The concept of digital twins is proposed as a new technology-led advancement to support the processes of the design, construction, and operation of built assets. Commonalities between the emerging definitions of digital twins describe them as digital or cyber environments that are bidirectionally-linked to their physical or real-life replica to enable simulation and data-centric decision making. Studies have started to investigate their role in the digitalization of asset delivery, including the management of built assets at different levels within the building and infrastructure sectors. However, questions persist regarding their actual applications and implementation challenges, including their integration with other digital technologies (i.e., building information modeling, virtual and augmented reality, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing). Within the built environment context, this study seeks to analyze the definitions and characteristics of a digital twin, its interactions with other digital technologies used in built asset delivery and operation, and its applications and challenges. To achieve this aim, the research utilizes a thorough literature review and semi-structured interviews with ten industry experts. The literature review explores the merits and the relevance of digital twins relative to existing digital technologies and highlights potential applications and challenges for their implementation. The data from the semi-structured interviews are classified into five themes: definitions and enablers of digital twins, applications and benefits, implementation challenges, existing practical applications, and future development. The findings provide a point of departure for future research aimed at clarifying the relationship between digital twins and other digital technologies and their key implementation challenges.

Effective safety management is a key aspect of managing construction projects. Current safety management practices are heavily document-oriented that rely on historical data to identify potential hazards at a construction job site. Such document-bound safety practices are prone to interpretative and communication errors in multilingual construction environments, such as in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Applications of Building Information Models (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) are claimed to improve hazards identification and communication in comparison to 2-D static drawings by simulating job-site conditions and safety implications and thus can interactively educate the job-site crew to enhance their understanding of the on-site conditions and safety requirements. This paper presents findings of a case study conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of 4-Dimensional (4-D) BIM and VR in simulating job-site safety instructions for a multilingual construction crew at a project in the UAE. 4-D BIM-enabled VR simulations, in lieu of the Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHAD) code of practice, were developed and tested through risk assessment and safety training exercises for the job-site crew. The results showed a significant improvement in the job-site crew’s ability to recognize a hazard, understand safety protocols, and incorporate proactive risk response in mitigating the hazards. This study concludes that 4-D BIM-enabled VR visualization can improve information flow and knowledge exchange in a multilingual environment where jobsite crew do not speak a common language and cannot understand written safety instructions, manuals, and documents in any common language due to linguistic diversity. The findings of this study are useful in communicating safety instructions, and safety training, in the UAE, as well as in international projects.

The construction industry is prone to major safety hazards owing to the complex and onsite nature of construction projects. Hence, construction researchers have been pursuing concepts, methods, and tools using advancing technologies to improve construction safety management. Subsequently, the rapid digitization of construction work practices is providing opportunities to improve construction safety. Research has revealed that construction safety management practices can benefit from the applications of virtual design construction technologies (VDC), such as building information modeling (BIM), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), geographic information systems (GIS), and gaming technology. This study comprehensively reviews 191 research articles, published between 2010 and 2019, focusing on providing an overview of the implementation and application of VDC technologies for improving construction safety. The objective of this review is to critically collect and analyze applications of VDC technologies and present a holistic view of the features and functions of VDC technologies that can impact jobsite safety improvement in the construction industry. The review showed that VDC technologies can substantially improve construction safety. Emerging digital technologies, such as BIM, VR, AR, GIS, and gaming technologies can transform the traditional document-oriented safety procedures into digitalized safety practices allowing safety managers to visualize and analysis construction sites virtually to devise proactive safety measures and effective safety trainings. This study also highlights challenges such as research gaps regarding these digital tools that are currently impeding their widespread use in construction safety.

The progress monitoring (PM) of construction projects is an essential aspect of project control that enables the stakeholders to make timely decisions to ensure successful project delivery, but ongoing practices are largely manual and document-centric. However, the integration of technologically advanced tools into construction practices has shown the potential to automate construction PM (CPM) using real-time data collection, analysis, and visualization for effective and timely decision making. In this study, we assess the level of automation achieved through various methods that enable automated computer vision (CV)-based CPM. A detailed literature review is presented, discussing the complete process of CV-based CPM based on the research conducted between 2011 and 2021. The CV-based CPM process comprises four sub-processes: data acquisition, information retrieval, progress estimation, and output visualization. Most techniques encompassing these sub-processes require human intervention to perform the desired tasks, and the inter-connectivity among them is absent. We conclude that CV-based CPM research is centric on resolving technical feasibility studies using image-based processing of site data, which are still experimental and lack connectivity to its applications for construction management. This review highlighted the most efficient techniques involved in the CV-based CPM and accentuated the need for the inter-connectivity between sub-processes for an effective alternative to traditional practices.

With the advancement of digital design practices in the global construction industry, different aspects related to the project lifecycle are extracting their benefits, including making improvements in safety. The objective of this paper is to ascertain the awareness of these technologies, their potential, and any barriers related to the use of different virtual design construction (VDC) tools, such as building information modeling, virtual reality, augmented reality, and geographic information systems, to improve job-site safety in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The paper presents an overview of the GCC construction industry and highlights current safety management practices and problems in the region. The potential of VDC tools for improving job-site safety is discussed and presented. The study has used a questionnaire survey to identify the drivers and barriers of using VDC tools in improving job-site safety management in the GCC region. The results indicated that “designing emergency and evacuation plans” and “fall-hazard prevention strategies” are the two best safety applications of these tools if used proactively. Similarly, “lack of knowledge about return on investment for VDC tools” was considered as the predominant barrier, preventing stakeholders from using these technologies to improve construction safety. These results will help the GCC construction industry to build a strategy for the digitalization of proactive constructability analysis techniques for improving job-site safety. Overall, due to the multilingual dynamics of this region, it is recommended that VDC tools should become more prevalent so that the transfer of safety information and hazard prevention becomes easier, mitigating safety risks.

The emergence of immersive technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) headsets, has revolutionized the way we experience the physical world by creating a virtual, interactive environment. In the field of education, this technology has immense potential to provide students with a safe and controlled environment in which to experience real-world scenarios that may be otherwise unfeasible or unsafe. However, limited research exists on the effectiveness of integrating immersive technologies into technical education delivery. This research investigated the potential use of immersive virtual reality (IVR) in university-level construction management courses, with a focus on integrating IVR technology into traditional education for construction project planning and control. The experiment involved comparing the students’ learning and understanding of the subject matter using a set of two-dimensional construction drawings and a critical path method (CPM)-based construction schedule, with and without the use of an immersive environment. The findings suggested that the use of immersive technology significantly improved the students’ ability to understand technical concepts and identify any errors in the construction sequence when compared to traditional teaching methods. This paper presents the details of the experiment and a comparative analysis of both approaches in terms of students’ learning and understanding of project planning, sequencing, and scheduling.