Monitoring of the OPTIM-HC project

The OPTIM-HC project “ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE APPLIED TO MINIMIZATION OF CARBON FOOTPRINT IN LARGE LINEAR WORKS” by Rover Infrastructures is part of the 2022 Business Value Chain Consolidation program of the Valencian Innovation Agency. The project is scheduled to end in September 2024 and has a total budget of about €400,000. For its implementation, it will be supported by the University of Castilla La Mancha.

MOTIVATION AND GOAL:

Activity generated by the construction sector, including its associated industry, is the largest consumer of natural resources. Globally, civil engineering and building construction consume 60% of the raw materials extracted from the lithosphere. Of this volume, construction accounts for 40%. In the European Union, building construction consumes 40% of all materials, and per capita mineral extraction amounts to 4.8 tons per person per year, uses 40% of primary energy and generates 40% of waste, having special responsibility in the current deterioration of the environment the expansion of the built park.

Some years ago, energy costs did not play a decisive role in the execution of a project and, as a result, improving the profitability of this project was not focused on reducing or optimizing consumption, but now the context has changed radically and it is necessary to do so for both environmental and economic issues. To combat and prevent the reduction of environmental impact within this area, it is necessary to consider three fundamental aspects:

• the reduction of pollutant emissions.

• control of resource consumption.

• the minimization and proper management of waste generated throughout the construction process.

It is precisely in this last aspect that will be influenced by the execution of this project, which aims to design a software tool that allows the reduction of the environmental impact of civil VR works with the implementation of algorithms for optimization the routes of the means of transport that minimize the carbon footprint associated with the transportation of materials on the construction site. For this, a carbon footprint calculator will be developed that allows the study to quantify an estimate of the environmental impact of large linear RV works in earthmoving work.

PROJECT WORK PLAN:

For the development of the project three main phases have been proposed:

Phase 1. Preliminary studies and design of the optimization tool.

Phase 2. Development of the modeling tool.

Phase 3. Validation of the tool in real environments and calculation of the carbon footprint.

FOLLOW-UP AND MAIN RESULTS:

Phase 1 has been executed and completed, in which activities have been carried out to make known the full case of the problem of optimization of means of transport associated with land movement work in civil works, for the subsequent design and definition of technical specifications of the optimization software tool.

First, data collection, preparation and preliminary studies have been carried out on major linear works (road works and railway infrastructure works) in the tendering and execution phase, where the activity associated with earthmoving is relevant in the study of construction project execution. To consider this activity as significant, within the set of different activities and work units of the project, 20% of the Material Execution Budget or higher has been considered. Secondly, a collection of data and previous studies on the methodologies and standards for calculating carbon footprints in large linear works has been carried out.

To finalize this phase, a study and definition of the technical specifications that should be considered by the tool has been carried out, and an analysis of the algorithms needed in the design of optimization software for the modeling of material transport routes and stockpiles on site.

Phase 2 is currently being implemented, whose main objective is the modeling and adaptation of optimization algorithms and cartographic vision of the software tool on different use cases in linear works for the generation of optimal solutions through an incremental development of the algorithm and calculation of the footprint.

Preliminary development of the OPTIM-HC web application with map viewers.