Cutting construction waste by prefabrication
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Author(s)
Tam, Vivian
Tam, C.
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2007
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Open building manufacturing aims to provide a high degree of design flexibility and at low cost. It is commonly combined with high efficient industrial production. Use of prefabrication to reduce waste generation and to lower the cost is one of the best methods in open building and manufacturing. As construction waste has become the major source of solid waste in Hong Kong, thousands of tons of solid waste are produced every year from construction and demolition activities. Increasing generation of this waste has caused significant impacts on the environment and aroused public concerns. Therefore, the minimization of ...
View more >Open building manufacturing aims to provide a high degree of design flexibility and at low cost. It is commonly combined with high efficient industrial production. Use of prefabrication to reduce waste generation and to lower the cost is one of the best methods in open building and manufacturing. As construction waste has become the major source of solid waste in Hong Kong, thousands of tons of solid waste are produced every year from construction and demolition activities. Increasing generation of this waste has caused significant impacts on the environment and aroused public concerns. Therefore, the minimization of construction waste has become a pressing issue. This chapter aims to: i) reveal the status of construction waste; ii) investigate the effectiveness of prefabrication in terms of waste reduction in replacing the traditional on-site production; iii) examine the factors that help minimizing construction waste by the adoption of prefabrication; and iv) explore the situations of waste reduction after adoption of prefabrication in comparing with on-site production. From the findings of a structured survey, waste from “poor workmanship” can be greatly reduced by adopting prefabrication in construction. Furthermore, after the adoption of prefabrication, waste generation can be greatly reduced in various on-site production activities including plastering, timber formwork, concreting and reinforcement. Especially in plastering, the waste reduction can be achieved with 100% efficiency. Case studies are also used to demonstrate the effectiveness in the use of prefabrication to minimize construction in Hong Kong. It can be concluded that using prefabrication of building components is one of the effective technologies of waste minimization.
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View more >Open building manufacturing aims to provide a high degree of design flexibility and at low cost. It is commonly combined with high efficient industrial production. Use of prefabrication to reduce waste generation and to lower the cost is one of the best methods in open building and manufacturing. As construction waste has become the major source of solid waste in Hong Kong, thousands of tons of solid waste are produced every year from construction and demolition activities. Increasing generation of this waste has caused significant impacts on the environment and aroused public concerns. Therefore, the minimization of construction waste has become a pressing issue. This chapter aims to: i) reveal the status of construction waste; ii) investigate the effectiveness of prefabrication in terms of waste reduction in replacing the traditional on-site production; iii) examine the factors that help minimizing construction waste by the adoption of prefabrication; and iv) explore the situations of waste reduction after adoption of prefabrication in comparing with on-site production. From the findings of a structured survey, waste from “poor workmanship” can be greatly reduced by adopting prefabrication in construction. Furthermore, after the adoption of prefabrication, waste generation can be greatly reduced in various on-site production activities including plastering, timber formwork, concreting and reinforcement. Especially in plastering, the waste reduction can be achieved with 100% efficiency. Case studies are also used to demonstrate the effectiveness in the use of prefabrication to minimize construction in Hong Kong. It can be concluded that using prefabrication of building components is one of the effective technologies of waste minimization.
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Book Title
Open Building Manufacturing: Core Concepts and Industrial Requirements
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Copyright © 2007 ManuBuild. Some rights reserved. This book is released under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivativeWorks license. Under this license, you are free to copy, distribute, and perform the work presented in this book under the following conditions: you must give the original author(s) credit for the work; you may not use it for commercial purposes; you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. For other permissions, you should contact the author(s) of the chapter(s) in question.