The purpose of Thesis Proposal is to identify and overview four research analyses areas to be performed over the duration of spring 2014 on the construction of Twin River’s School project. For each analysis topic, the problem and goal are stated. Possible research and analysis components are found. Expected study results are stated.

Analysis 1: BIM Implementation

As studied in Technical Report Two and Three, there were several key activities and change of design that caused increased costs and schedule delays. These problems could have been overcome with greater utilization of BIM to facilitate cooperation between different trades. BIM could be used as an alternative construction method through phase planning and information management. This is one of the leading industry trends as discussed at PACE Roundtable Conference. The implementation of BIM would also help to realize owner’s goal to make this project a role model of high performance educational facility.

Analysis 2: LEED Implementation

One of the owner’s goals for Twin River’s School project is to build a district scientific educational facility as well as housing two schools. This project is aiming for a LEED Gold Certificate by completion. There are a lot of LEED features incorporated in the design. However, in current design some LEED features are only incorporated for showcase purpose. It is proposed to have the renewable energy design to produce energy for the project. Life cycle cost analysis will be conducted to compare the cost and benefits of both systems. Day-lighting system will also be studied for further improvement.

Analysis 3: Schedule Acceleration

The construction of Twin River’s School is scheduled to be completed within 11 months. Due to this project is the construction of a public school, the substantial completion date was extremely important to the owner. The possibility of rearranging the activity sequences and overlapping activity would be studied for schedule acceleration purpose. Implementation of SIPS method would also be analyzed.

Analysis 4: Value Engineering

The owner, the project team and the designer have worked together on this project to implement value engineering. The areas of value engineering implementation include update material and equipment and update design. However, due to the limitation of planning time, some value engineering ideas is restraint to be update of material.  The possibility of cost reduction from combining two 120V distribution systems into one 480V distribution system without changing EMT conduits to MC cables will be studied. The potential cost saving from re-design the roof with light-weight metal decking instead of doing multiple roof structural system makeover would also be considered.

Electrical Breadth: Alternative Distrbution System

As studied in Technical Report One, existing design of the electrical system have two power distributions of 208/120V. The breadth will focus on the possibility of updating the distribution panel to 480V. With the rooftop turbine units and the pole mounted wind turbine, power consumption of the building is expect to decrease and thus reduce the building operation cost in long run. A life cycle cost analysis of the updated system compared to the original design will be done. As noted in Value Engineering section, the second highest value of change of design is changing the conduits from EMT to MC Cable. The possibility of changing of the distribution system into 480V might also help with the cost effectiveness. The comparison will be made on the cost of designed electrical distribution system on one zone will be calculated.

Structural Breadth: Roof Decking Re-design

Based on the analysis in Technical Report Three, the biggest update of design is the change of steel support of the clearstory level, the modification of rain water capture system over the music room and the metal decking over the library room towards the west corner of the core of the project. Based on Analysis Two and Three in this report, the potential influence of the rooftop wind turbine weight over the decking system will be studied. As mentioned in Analysis Three the possibility of replacing Type B Galvanized Steel decking by Type N (deep wide rib) decking  will be studied; as well as cost and schedule influence and the its influence to the constructability of rooftop wind turbine units.

Conclusion

Upon completion of the four analyses, alternative construction methods for a high performance education facility will be determined. The goal of these analyses is to suggest areas of improvements in the process of construction and operation of educational facility similar to Twin River’s School project. The analyses will be performed involving four core investigation areas including BIM Implementation, LEED Implementation, Schedule Acceleration and Value Engineering. These analyses will be conducted over the duration of spring 2014 and then compiled into a final thesis report. The findings will be presented to the Thesis Jury Panel and AE Faculty at the end of the spring semester.

Information about the CPEP

The Capstone Project Electronic Portfolio (CPEP) is a web‐based project and information center. It contains material produced for a year‐long Senior Thesis class. Its purpose, in addition to providing central storage of individual assignments, is to foster communication and collaboration between student, faculty consultant, course instructors, and industry consultants. This website is dedicated to the research and analysis conducted via guidelines provided by the Department of Architectural Engineering.

For an explanation of this capstone design course and its requirements please click here.