Aug 2026· Cureus Journal of Engineering· Vol 3· 0 citations· 8 references
Abstract
Accurate fabrication documentation and material quantity estimation are critical for the successful execution of industrial steel building projects. Conventional quantity estimation methods based on two-dimensional drawings and manual calculations frequently underestimate secondary structural members, connection components, and fabrication accessories, resulting in discrepancies between design and actual construction requirements. This study evaluates an integrated digital engineering workflow for structural design, fabrication documentation, and quantity estimation of an industrial steel warehouse by integrating structural analysis with Tekla Structures-based detailing and fabrication modeling. A pre-engineered industrial warehouse measuring 23.4 m × 9.4 m with an eave height of 5.5 m was selected as the case study. Structural analysis and member design were performed using STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition under dead, live, wind, and seismic loading in accordance with IS 875 (Parts 1-3): 2015, IS 1893 (Part 1): 2016, and AISC 360-16 (Allowable Strength Design). The finalized structural members were subsequently developed into a detailed three-dimensional fabrication model using Tekla Structures 2024, incorporating primary and secondary framing members, bracing systems, connection assemblies, bolts, and other fabrication components. Fabrication drawings, erection drawings, assembly drawings, and material quantity reports were generated directly from the coordinated BIM model and compared with conventional manual quantity estimation. The integrated workflow produced a total estimated steel quantity of 12,960.92 kg, whereas conventional estimation yielded 11,930 kg. This represents an increase of 1,030.92 kg (8.64%) compared with conventional manual estimation due to the inclusion of secondary framing members, connection plates, foundation bolts, fasteners, cladding accessories, and other components that are commonly omitted or simplified in manual quantity take-offs. The integrated workflow also improved consistency between structural analysis, detailing, and fabrication documentation by reducing manual data transfer and minimizing coordination errors. These findings demonstrate that the integration of structural analysis with Tekla Structures-based detailing provides more comprehensive quantity estimation, enhances fabrication documentation, and improves coordination throughout the design-to-fabrication process. Although the investigation is based on a single industrial warehouse case study, the proposed workflow provides a practical and reproducible framework for improving documentation quality and material estimation in industrial steel construction projects.
The results indicate that the proposed MBSE-oriented digital thread improves design consistency, reduces manual data re-entry, and strengthens traceability from requirements to manufacturing and assembly.
Xiang Guo, Yongyi Yang, Wei Liu et al.· Metals· 0 citations
3D concrete printing (3DCP) is increasingly recognized as a promising technology for enhancing productivity, reducing material consumption, and advancing the digitalization of construction processes. While existing research has predominantly focused on material development, printing technologies, and laboratory-based performance testing, empirical evidence from real-world construction projects remains limited—particularly regarding the implementation of construction detailing. This study presents a comparative field study of extrusion-based 3D concrete printing projects in Germany using a single printer platform (COBOD BOD2) and a hybrid wall construction approach. The investigated system combines printed mortar-based stay-in-place formwork with conventionally reinforced concrete cores for load-bearing walls, while non-load-bearing exterior walls consist of printed mortar shells with insulation infill. The research combines field studies, project documentation, and semi-structured expert interviews with key stakeholders, including architects, printer manufacturers, and material suppliers. The analysis focuses on the execution of critical construction details, such as plinth connections, wall openings, and lintels, which represent key interfaces between additive manufacturing and conventional construction processes. The results show that, despite the potential of 3DCP to enable efficient fabrication of monolithic wall structures without conventional formwork, the realization of construction details still requires hybrid construction approaches that integrate automated printing with conventional techniques and manual interventions. Recurring challenges include dimensional tolerances, material flow behavior, and structural constraints, which necessitate temporary supports, post-processing, and adaptive design strategies during construction. By comparatively analyzing two realized construction projects and contextual observations from additional planning-stage projects, this study provides practice-oriented insights into current detailing approaches in 3D concrete printing and identifies recurring implementation challenges and hybrid solution strategies. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the integration of additive manufacturing into construction workflows and highlight key areas for future research, particularly in the standardization and automation of detailing processes.
3D printed concrete is an important emerging technology in intelligent construction because it connects digital design, automated execution, material control, and process monitoring within a continuous construction workflow. This paper reviews the role of 3D printed concrete in smart buildings and intelligent construction, focusing on its technical principles, workflow, application scenarios, advantages, limitations, and future development directions. The study first explains how digital modelling, slicing, path generation, automated extrusion, monitoring, and post-processing work together to transform design information into machine-executable construction actions. It then discusses typical applications, including printed housing, bridge components, prefabricated production, customised structures, and emergency construction. Compared with traditional concrete construction, 3D printed concrete can reduce formwork use, decrease labour dependence, improve material utilisation, and support complex or personalised structural forms. However, wider engineering applications are still constrained by material rheology, interlayer bonding, reinforcement integration, equipment cost, construction-site uncertainty, and incomplete standards. The paper concludes that 3D printed concrete should be understood not only as a faster construction method, but also as a key pathway toward digital, automated, and controllable intelligent construction.
Offsite construction improves quality control, accelerates project completion, and minimizes disruptions at the construction site compared with traditional onsite construction methods. Within this paradigm, steel fabrication plays an essential role by enabling structural elements to be produced under controlled conditions, thereby increasing precision and supporting a more efficient assembly process. Despite these advantages, inaccurate production time estimation in steel fabrication plants remains a persistent challenge, contributing to cost overruns, project delays, suboptimal resource allocation, and difficulties in short-term production planning. A primary driver of this inaccuracy is an interoperability gap: the detailed parametric data required for reliable time estimation is typically locked within unstructured design files, such as 2D shop drawing PDFs, making it inaccessible for automated prediction models. To bridge this gap, the present study proposes a structured, design-driven workflow that extracts and leverages latent information from shop drawings to estimate structural steel assembly times. The methodology operates in two sequential stages. First, an AI-assisted extraction framework parses unstructured PDF data into structured inputs, isolating key assembly variables including member sectional dimensions, weight, crane handling requirements, and the quantity of attached components. Second, these inputs are integrated into a rule-based computational model that calculates production time using historical productivity rates and logic-driven algorithms. By creating a direct pipeline between static design documentation and dynamic production planning, this approach establishes a practical foundation for early-stage estimation and look-ahead scheduling. A proof of concept using a representative shop drawing confirms the workflow's feasibility. The findings demonstrate that this method provides a scalable, consistent, and practically implementable framework for estimating production time, laying the groundwork for advanced scheduling and decision-support systems in steel fabrication.
This paper presents a comprehensive case study of an 11-storey residential building constructed in Taipei, Taiwan, using an aluminium formwork system. The research establishes a detailed taxonomy of common concrete surface defects, quantifying their frequency and mapping their occurrence to specific structural elements. It was found that while defects are more prevalent in initial stages, a distinct learning curve leads to their reduction over successive floors. Secondly, this study analyses labour productivity, revealing that the Taiwanese construction team achieved an assembly rate of 5-7 m2 per man-day, a figure that compares favourably with international benchmarks from India and Sri Lanka. Factors influencing this rate, including weather and geometric complexity, are examined. The primary contribution of this research is the development and validation of a novel labour estimation methodology. By leveraging Building Information Modelling (BIM), the study demonstrates that using a 'flat area' metric—the gross surface area ignoring openings—provides a more accurate prediction of labour requirements than conventional formwork contact area calculations. The findings confirm that despite higher initial investment and a steeper learning curve regarding defect control, aluminium formwork systems with BIM-automated drawings can reduce total construction costs by 31-53% compared to traditional timber methods.
Advanced design, engineering, and manufacturing tools linked through a common digital workflow are enabling a new approach to timber construction based on parametric, component-based systems that preserve data coherence across disciplines. This is especially important for bespoke timber structures, where fragmented exchange-file workflows often separate geometric design, structural verification, fabrication, and assembly. This paper presents a new structural system as a double-curved box-beam diagrid timber wall assembled through a robotically fabricated, self-locating wood-to-wood cross-lap grammar that can be mapped onto complex curved surfaces. Assembly intent is encoded directly into the parts through embedded positional constraints, enabling measurement-free erection and reducing tolerance stacking. A co-located computer-aided design, engineering, and manufacturing workflow is implemented to reduce drift between analyzed, fabricated, and assembled states. Validation through a 1:1 prototype includes 116 structural web elements, 624 cross-lap joints, and 200 non-structural flanges assembled in 4 hours using nominal zero-gap joints. Fabrication results show 78% average sheet utilization from 2.0 m × 4.0 m stock, with joint openings within ±0.5 to 1.0 mm of nominal. The study demonstrates a reproducible pathway for engineering-integrated design for manufacture and assembly of complex timber structures.
Aryan Rezaei Rad, A. Meyboom, Nicholas Hoban· Frontiers in Built Environme...· 0 citations