For design for safety (DFS), automated compliance checking methods have received extensive attention. Although many research efforts have indicated the potential of BIM and ontology for automated compliance checking, an efficient methodology is still required for the interoperability and semantic representation of data from different sources. Therefore, a natural language processing (NLP)-based semantic framework is proposed in this paper, which implements rules-based automated compliance checking for building information modeling (BIM) at the design stage. Semantic-rich information can be extracted from safety regulations by NLP methods, which were analyzed to generate conceptual classes and individuals of ontology and provide a corpus basis for rule classification. The data on BIM was extracted from Revit to a spreadsheet using the Dynamo tool and then mapped to the ontology using the Cellfie tool. The interoperability of different source data was well improved through the isomorphism of information in the framework of semantic integration, causing data processed by the semantic web rule language to be transformed from safety regulations to achieve the purpose that automated compliance checking is implemented in the design documents. The practicability and scientific feasibility of the proposed framework was verified through a 95.21% recall and a 90.63% precision in compliance checking of a case study in China. Compared with traditional compliance checking methods, the proposed framework had high efficiency, response speed, data interoperability, and interaction.

This study employs situated learning theory to elucidate the mechanisms of interorganizational collaboration by analyzing the relationships among absorptive capacity, institutional compensation, task cognitive integration and interorganizational collaboration in BIM-enabled construction projects. An online questionnaire survey was conducted with managers and professionals involved in building information modeling (BIM-) enabled construction projects, and 220 valid responses were received. Data were analyzed by means of the linear regression models and bootstrap method. The results show that (1) absorptive capacity, institutional compensation and task cognitive integration have a positive impact on interorganizational collaboration; (2) institutional compensation partially mediates the effect of absorptive capacity on interorganizational collaboration; (3) task cognitive integration fully mediates the effect of absorptive capacity on interorganizational collaboration; (4) institutional compensation and task cognitive integration serially and fully mediate the relationship between absorptive capacity and interorganizational collaboration and (5) the serial mediating model has a greater indirect effect than the other two models considered in this study. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by demonstrating the way to break through the three types of organizational boundaries (i.e. syntactic, semantic and pragmatic organizational boundaries) and provide an internal collaborative mechanism from the perspective of situated learning theory. This study presents the critical effects of absorptive capacity, institutional compensation and task cognitive integration on interorganizational collaboration, selects the enhanced mediating model for explaining the effects of absorptive capacity on interorganizational collaboration and enables managers to update the traditional collaborative model in BIM-enabled construction projects.

Safety issues have always been of great concern to the metro construction industry. Numerous studies have shown that safety issues are closely related to the design phase. Many safety problems can be solved or improved by developing the design. This study proposes a structured identification method for safety risks based on the metro design specifications, journal literature, and expert experience. A safety knowledge base (KB) for the design was established to realize safety knowledge sharing and reusing. The KB has been developed into Building Information Modeling (BIM) software as an inspection plug-in to achieve automated analysis and retrieval of safety risks. The designers are provided with a visualization of risk components to locate and improve the pre-control measures of the design. Subsequently, the process of design for safety (DFS) database creation was demonstrated with a metro station project, and the feasibility of applying the KB to safety checking in BIM was verified. In response to the inspection results, safety risks in the construction phases can be eliminated or avoided by standardizing and improving the design.