Residual Service Life Prediction
for Building Infrastructure
Principal Investigator:
Ashish Shah
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Outline:
How study emerged

Background & challenges
Residual service life prediction

What is?

Issues & needs
Potential
Proposed case-study

Flowchart
Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Background:
From study on review of asset management practices
of public building infrastructure, Australia wide and
international
Area needs improvement were identified through
interviews and meetings with academics, industry
professional and public works department personnel
Image from http://www.lsc.vsc.edu/
Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Typical Asset Life cycle:
Planning
Asset needs
Review options
Life cycle costing
Cost/benefit
Acquisition
Non Asset alternatives
Risk Management
Assets owned by Govt.
Assets leased from private sectors
Public/private partnership
Monitoring &
Performance management
Disposal
Retirement
Replacement
Renewal
Redeployment
Continuous monitoring
Qualitative & quantitative assessments
Operation &
Maintenance
Optimise performance
Maintenance program
Asset Valuation
Condition & usage
Compiled from:
•Asset Management Handbook(1996),© ANAO, Commonwealth of Australia
•Sustaining our assets (Dec, 2000), © Department of Treasury & Finance, Victoria
Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Current status of buildings:
American infrastructure report card(2003,2001) rated
“School Buildings” ‘d-’ which is below ‘poor’

Needs massive improvement
State and health of stock of significant amount of
Australian public buildings, not covered in Australian
Infrastructure Report card (2001)

No rating of public building infrastructure- possibly due to
lack of data
Large amount of ageing public buildings due to
significant growth in building construction


Opportunity to “re-life” compare to “new build”
Increased commitment to sustainability suggests re-life
Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Issues:
Challenges for “Re-life” compare to “new build”:
Usage of existing old buildings might have got changed
Optimising the resources in managing these assets
Respond effectively to possible asset failures Deal with aging of
assets and asset renewal issues
Substantial defects with varied repair requirements
Development of residual service life prediction methodology for
existing buildings
Support to take up the challenge:
CRC Construction Innovation, Queensland Department of Public
Works, QUT, RMIT (Engineering and Business) and others as
partners in a collaborative project
Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Residual service life (RSL):
Residual Service life of a building:
(ISO 15686)
“Period of time after installation during which a
building or its parts meets or exceeds the
performance requirements at a certain moment of
consideration.”
Building are complex facilities,
The complexity in building systems and components
is that, they have typical service life ranges, which
rarely coincide with one another, yet these systems
are expected to perform satisfactorily throughout the
anticipated service life of the facility.
Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Illustration:
Performance
A:
Typical
Performance
B:
B:
Prediction
on
Prediction on
performance
performance
based
range
based onon
range
of repair
of
repairoptions
options
(Extensive to to
(Extensive
Minor)
Minor)
C
Minimum acceptable
performance (say)
Years
X Years
Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Components of RSL prediction:
Present condition of asset
Performance of the asset overtime

Historical data
Various options
From minor repair to major refurbishment inclusive
DO NOTHING option

Pool of solutions with all possible options
Choice model/Genetic algorithm
Selecting near-optimum solution in conjunction with
single/multiple criteria of the organization
responsible for managing asset.

Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Current research work
Review of building condition
assessment/survey methodologies
Existing residual service life predictions
for other infrastructure assets

(eg Aerospace industry, bridges etc)
One or more bldgs as case study
Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Proposed case study
Identify a
building
Do condition audit
Analyze the
condition
with building
regulations
or else, give
ratings
Rating of
building, < =
> min
perfomance
requirement
Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Proposed case study
Generate pool of solutions considering no, or minor
to major repairs (Innovative materials and
methods). Also list possible functional uses and its
market valuation in future for each solution
Ongoing Structural Health Monitoring (if required)
Use genetic or fuzzy logic
or other algorithm to find
near optimum economic
solutions
Senior management to decide the best
solution serving their strategic views
Shah, June 04
Research Development Unit, RMIT Business
Potential
Auditing of Building Assets


Mandatory requirement as per Australian Accounting standard
As an efficient input in valuations of their assets (old existing
buildings)
Technical Due Diligence (as a 3rd party audit)


For potential buyer of existing old building
Best time to renovate/refurbish the old building
 Eg Melbourne Central Evolution
As an IT tool

For public and private sector for better decision making for
their aging infrastructure
Shah, June 04