Top 5 building innovations for civil engineers

With the introduction of smart and more energy-efficient housing, the need is there for construction to get smarter and more efficient too. With more innovative tools and techniques appearing all the time, here are five industry-changing examples of the new technology used in civil engineering today.

Self-healing concrete

Cement is one of the major construction material, but also one of the largest contributor to harmful carbon emissions. 

Cracking is a major problem in construction, usually caused by exposure to water and chemicals. Researchers at Bath University are looking to develop a self-healing concrete, using a mix containing bacteria within microcapsules, which will aid building innovation by germinating when water enters a crack in the concrete to produce limestone, plugging the crack before water and oxygen has a chance to corrode the steel reinforcement.

Photovoltaic glaze

One of the most exciting new technologies used in civil engineering is building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) glazing, which can help buildings to generate own electricity, by turning the whole building envelope into a solar panel. Companies such as Polysolar provide transparent photovoltaic glass as a structural building material, forming windows, façades and roofs. Polysolar’s technology is efficient at producing energy even on north-facing, vertical walls and its high performance at raised temperatures means it can be double glazed or insulated directly. As well as saving on energy bills and earning feed-in tariff revenues, its cost is only marginal over the traditional glass, since construction and framework costs remain, while cladding and shading system costs are replaced.

Kinetic footfall

One of the latest civil engineering technologies under development is kinetic energy. Pavegen provides a technology that enables the flooring to harness the energy of footsteps. It can be used indoors or outdoors in high traffic areas and generates electricity from pedestrian footfall using an electromagnetic induction process and flywheel energy storage. The technology is best suited to transport hubs where a large flow of people will pass over it. The largest deployment the company has done so far is in a football pitch in Rio de Janeiro to help power the floodlights around the pitch. It also currently has a temporary installation outside London’s Canary Wharf station powering street lights.

Modular construction

Modular construction is one of the most popular developments in civil engineering where a building is constructed off-site using the same materials and designed to the same standards as conventional on-site construction. This innovative building technique limits environmental disruption, delivering components as and when needed, and turning construction into a logistics exercise. It also has strong sustainability benefits, from fewer vehicle movements to less waste. With up to 70 per cent of a building produced as components, it allows a move towards “just in time” manufacturing and delivery. In use in the United States and the UK, Chinese developer Broad Sustainable Building recently completed a 57-storey skyscraper in 19 working days using this method.

Cloud collaboration

Another new technology used in civil engineering is a cloud collaboration tool called basestone. Basestone is a system allowing the remote sharing of data on a construction site in real-time. It is predominantly a review tool for civil engineers and architects which digitises the drawing review process on construction projects and allows for better collaboration. The cloud-based collaboration tool is focused on the installation of everything from steel beams to light fittings. The system is used to add “snags”, issues that happen during construction, on to pdfs, then users can mark or add notes through basestone. Trials have revealed possible cost-savings of around 60 per cent compared with traditional paper-based review methods.

-By Anshul Shakya

Source:-raconteur.net