The Belcam Project: A Summary Of Three Years Of Research In Service Life Prediction And Information Technology

Summary: The objectives of the Building Envelope Life Cycle Asset Management (BELCAM) Project were to develop techniques to predict the remaining service life of building envelope components and procedures to optimize their maintenance. Six enabling technologies were identified as critical to the tasks: service life prediction, life cycle economics, risk analysis, maintenance optimization, and information technologies. Roofing systems were chosen as the domain for the "proof of concept" of the techniques and procedures. Information technology was to be used extensively in the course of the project. During the three-year term of the project, data were collected on 2800 roof sections from a wide range of systems and climatic regions across Canada. Data in this paper are presented based on age, material type, geographic location and condition of the roofing sections. Markov Chain modeling was used to predict the change in conditions of representative samples; deterioration curves were generated to predict the change in condition, and remaining service life of specific components of the roofing system could be estimated from these data. The first objective was accomplished through these activities. The project then developed techniques to estimate the life cycle costs for different maintenance strategies and to estimate the risk of envelope failure. Multi-objective optimization was used to prioritize planned maintenance, based on maximizing condition, while minimizing risk of failure and cost of repairs; thereby attaining the second objective of the project. A prototype, graphical, decision-support tool, developed as a result of this research, is described. A main goal of the project was to utilize information technology to a heavy degree in data collection, analysis and display. However, slow developments in the field of standards for product models in the building envelope and asset management domains (i.e. Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data - STEP and International Alliance for Interoperability - IAI) prevented the development of frameworks for storing and sharing these data. There is a need for continued research in these areas. This research will continue for an additional three years in collaboration with four Canadian universities; in course of this research additional roofing data will be collected and industry foundation classes (IFC) will be investigated as models for data exchange.