BIM-centred building diagnoses as a decision support tool for maintenance and repair

Abstract

Digitalization in the construction industry continues to advance and, together with the increasing dissemination and further development of hardware and software, is steadily opening up further opportunities for innovative ways of working. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is currently becoming the standard for new construction, but has not yet been optimized for use in existing buildings. Therefore, the Institute of Building Materials Research at RWTH Aachen University (ibac) is researching new methods and possibilities for BIM-based building preservation. In this paper, the vision of digitalized building preservation, the state of research so far and the planned further steps are presented. It highlights what information needs to be available in the BIM model for digitalized maintenance planning, and shows how this data can be implemented in a way that is machine-readable and suitable for automated evaluation. The goal is the digital availability and linking of all inspection results, so that various operations such as lifetime prognoses or calculation of concrete removal can be performed in the BIM model. The findings to date show that making BIM models usable beyond the planning and execution phase is an essential step for the digitalization of building maintenance and holds great potential for effective building diagnoses and efficient service life management.