B5- Database

Database

I think data is the real asset of an organization. We will most likely interact heavily with databases during our professional career. Core database concepts and practices are extremely durable, and are likely to serve us for years to come. So, a collection of related data organized for easy storage and retrieval in electronic form will dramatically increase the efficiency of processing and understanding them. Almost any construction firm or other company in this field of appreciable complexity has information management requirements that are hard to satisfy without using a database. Since construction process always involve multiple companies working together from different aspects, the arrangement of database allows a number of different kinds of applications to work with the same set of data. Database can also ensure that the data must always meet certain conditions, such as ‘the span can’t be entered twice,’ regardless of the measurement manipulating it. We can also get the benefits of its security and concurrency. We can control who is authorized to manipulate what and govern what types of activities can take place at the same time. A database can also prevent data loss since it has the character of backup and disaster recovery. The most important thing is it can present different users with customized views of the same data. For example, each of your subcontractors will only have access to the data you want them to read. This can avoid wrangling and protect your trade secret in some degree.

I want to share an experience as the support of my above opinions. I was working for a small energy company for my first co-op cycle. Their duty is to re-design old structure's HVAC (heating, cooling and ventilating) system. I was involved in both field work and engineering design process. Their data managing techniques are relatively primary. They are collecting data from site investigation manually and I have to spend two hours per day for inputting them into computer. They do not process raw data before modeling or designing even though it is easy to be done on excel. I always need to convert units of the data for different design purpose. There are thousands of folders on their server and it always consumes a lot of time to find the proper one. These make their working efficiency lower than it should be. If they have a database that can perform all of the advantages as discussed in the first paragraph, their business will grow a lot faster and their work quality will increase a lot.

Comments:

Uses of databases in design offices

Shaden

We were doing the same topic. I am more focusing on database’s advantages while you made good efforts on illustrating the functions of database. You made a comparison between excel and database. This is really helpful to me since these two are having similar format and I sometimes confused about them.

SQL – What is it and why is it important?

Thomas

This is an informative and interesting post. I have only heard of database but I never know that there is a thing playing key roles interacting with elements in a database. I am taking a construction management course and I am taught to use Procore. It is an online software that the architect, engineer, GCs, owners can share and modify data. I think this platform is a good example of SQL. You can take a look of it if you are interested.

Object Oriented Database
Sherry

I like the graphs you used to help us to have a better understanding of object oriented databases. I have also read the original articles you listed in references. They are informative and helpful.

Sensors and Controls for HVAC Systems

Group Members: Shuyuan Zhang & Shaden Dahroug

The following project was selected to research based on the interest and knowledge of the importance of HVAC systems within a building since it’s one of the main contributing factors of energy consumption within a building, whether during the summer or winter season or even spring since an HVAC system is required all year around to maintain the building’s condition to achieve comfort of occupants within a building, while maintaining indoor air quality. As sensors may be used to increase energy efficiency, it’s also important for maintenance of the required indoor condition as non-efficient sensors may lead a building to overheat or overcool, leading occupants of the building to feel uncomfortable and that may impact their productivity within a work environment.

Sensors and controls for HVAC systems is believed to be an important aspect of an intelligent buildings, because of its technological features that doesn’t require manual control from humans in order to maintain its requirements, where it’s control is achieved through sensors that only require implementing the program of the sensors with the building requirements to do its job of maintaining the buildings indoor air condition for occupant’s comfort.

The research will be focused on how sensors collect data for an HVAC system, and how the equipment or system process the data to control the indoor air conditions. In addition to exploring the advantage and disadvantage of each sensor to determine which would be the most relevant for an intelligent building to achieve maximum comfort of occupants and energy efficiency. In addition to determining what effects the performance of a given sensor.

The following sensors listed below are the sensor that will be researched for this project, while other parameters that will be put into consideration for the following project will be trying to understand the initial and maintenance cost of the following sensors as those are influential factors for an owner when selecting most component within a building.

o   Carbon-dioxide emission sensor

o   Occupancy sensor (movement)

o   Radiation sensor (heat)

o   Traditional temperature / humidity sensor

A model will also be created for research purposes to determine the relevance of our findings for the research, and that will be achieved through using eQuest for energy analysis to have a closer look at which sensor may truly be more energy efficient compared to the other sensors selected for research.  

The process of determining the relevance of our findings for the project will be a challenge as eQuest may not be enough for this evaluation, and that may lead to requiring database expertise in order to create a database to determine the relevance of the findings of the project.

Comments:

B4 - Term Project Description

Dung Tran,

A life on mars sounds interesting, and your project is very interesting but it leads me thinking how many spaceships and trips will this require for building one place “let’s say a house” and what are the environmental impacts of those spaceship as they leave earth and go into space, and since automated construction will definitely increase the traffic in space, I wonder if that will have an impact on the environment in space. I would also like to comment about your problem statement it shows that you have thoroughly thought the challenges that may come with your project.

Best of Luck on your project.

Anibaba - Project Description Blog Post

Malik Anibab,

I find the scope of your project interesting because it questions whether a building can be green and intelligent or just intelligent or just green. Probably increasing a building’s intelligence may be increasing a building’s energy consumption in some sort of way, but there is probably methods of using plants for energy production, where a building feeds energy of itself.

The following links below are articles about the BIQ building which is located in Hamburg, Germany. The building is interesting because it has double skin to make the building green, where the second skin is made out of a bioreactor. Thought of sharing since this may be helpful with your research.

Best of Luck on your project.

http://algadisk.eu/biq-first-building-in-the-world-with-bioreactor-facade/

https://www.iba-hamburg.de/en/themes-projects/the-building-exhibition-within-the-building-exhibition/smart-material-houses/biq/projekt/biq.html

 

Term Project Description

Zac Arnold,

It’s intelligent of you and Mark to take advantage of the project and choose Revit as a project to increase your familiarity with its use and try to determine its flaws through experimenting it yourselves which is an important thing to do, because you only get better by practicing using the software more and more. In addition, how you considered the scope of construction business as whole when it comes to general contractors, subcontractors, owners, etc.  

Best of Luck on your project.