A Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming Model for Minimising Construction Site Noise Levels through Site Layout Optimisation

Abstract

-Activities undertaken on a construction site are often accompanied with high levels of noise. Addressing the issue of noise pollution in construction is gaining significance with the growing awareness about the social and environmental components of sustainable construction and the increasing numbers of projects being undertaken in congested urban areas. The documented methods for reducing noise pollution in construction include controlling (1) the noise produced at the source; (2) noise levels reaching a receptor; (3) noise propagated along the transmission path. Methods addressing the latter points use the fact that attenuation of noise increases as the transmission path gets longer. Thus the efficiency of such methods can be improved considerably through optimising the arrangement of temporary facilities on construction sites, with respect to a receptor, making use of noise attenuation due to distancing noisy facilities away from noise-sensitive receivers. The building under construction can also be used as a barrier to the noise transmission path, where obstruction of particular facilities from a given receiver can help in producing lower levels of sound as measured at the receptor. The available literature on site layout planning is extensive but limited to only achieving traditional construction project objectives (travel and material handling cost, safety, etc.). This paper presents a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) model that optimises the location of temporary facilities on site in order to minimise the sound levels measured at a pre-defined receptor. The present model is expressed in three stages: (1) defining the noise objective function; (2) implementing model constraints; and (3) application of COUENNE to solve the MINLP for a case study.

Optimization algorithms for construction site layout planning: a systematic literature review

“…The CSLP is usually conducted as an optimization problem to determine the optimal layout of temporary facilities (e.g. residential areas, site offices, material storage and processing areas) (Easa and Hossain, 2008), appropriate space allocations for construction equipment (Hammad et al , 2014) and efficient plans for on-site paths (Sadeghpour and Andayesh, 2015), considering site constraints. The space for construction sites is increasingly restricted by rapid urbanization (Kumar and Cheng, 2015).…”

A Multi-Objective Mixed Integer Programming Model for Minimising Obtrusive Effects and Installation Costs of Night-time Lighting on Construction Sites

“…On a construction site, mathematical optimisation has been employed in previous studies to minimise noise pollution and transport costs [25]- [28], with no mentioning of light pollution as an objective. Optimisation studies accounting for light obtrusiveness are mostly related to road luminaires where observers are taken as vehicle drivers [29], with little or no attention directed at limiting light pollution at other types of light sensitive receivers.…”