Knowledge engineering approaches for building materials domain

Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Ownership and Operation (AECOO) industry collects Big Data during the entire lifecycle of a building or infrastructure. First phases in the lifecycle account for majority of static design data (i.e. architecture, constructive elements, equipment) while later phases contribute more dynamic data (construction site, operation). The industry efficiently utilizes common information engineering approaches for storing, updating and processing of the data. However, the traditional information management approaches (i.e. SQL databases and queries) are not efficient enough in the digital construction era where a growing amount of semantic content is available as Linked Open Data. The AECOO projects will have to upgrade traditional databases to knowledge bases. This will enable semantic reasoning about project data beyond the capacity of an expert (i.e. construction foreman) in situations where project documentation is incomplete. In the paper, an overview of existing research in knowledge engineering technologies appropriate for AECOO projects with focus on building materials domain is given. In the second part, usage of knowledge base for building materials is demonstrated with a use case from the heritage building domain.