Building Information Modeling (BIM) for Safety Risk Identification in Construction Projects

A significant number of fatal accidents and injuries are still reported in construction projects worldwide inducing consequent socioeconomic impacts. A crucial factor in construction safety is to properly identify possible hazards at any stage of the construction process. Existing research has not focused much on the automatic detection of risks associated with the inexistence or misplacement of protective safety equipment. This paper presents a method for detecting safety risks (to which workers may be exposed in a construction project) concerning the inappropriate placement or handling of protective equipment. In this approach, the construction site is dynamically modeled employing Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology. In particular, the project status is recorded at regular intervals using a camera. The data provided by the camera are transferred to BIM software and the site plan view is processed via a Matlab pattern recognition module to observe protective equipment misplacement or removal. The software compares the current image with the anticipated safety protection plan of the construction work and automatically detects the safety potential hazards areas along the work area. Within the extracting results, visual representation and labeling of the work areas that present unsafe conditions for the workers are developed and prompt alerts are forwarded to the project supervisor by e-mail specifying the location and type of hazard. The employment of the presented methodology could enable participants in the construction process to promptly identify and restore safety deficiencies, improving thus work safety and minimizing the number and/or the impact of accidents in construction sites. the scientific committee of the Creative Construction Conference 2019.