The main priority of all applied research in the Department is to inject relevance and realism into the teaching and development of its various programmes while addressing relevant issues which will enable improvements to be realised in the construction industry, projects and products. The Department is established as a key participant in the international academic disciplines of building and construction. Current issues of interest to the Singapore construction industry form the basis of many of the research projects undertaken by staff members. The University encourages and funds research by academic staff. Much of the research undertaken in the Department is directly sponsored by the University. However, the Department has managed, in the last few years, to attract substantial research funding from external collaborators. The following is a list of research projects that have been completed. For details of each project, click on the title of the project. You'll need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the documents. Scroll to the bottom of the page to download the Acrobat Reader.

 

  Productivity and Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ)
Office work is one of the greatest contributors to the new economy, thus, it is important to understand the impact of indoor environmental quality on office productivity. This research examines the effects of two main indoor environmental determinants, i.e. the room air temperature and the fresh air provision, on workers’ perception, health-related matters and performance within the tropical region.

 

  Project Management Practices adopted by international consultants and contractors when handling construction projects in China
The objectives of this study are to: (1) determine the international project management practices of foreign firms when handling construction projects in China , (2) recommend good project management practices, strategies and competencies that foreign firms should adopt at the project level when managing construction projects in China , and (3) propose models to predict the likely success level of projects in China and validate these models.

 

 Productivity of the Construction Industry
The aim of this research study is to formulate a suitable method for estimating the productivity of the construction industry in Singapore. The vision is to help to create a construction industry which is aware of the importance of productivity, and is taking strategic action to enhance its productivity performance. The study applied the following methodology to achieve the stated objectives: a review of the literature on construction productivity, its determinant factors and the methods for its estimation; comparison, of construction productivity for Singapore with those of industrialised countries; analysis of existing methods for measuring industry-level productivity in Singapore; analysis of data on construction projects in Singapore to establish benchmarks; and development, testing and fine-tuning of a suitable model.

 

 Natural Ventilation of HDB Hawker Centres and Its Impact on Thermal Comfort
This research project investigates the impact of different architectural layouts, landscaping, etc on the natural ventilation performance of the hawker centres in Singapore. The studies cover the examinations of thermal comfort in upgraded and non-upgraded hawker centres through field measurements and surveys. The impact of some key architectural layouts on natural ventilation is explored through a series of scaled model wind tunnel testing. The potential of using mechanically assisted ventilation to enhance thermal comfort in hawker centres is studied through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations.

 

 Knowledge-based Decision Support System for Management of Variation Orders for PRIME Buildings in Singapore
The study described an extensive investigation into the development of a knowledge-based decision support system (KBDSS) for the effective management of variations in school building projects in Singapore. The objectives of the research were to investigate the root causes, effects and controls for variations and to develop a KBDSS for management of variation orders for school building projects in Singapore.

 

  Maintainability of Buildings
The research seeks to create an awareness of the current obstacles to good maintainability under tropical conditions. This would be achieved by a compilation of a defect library with information about types of defects and their causes, maintenance and diagnostic methods, good practices and guidelines which can be applied during the design and the construction stage to control repetitive problems.

 

 Evaluation of the Displacement Ventilation System in the Tropics
This project, co-funded by Building Construction Authority (Singapore) and Oy Halton Group of Finland, sought to evaluate the performance of Displacement Ventilation (DV) system in the tropics. The performance is evaluated based on the thermal comfort, indoor air quality and energy consumption of the ACMV system. It also aimed to assess the level of acceptance of local subjects in offices served by the DV system. One of its objectives was to compare the performance and level of acceptance of local subjects between DV and conventional Total Volume (TV) ventilation systems and develop design guidelines for DV system in the tropics.

 

  A Study of Urban Heat Island in Singapore
This research focused on the study of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in Singapore. Through a series of studies, some general guidelines related to mitigating the UHI effect in Singapore are generated.

 

 

 Model-based Dynamic Resource Management for Construction
Construction progress is constrained by either work availability or resource availability. Work availability at a certain progress is governed by the work dependency within the same activity or between activities. Since work dependencies are determined by the nature of work, they are normally beyond the project manager’s control. In contrast, resource availability is more likely determined by resource plans and managerial decisions, which can be made independent of the construction system. This fact suggests that construction management is nothing but resource management. Despite their different views and approaches, the previous researchers of this topic commonly focused on minimizing resource idling and waste. Therefore, systematically managing this tradeoff at either the planning or control stages is critical to ensuring project delivery on time and within budget. In addition, to provide practically useful guidelines and tools, the dynamic construction process needs to be realistically represented. In this research, a model-based dynamic approach is proposed for construction resource management.

 

 Life-cycle Costing (LCC) for Façade Maintenance
This research project aimed to develop a quantitative model for effective evaluation, monitoring and management of the costs incurred for efficient maintenance of facades on external wall surfaces and provide guidance on selection of types of plaster and paint for external wall surfaces. The research resulted in the successful development of the Defect Index Models and LCC Model. To facilitate the implementation of these models, the user-friendly electronic version of Defect Index Models and LCC Model software and a good maintenance practices for plastered and painted facades manual have also been developed. The LCC Model and its accompanying set of defect index models can be used to assist town councils to prepare the budgets for maintenance and repair work. It can also help the town councils to select a better value for money paintwork system for the façade of public housing sectors.

 

 Thermal Performance of Facade Materials and Design and the Impacts on Indoor and Outdoor Environments
This research project investigated the thermal performance of the facade and the impacts of facade material and design on the indoor and outdoor environments in naturally ventilated buildings in Singapore. The studies covered the examinations of the thermal performance of facade and indoor thermal environments in the existing naturally ventilated buildings through a series of field measurements.

 

 Integration of CAD and Thermal Simulation through Industry Foundation Class (IFC) Product Model
This research project has successfully implemented the mapping between IFC compliant building object model and EnergyPlus thermal and energy simulation model to establish a seamless link between the information model acquired within the novaCITYNETS ePlanCheck framework and the EnergyPlus information model for detailed thermal simulation and analysis.

 

 IT Barometer Survey of Singapore and the Nordic Countries: A Comparative Study of IT Adoption in the Construction Industry
The aim of the study is to allow Singapore to make a timely assessment of the effectiveness of its national IT programmes. Existing policies may need to be fine-tuned to increase the rate and level of IT usage over the next 3 to 5 years. As the means to achieving this end, the IT Barometer Survey was applied to Singapore and the results compared with those obtained from countries in the Nordic region.

 

 The Impact of Safety Management Systems on Construction Safety Levels
The objective of this research project was to devise a method to evaluate the effectiveness of Safety Management Systems. This is achieved by developing and testing a Construction Safety Index.

 

 Project Manager's Behaviour and Their Impact on Project Performance and Innovation
Previous research on construction innovation has commonly recognised the importance of organisational climate and key individuals’ role. However, they rarely focus on the role of project participants at the project level. Moreover, little is known about the championing role of Project Managers (PMs), and the degree of influence it has on innovation and project performance. The general aim of this research is to identify the PM’s role in the construction project to enhance project performance and enable increased level of innovation on site.

 

 Singapore Government's Policy to Diffuse Prefabrication to the Private Sector
The Singapore construction industry has recently undergone low productivity and negative growth. Facing this problem, continuous governmental efforts have been made by introducing new policies to enhance construction performance. Prefabrication has emerged as one of the solutions to the industry problems. However the attempts in diffuse prefabrication were unsuccessful in the private sectors. This research aimed to find an effective way of implementation of the Singapore government’s policy to diffuse prefabrication to the private sector.

 

Developing an Energy Efficient Air-conditioning System for Improved Indoor Air Quality
The objective of this research is to develop an air-conditioning system with superior indoor environmental performance that is achieved in an energy-efficient manner.

 

 

 

  Evaluation of Energy Efficient Personalised Air Units for Enhanced Ventilation in the Tropics
The research team, comprising staff from NUS and the Technical University of Denmark, set out to evaluate the acceptability of the PV system in conjunction with a conventional ceiling supply air-conditioning system and the energy efficiency potential of such a combined system.

 

 

 Developing World Class Firms with Strong Export Capability
This research looked at the two main issues of export strategies for architectural, engineering and construction firms, and the safety of tall buildings in the light of the September 11 incident in the United States.

 

 Implementing Innovation in Construction Projects
This research project investigated the enabling and inhibiting factors of innovation in Singapore's construction industry. The objectives were to examine how innovation can be successfully implemented in the construction project organisation, identify the main factors that reduce fragmentation and misalignment of motivation of the project team members, identify the different tools and mechanisms that can integrate effectively the construction project effectively, and identify the key factors that would influence innovation success.

 

  Evaluation of the Performance of Fire Doors - An Integrated Approach
The objectives of this study were to validate the proposed limitations and variations in the door prototypical plan via the developed char rates specific for finite timber door structures and examine the bench-scale fire burning characteristics to validate the correlation of fire resistance performance.

 

 

 

 Mapping of Industry Building Product Model for Detailed Thermal Simulation and Analysis
The aim of this research was to create a bridge between the IFC compliant CAD model and the Shared Object Model of the SEMPER II. A dedicated model mapping engine, based on the Java and XML technology, has been developed to accomplish the task of translating external CAD-generated model data into the SEMPER II model for performing thermal and energy simulation.

 

  SEMPER II: Digital Building Models for Intranet Collaborative Design Computing
This research is a collaborative effort with Temasek Polytechnic and Carnegie Mellon University (USA) on an advanced building performance modelling across multiple domains to support building design and engineering decision making. The project has successfully modified and transformed SEMPER prototype 1 into SEMPER prototype 2 as an Internet-based computational design support environment in order to facilitate geographically distributed design collaboration.

 

  Evaluating the Performance of a New Polyurethane Sealant for External Joints under Tropical Conditions
The objectives of this study were to test for the effectiveness of an on-site horizontal weathering rack as a tool to test the performance of sealants under real site conditions, and the performance of a self-developed sealant under simulated on-site conditions of the horizontal weathering rack.

 

 Influence of Foreign Contractors on the Development of Singapore Construction Companies
The objectives of this research were to trace the evolutionary development of the construction industry in Singapore since 1960 and determine the contributory factors to the growth and improvement of the construction industry and construction firms in Singapore, and assess the role of foreign companies. Additionally, it aimed to propose national and corporate level policies and initiatives for deriving the greatest benefit from the operations of foreign contractors in Singapore and contribute to knowledge in relevant areas from the findings and conclusions.

 

 The Effectiveness of BCA's Construction Quality Assessment System (CONQUAS) in Reducing Building Defects
This joint BCA-NUS research project is a follow-up to an earlier NUS-CIDB joint research project on the "Impact and effectiveness of CIDB-PSB ISO 9000 Quality Management Systems in the Singapore Construction Industry". This project aimed to establish if there is a relationship between high CONQUAS scores and low building defects for projects completed over the last ten years.

 

  Developing a Durable Polyurethane Sealant that can Withstand Tropical Conditions
This research is targeted at developing a polyurethane construction sealant that can withstand the harsh conditions of the tropical climate.

 

 

 

   Study of Daylight Attenuation through Windows in Urban Environments
This project successfully developed the sky luminance and total horizontal illuminance models for Singapore, a country with a warm and humid climate, typical of the tropical regions on earth.

 

 

  Building a World Class Construction Industry: Motivators and Enablers
This study builds on the work of the Construction 21 Steering Committee and working groups, and the conclusions of the C21 report. It addresses the question of how Singapore's construction industry can change and improve itself.