A semantic-driven framework for facilitating reusability and interoperability of construction simulation modeling

This research describes a semantic-driven framework to facilitate reusability and interoperability of simulation and modeling of construction processes. An immense amount of knowledge of construction processes and simulation modeling is needed to develop construction simulation models. Knowledge intensity of construction simulation models makes the development process an effort and time consuming process. The research described in the thesis is motivated by the need to effectively reuse the captured and represented knowledge throughout the life cycle of simulation models. Our approach addresses these challenges through ontological modeling and linking construction simulation modeling concepts composed of (i) ontology of the construction process, (ii) ontology of simulation modeling constructs and elements and (iii) ontological representation of simulation models. In this research, semantic web approaches and techniques have been utilized in different aspects: structured documentation and modeling of construction processes through hierarchical concepts and relationships between them using semantic web languages such as XML, RDF, and OWL; mapping techniques for linking and knowledge extraction between modeling ontologies; and reasoning and inference for knowledge discovery. Stand-alone construction simulation models and a large-scale HLA-based distributed simulation model of industrial construction processes have been outlined in order to illustrate the approach.