms. Key framework modules are depicted and practical examples for BEA are provided for: • Definition of investment and service goals at project initiation; • Design integrated to avoid overlaps/confusion over the project life cycle; • Detailing the supply chain considering building life cycle impacts; • Delivery of quality metrics for occupancy post-construction/handover; • Deconstruction profiling at end of life to facilitate recovery.

Low achieving mathematics students' attitudinal and achievement changes as a result of using an integrated learning system

This paper reports on a study to measure the effectiveness of an integrated learning system (ILS) in improving mathematics achievement for low achieving Year 5 to 9 students. The study found that statistically significant gains on the integrated learning system were not supported by scores on standardised mathematics achievement tests. It also found that although student attitudes to computers decreased (significantly for some items), the students still liked the integrated learning system and felt that it had helped them to learn.

Year 6 students' idiosyncratic notions of unitising, reunitising and regrouping decimal number places

Having flexible notions of the unit (e.g., 26 ones can be thought of as 2.6 tens, 1 ten 16 ones, 260 tenths, etc.) should be a major focus of elementary mathematics education. However, often these powerful notions are relegated to computations where the major emphasis is on "getting the right answer" thus procedural knowledge rather than conceptual knowledge becomes the primary focus. This paper reports on 22 high-performing students' reunitising processes ascertained from individual interviews on tasks requiring unitising, reunitising and regrouping; errors were categorised to depict particular thinking strategies. The results show that, even for high-performing students, regrouping is a cognitively complex task. This paper analyses this complexity and draws inferences for teaching.

The ethical predisposition of university students in Western Australia : 1997 vs 2007

A sample of 285 Western Australian university students was used to assess the prevailing attitudes regarding potential breaches of ethical conduct on the part of business practitioners and organisations. The authors developed an ethical profile for the 2007 sample based on 14 scenarios used in the questionnaire. This profile was then compared to the results from data collected in 1997 using similar sampling and the same survey instrument. The prevailing predisposition is best viewed as centrist in nature, with a move to a more ethical stance in the last 10 years.