A BIM-based Automated Framework for Formwork Planning on Construction Sites

Considering its significant impact on the cost and schedule of construction projects, formwork as one part of temporary facility categories in construction should be arranged precisely. Current practice in the formwork planning is often conducted manually and repetitively, causing low efficiency and time waste. This study proposes an automated framework to generate more accurate and detailed formwork plans by utilizing information from building information modeling (BIM) considering the adequate geometric and semantic information provided by the BIM model. The dimensions and quantities information of elements in a building can be extracted automatically. Then, a rule is prepared for calculating the required forms erected around elements based on the contact areas. Finally, an algorithm of integrating first fit decreasing (FFD) with coordinated bottom left (CBL) is applied to automatically generate the formwork plan. The BIM-based automated planning framework is demonstrated by an illustrative example. The results show that the proposed framework can generate the formwork plan accurately and automatically, and significantly improve the efficiency in the formwork plan and reuse.