A Project Framework to Introduce Virtual Reality in Construction Health and Safety

Vito Getuli; Tommaso Giusti; Pietro Capone; Tommaso Sorbi; Alessandro Bruttini

doi:10.6092/issn.2036-1602/8830

Authors

Vito Getuli Università di Firenze

Adjunct Professor in Construction and Building Information Management (University of Florence) with expertise in Construction Virtual Prototyping, IT integrated Design for Construction Health and Safety. PhD with honors in BIM Expert Systems for construction scheduling (University of Braunschweig).
Tommaso Giusti Università di Firenze

International PhD degree in “Fire risk management for valuable contents in historical heritage buildings” (University of Florence and Braunschweig). Now Professor on contract of “Fire prevention in buildings” and “Working Places’ Design and Safety” at Engineering School of the University of Florence.
Pietro Capone Università di Firenze

Associate Professor in Construction Management at University of Florence. Head of 2nd Level Specializing Master in Design and Safety of Working Places. Considerable researches, experiences and publications in the areas of Constructability Assessment, Construction Site Simulation and Risk Management.
Tommaso Sorbi Università di Firenze

Building Engineer with MSc thesis focused on BIM-Based construction simulation. II Level Specializing Master in Health and Safety Management. Currently research fellow in the University of Florence working on the topic of BIM-based Construction Site Simulation, Optimization and Monitoring.
Alessandro Bruttini Università di Firenze

Building Engineer graduated with distinction from University of Florence with MSc thesis on BIM-based seismic evaluation process. Currently research collaborator in the fields of BIM and Virtual-Reality Programming for Construction Health and Safety at University of Florence.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2036-1602/8830

Keywords:

Health and Safety, Virtual Reality, BIM, Workers’ Training

Abstract

Building construction is considered a complex, dynamic and highly hazardous process which embraces many factors that are potentially dangerous to workers. Many studies proved that the improvement of preventive and proactive measures -dynamically included in the building design, planning and construction- could reduce site accidents as well as increase the site productivity.

In this context, process management models and information visualization techniques such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) seem to be devoted to strongly contribute to the advancement of the current safety management practices. For this reasons, the presented contribution starts with a short review of the adoption of BIM and BIM-related digital technologies for risk management together with VR application for Construction Health and Safety which aim to generate immersive environments from which workers can experience safe insights into the way the real construction site works.

The main objective of this contribution is to review existing proposals in this field of construction health and safety as related to ICT technologies, especially BIM and Virtual Reality, in order to propose, at the end, a project framework able to guide future researches and applications on the use of BIM-enabled Virtual Reality for Safety purposes for site design validation and related workers’ training.