This pedagogical study presents building information modeling (BIM) education in the final semester construction management (CM) program. The case study conducted in Fuzhou University extends BIM education from a single BIM course in earlier undergraduate years to the senior year’s final semester project, which was designed to enable BIM utilization in multiple construction tasks (e.g., 3D site planning). This study consists of two major parts. The first part starts with the newly designed course of the final semester project of CM students. Students’ final semester project work is demonstrated depending on their selected deliverable type, which includes full BIM application group work, two partial BIM application types (i.e., construction planning/scheduling, and take-off estimate), and a research dissertation. The second part starts from the research hypothesis of whether the different deliverable type selected by students would affect their perceptions towards the final project and their professional career. Based on a follow-up questionnaire survey to the whole CM student sample aiming to test the hypotheses with statistical analyses (e.g., analysis of variance and the post-hoc analysis), it was indicated that all the four different deliverable types (i.e., subgroups) could lead to consistent perceptions of the final semester project towards their career development. However, subgroup differences were found. For example, students from the subgroup of full BIM application perceived that they had the highest level of hands-on skill enhancement throughout the project, possibly due to the fact that they linked BIM software tools to virtual reality (VR) hardware. Suggestions were provided to update the future BIM pedagogy in the final semester project, such as proper guide of CM students to opt their project deliverable type depending on their career interests, motivations in BIM utilization, and skill development needs. This current study provides insights in BIM education in terms that: 1) BIM education could be enhanced from a single course level to the senior year project in the CM program level; 2) different options offered in the final stage project within the CM curriculum might affect students’ perceptions towards BIM or their career development; and 3) the experience learned from this case study could be shared in the global community of construction education to update the curriculum incorporating information and communication technologies (e.g., BIM and VR). Future educational work in BIM could continue adopting existing educational theories (e.g., Bloom’s Taxonomy) by addressing the various levels of student learning, and viewing BIM in the bigger picture of digital construction.

Tie bars on through tied arch bridges are often in poor condition and may serve as an external cause of a tie-bar failure accident; nevertheless, bridge structural robustness contributes greatly in resisting progressive collapse, and poor robustness tends to be the essential internal cause of possible accident. To study the dynamic effect of tie-bar failure of a through tied arch bridge and to reveal the mechanism of how structural robustness reduces dynamic effects, a finite-element model of a typical rigid-frame through tied arch bridge is developed based on the most adverse tie-bar breaking time, a transient-unloading method with equivalent load is adopted to analyze the dynamic response of tie-bar failure, and the results under different working conditions are compared. Furthermore, parameter analysis of the arch-to-pier stiffness ratio is conducted for the dynamic-amplification effect. The results indicate that both the pier and the arch rib have significant dynamic-amplification effects with respect to tie-bar breakage, and the remaining tie bars are the most vulnerable elements of the bridge; thus, they should be considered the most important elements when conducting tie-bar failure analysis; the most adverse breaking time adopted in cable breakage analysis can be taken as $0.01T$ ; a greater arch-to-pier stiffness ratio is beneficial to reduce the dynamic response brought on by tie-bar breakage; therefore, a rigid-frame through tied arch bridge should be designed with a large pier thrust stiffness, while a simply supported tied arch bridge should not be used in future through arch bridges, and existing ones should be retrofitted as soon as possible.

For through tied-arch bridges, the corrosion and degradation of the cable’s load-bearing capacity are the main external causes of cable breakage and subsequent structural failure; nevertheless, the progressive collapse after cable breakage is primarily attributed to the weak structural robustness, which makes a huge potential risk of bridge operation and maintenance (O&M). Whereas, as the basis of O&M, current condition evaluation method has not yet taken into consideration the influence of different consequences of cable breakage, resulting in unscientific conclusions for O&M decisions frequently. In this study, a robustness-based condition evaluation framework for the overall structure of the through tied-arch bridge is presented, consisting of three stages: (1) structural robustness assessment associated with tie-bar and suspender failure respectively; (2) classification of evaluation process by the results of robustness assessment, within which the overall structure is either evaluated using the code method or evaluated directly as unqualified (Condition I and II), or the structural member weightings are adjusted according to the robustness weightings (Condition III); and (3) condition evaluation of entire bridge. The evaluation processes of three conditions are further presented in accordance with the tied-arch structure and suspended deck system. To establish the robustness weightings in Condition III, the safety redundancy indexes of through tied-arch structures as well as the suspended deck system are calculated separately, combined with robustness assessment result. Applying the proposed framework to evaluating the condition of a through tied-arch bridge with different structures, the analysis and comparison indicates that, due to the robustness of the through tied-arch structure and suspended deck system, the variation in the potential risk of accidents induced by cable failure is shown intuitively through the evaluation results, which better meets the needs of guiding bridge O&M decisions consequently.

Compared with those of other bridge types, the structural system of through tied-arch bridges is particularly susceptible to failure owing to the deterioration and fracturing of tie-bars as well as a lack of structural robustness, which are the main internal and external causes of progressive collapse accidents, respectively. In particular, low structural robustness strongly influences the severity of accidents induced by tie-bar breakage. To objectively reflect the possible failure mode induced by tie-bar failure and to provide improved structural robustness in through tied-arch bridges, within which the suspended deck system is relatively independent, a robustness assessment framework considering tie-bar failure is proposed in this study, by considering the design and maintenance essentials. First, the main analysis parameters for the extreme-event limit state considering tie-bar failure are put forward, including the critical tie-bar failure rate, partial factor for load effects, transverse reduction factor of multilane loading, dynamic magnification factor of material strength, and reduction factors of residual strength. Second, the quantitative assessment index of structural robustness I_T,rob is proposed based on the safety redundancy of the remaining structural members, and robustness assessment rules are put forward in accordance with the different calculation results of I_T,rob and horizontal displacement. A typical rigid-framed through tied-arch bridges is assessed using the proposed framework. The assessment results reveal that multiple fortifications against extreme events of tie-bar failure can be established by designing the tie-bars and the piers with sufficient safety features to form the first and final line of defense against the tie-bar breakage effect. Moreover, proper maintenance should be conducted to guarantee the structural robustness of bridges in use. The methodology is well suited for the design of new through tied-arch bridges and to access the robustness of existing bridges to ensure the safety of transportation services.

The construction industry is considered one of the most hazardous industries. The accidents associated with construction equipment are a leading cause of fatalities in the U.S., with one-quarter of all fatalities in the construction industry due to equipment-related incidents, including collisions, struck-by events, and rollovers. While close collaboration among multiple equipment and humans is common, conventional collision alert mechanisms for equipment usually rely on distance sensors with static thresholds, often resulting in too many false alarms, causing drivers’ ignorance. Considering the collaborative operation scenario, this research proposes and develops a dynamic-threshold alert system by recognizing hazardous events based on the types of nearby objects with their orientation or postures and their distances to the system carrier equipment based on image-based recognition and Sim2Real techniques. Two experiments were conducted, and the results show that the system successfully reduced a large number of false near-collision alarms for the collaboration scenarios. Although the accuracy of object recognition and image-based distance estimation is feasible for practical use, it is also easily degraded in the self-obstruction scenario or for equipment with large and movable parts due to incorrect recognition of the bounding boxes of the target objects.

To investigate the influence mechanism of hanger damage and arch-beam combined parameters on the failure behavior of tied-arch bridges, this study employs an advanced damage failure model within the LS-DYNA. A comprehensive simulation of the entire failure process was conducted, considering the coupled effects of hanger damage parameters and structural parameters of the arch-beam system, using a tied-arch bridge as the engineering case. The primary innovation of this study lies in overcoming the limitations of previous research, which has largely been confined to single hanger failure or static parameter analysis, by achieving, for the first time, dynamic tracking and quantitative identification of structural failure paths under the coupled influence of multiple parameters. The results demonstrate that both the severity and spatial distribution pattern of hanger damage significantly influence the structural failure mechanism. When damage is either uniformly distributed across the bridge or relatively concentrated—particularly when long hangers experience severe degradation—the structure becomes susceptible to cascading stress redistribution, substantially increasing the risk of global progressive collapse. This finding provides a theoretical foundation for developing risk-informed maintenance and repair strategies for hangers. It is therefore recommended that practical maintenance efforts prioritize monitoring the condition of long hangers and regions with concentrated damage. Furthermore, variations in arch-beam combined parameters are shown to have a significant effect on the structure’s collapse resistance. For the case bridge studied herein, the original design parameters achieve an optimal balance between anti-collapse performance and economic efficiency, underscoring the importance of rational parameter selection in enhancing system robustness. This work offers both theoretical insights and numerical tools for evaluating and optimizing the collapse-resistant performance of under-deck tied-arch bridges, contributing meaningful engineering value toward improving the safety and durability of similar structures.