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School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Ph.D. Thesis Defense Announcement
A New Methodology for Interoperability of Heterogeneous Bridge Information Models
By
Aaron Costin
Advisor:
Dr. Kimberly E. Kurtis (CEE) and Dr. Charles Eastman (COA)
Committee Members:
Dr. Reginal Desroches ( CEE), Dr. Jason Stith ( Michael Baker Int. ), and Dr. Hanjin Hu ( Michael Baker Int.)
Date & Time: Monday, March 28,2016 , 12:00pm
Location: Sustainable Education Building, 122
With the passing of the MAP-21 (Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century) Act in 2012, the United States bridge industry has had a significant push for the use of innovative technologies to advance the highway transportation system. Bridge Information Modeling (BrIM) is becoming a new trend in the industry, in which various technologies and software are being used in all phases of the bridge lifecycle and have been shown to have a variety of benefits. However, most software are stand alone and do not efficiently exchange data among other software. This lack of interoperability creates impediments for the efficient and seamless transfer of information across the bridge lifecycle. Current building standards lack the ability to incorporate models of other domains, including roads and bridges, and therefore there is large need to expand interoperability standards across multi-disciplinary domains.
The purpose of this research is to develop a methodology that would enable the interoperability of multi- disciplinary information models. The scope of the methodology is for Bridge Information Models, but the approach is extendable to other domains. This research is motivated by the fundamental issues of interoperability, such as semantic, logic, and software issues. In this research, the fundamental issues of interoperability are investigated as well as an in depth review of literature proposing solutions. Additionally, current standards for interoperability of information models are reviewed.
Based on the findings of the literature review, this research develops, evaluates, and validates a novel methodology for interoperability of information models. The fundamental issues of interoperability are addressed by the use of a taxonomy and ontology. A new standardization process to capture domain knowledge, called in “Information Exchange Standard” is outlined along with a novel method of developing an ontology based on industry workflows. A software tool to automate the capturing of domain knowledge and development of a taxonomy is presented. A case study with a joint industry subcommittee of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the National Steel Bridge Alliance is used the evaluate and validate the methodology.
