Optimizing Wall Formwork Shuttering Design Using Prefabricated Panels in Concrete Construction

Determining an optimal formwork shuttering solution is not a well answered problem, relying heavily on the designer’s preferences and past experiences rather than efficient algorithms and standardized procedures. This results in inefficient solutions that increase overall costs and construction time. Globally, formwork is nearly a $6 billion USD/ year industry; even minor improvements in efficiency of design will result in huge cost savings.

This research aims to develop a standardized methodology and identify general heuristics for solving typical wall formwork problems. The intent is to also parameterize the important variables that can affect design decisions and be used to increase efficiency of design based on regional differences in labor, material, and transportation costs, or other design requirements. A generalized solution has previously been shown to be computationally infeasible so the intended approach is to make locally greedy design choices and show that the resulting greedy solution is bounded by a certain efficiency.

Faculty Supervisor:

Fadi Oudah

Student:

Mitchell Kane

Partner:

FORMula Consulting Inc

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Dalhousie University