Impact of weather conditions on in situ concrete wall operations using a simulation-based approach

The purpose of this research is to study the impact of temperature, precipitation, and wind speed on in situ concrete wall operations, and its combined resulting effect on project duration. The research presented is anchored in the learnings gained through a literature review on weather effects on construction operations, an analysis of weather data with high resolution, and two field studies of in situ concrete wall operations. These learnings are implemented in a discrete event simulation (DES) model for the analysis of weather impact on project duration. The simulation results show that (1) weather greatly impacts project duration and has to be accounted for when planning operations; (2) there are huge differences between weather seasons that could affect the timing of project start-up; and (3) the height of buildings and threshold values for different types of cranes have to be accounted for when planning lifting operations. The main contribution of this paper lies both in the methods, in which high-resolution weather data can be incorporated in DES models to analyze project duration, and in the actual results of the simulation runs, showing to what level weather variables have to be incorporated in the planning of concrete wall construction.