Engineering Design

TITLE- AUTOMATION IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

REPORT ON: (a) List the Major Equipments Used In Construction Work 1) Conventional 2) Semi Automatic 3) Fully Automatic OR Robotics (b) Identify the automation at different stages of construction. WHAT DOES AUTOMATION MEAN?
► The term automation refers to the phenomenon where a job is performed without the help of any human interference.
► Automation means performing a particular task with the help of machines.
► Automation has always proved to be an effective idea for most of the industries and companies, which deal with production of capital and consumer goods. Any type of production is readily facilitated by automation.
AUTOMATION IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY:
► Basically automation in construction means to the use of Information Technologies in Design, Engineering, Construction Technologies, and Maintenance and Management of Constructed Facilities.
► It is to reduce the need for human work and to save the time in the construction area.
► Even maintenance and control of building structures are done with the help of automation industry.
► Level of automation in construction industry is totally based on the country’s economic structure, utilized technologies, building materials used etc.
Advantages of automation in construction industry:
► Automation helps in saving the labour of the workers and thus it also saves a lot of time for the worker who can be then directed to some other work process.
► The Automation is also a money efficient way for construction puposes.
► Performing tasks that are beyond human capabilities of size, weight, speed, endurance, etc.
► Automatic machines are skilled to give more unifom and accurate results.
► The key advantage of automation is to improve the productivity.

DISADVANTAGES OF AUTOMATION IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY:
► There is limited technology. Current technology is unable to automate all the desired tasks.
► Highly expensive. The automation of a new product or plant requires a huge initial investment in comparison with the unit cost of the product.
► A main disadvantage often associated with automation, worker displacement.

EQUIPMENTS USED FOR CONSTRUCTION PURPOSES, CAN BE OF THREE TYPES: 1.) Conventional. 2.) Semi-Automatic. 3.) Fully-Automatic or Robotics

CONVENTIONAL:
► These are the machines which are fully human operated.
►These are considerd as Human-powered as it uses human muscle power only.

► Modern technology has allowed machines to enhance human-power. This increases the load of heavy labour and because of that time period of completing the project increases including all these problems there is one major problem regarding safety.
► Using such a heavy labour can create a hazardous problem for labours.

SEMI-AUTOMATIC:
► Semi-Automatation is something, when some processes in construction of a building structure are done by people but other processes are still performed by machines.
► This increases productivity by allowing people to do the more complicated tasks not able to be performed by machines and vice versa.

► CRANES are semi automatic equipment used in construction. ▪ A crane is a lifting machine, generally equipped with a winder (also called a wire rope drum), wire ropes or chains and sheaves, that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to move them horizontally.
▪ It uses one or more simple machines to create mechanical advantage and thus move loads beyond the normal capability of a human.

FULLY AUTOMATIC OR ROBOTICS:
► Full automation refers to the complete usage of artificial intelligence.
► Full automation has been a major tool in the transformation of the automation industry from its primitive phase to the level where there has been a complete computerisation of the various construction purposes.
ROBOTICS:
► Robotics has been implicated into various fields such as automation construction machine handling, automatic flooring of tiles, laying of surfaces etc.
► In construction industry ROBOTS can be used for: ▪ Tiling.
▪ Flooring.
▪ Welding.
▪ For fire mortar spraying. Etc.

Plastering robot for spray plastering of concrete walls.

WELDING ROBOT: ► Robot welding is the use of mechanized programmable tools (robots), which completely automate a welding process by both performing the weld and handling the part.
► Processes such as gas metal arc welding, while often automated, are not necessarily equivalent to robot welding, since a human operator sometimes prepares the materials to be welded.
► Robot welding is commonly used for resistance spot welding and arc welding in high production applications, such as the automotive industry.

Welding robot
CONCRETE FLOOR SURFACE FINISHING ROBOTS:
► It automatically finishes concrete floor surfaces.
► It is equipped with two sets of rotary floats.
► A running function in this floor finishing robot, Surf Robo automatically finishes concrete floor surfaces.

Floor finishing robot
FLOOR CLEANING ROBOTS:
► The assembly of the small squares of tile had traditionally been done by hand.
► These robots were used to remove this manual element while retaining both quality and accuracy.

LASER TECHNOLOGY IN CONSTRUCTION:
By the use of laser technology we can perform following tasks:
► Grading and excavating measurement can be done.
► For determining the site’s area and percent gradient of slope
► Ensures safe work area, by instantly spot checking obstructions and overhangings. A laser is a device that emits light (electromagnetic radiation) through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. As laser shows some optical features which are further used in: ► measuring, scanning and positioning.

As laser is a high energy source, its very useful for the construction industry,like: ► Welding,Cutting and Hole-making:- * Steel frame fabricators uses plasma cutting almost dominantly and seldom use laser cutting. * Laser has an advantage in precision cutting, however, precision is not accorded a priority to cost among the steel frame fabricators. * Laser is applied to the cutting of large sized ceramic tiles and stone materials . Laser devices are also used for ► Leveling, plumbing and measuring:- * Laser devices commonly used in construction fields for leveling, plumbing, positioning and measuring * Devices called “Rotating laser” are widely used for leveling in construction * “Pipe laser” devices are used to determine the gradient, e.g., of piping. * Laser theodolite devices are widely used for measurement in construction fields

* Total Stations have integrated capabilities of measuring multiple points by unattended remote control, storing and processing the multiple point data and transferring the data to other stations such as PCs.
FIXING OF PANELS :
► On some assembly lines, robots are used to fix interior door panels to the exterior door sections by applying a thin bead of adhesive to the exterior section and then compressing the interior section onto the exterior panel.
► Operators load the door panels onto a track where they are then assembled by the robots.
Panel fixing

MATERIAL HANDELING ROBOTS:

AUTOMATION IN DIFFERENT STAGES OF CONSTRUCTION : 1.) Survey: This is the rough survey of site before any beginning of construction. In this stage, level of ground is check using laser techniques.

2.) Marking- Similarly in civil engineering many automatic devices are used in the construction area for eg. GPS and GIS.
GPS
3.) Cleaning- There are many automatic washing devices used for cleaning purpose. Used for cleaning the construction area.

4.) Leveling- Some laser devices like “rotating laser” is used for the leveling in constructions.
Rotating laser

5.) EXCAVATION-: At the time of excavation generally digging work is there. So one needs dumpers or excavators for the purpose of construction work. For eg. Excavators, bulldozers, dumpers.

6.) Foundation: for making the mixture of cement & concrete and filling that mixture in the frame work at the time of foundation one requires robots. For eg:- concrete mixture robot, vibrator

Mixing machine

7.) Tiling- For tiling, in building construction, many tiling robots are used to just make the work easier and less time consuming.

8.) Glass fixing- Glass fixing robots are used for fixing large glasses used in the construction of buildings.

9.) Painting- Painting robots are used for painting long columns.

Painting robot