Knowledge graph exploitation to enhance the usability of risk assessment in construction safety planning

Abstract

Construction projects and their dynamic and yet hazardous work environments face significant challenges. Despite advancements, many proposed solutions for information extraction and utilization remain impractical due to complexity and lack of interoperability. Information is often siloed in proprietary formats, making it difficult to integrate. This issue is evident in the construction safety domain, where advanced risk analysis tools provide detailed insights to hazards but can be overwhelming. Similar challenges exist in cost estimation, schedule evaluation, progress monitoring, and quality compliance checking. Decision-making in construction scheduling struggles to assess how changes impact site safety due to insufficient information and knowledge extraction capabilities, especially when it comes to cross-domain knowledge extraction. This study aims to make safety information accessible to safety and planning professionals. By leveraging Digital Twins, automated safety analysis, and knowledge representation, we enable decision-makers to gain deeper insights into their domain and understand the interplay between project planning and safety. We propose a framework for knowledge extraction, an ontology for capturing knowledge, and query building blocks to transform natural language questions into actionable queries. These methods are tested in a case study, revealing valuable insights into the cross-domain impact of decisions.