Research Areas
The research areas of the institute comprise BIM, multimodel and knowledge-based management, concurrent engineering, virtual organisations, ontologies, information logistics, virtual enterprising, virtual labs, simulation systems, applied stochastics, grid/cloud computing, semantic web technology and mobile computing. The institute works on the application of distributed systems and multi-dimensional data management as well as on methods of artificial intelligence for dynamic process and product modelling. Software technology know-how encompasses advanced Internet solutions based on Java, XML, OWL, Web Service and Grid/Cloud technology.
Since its establishing in 1986 the institute has continuously accumulated experience in process and product modelling, and in particular in BIM, ontologies, interoperability, distributed service-oriented architectures and Web service development in construction IT. Related papers are published in specialised journals like ITcon, Advanced Engineering Informatics, Artificial Intelligence and Automation in Construction, as well as in conference proceedings including eChallenges, ICE, ICCCBE, CIB W78 and ECPPM.
The institute has been a leading developer of BIM - in particular STEP and IFC models and related intelligent management methods -, for more than 20 years. Through the projects COMBI and ToCEE we have participated in the development of the first pre-releases of IFC and are among the main developers of the Structural Analysis Domain Extension of the current IFC schema (ISO 16739), as well as the Information Delivery ManuaI, IDM (ISO 29481-1), and the emerging Information Container for Data Drop, ICDD (ISO/NP 21597) linked data approach. With the acquired knowledge in interoperability and ontology modelling, based on the projects MEFISTO, eeEmbedded and InteliGrid we are among the leading academic teams on the BIM arena. We use our experience in BIM in various practice-oriented domains such as structural engineering, bridge engineering, earthquake engineering and energy-efficient design. Our long-term experience in stochastic and hazard methods, especially in earthquake engineering, we are engaged in the development of various stochastic, vulnerability and risk models, and in the solution of various system identification tasks in the areas of bridge retrofitting, renovation of the old building stock and geotechnical engineering.