Daily construction carbon emissions and costs assessment from an interaction perspective: Integration of BIM and agent-based modeling

Effective management of construction carbon emissions and costs are important for achieving sustainable construction. The construction carbon emissions and costs are influenced by many non-design factors including worker performance, on-site management capability, and local weather conditions. However, the combined influence of these factors has not been fully considered in existing studies. Moreover, previous research typically aggregate carbon and cost results occurred at different times into single and static values, ignoring their potential dynamic changes throughout the construction process. This study integrates Building Information Modeling (BIM) with Agent-based Modeling (ABM) to establish a novel assessment model for daily construction carbon emissions and costs. The BIM model is employed to collect project data, while the ABM model simulates the interactions between workers, managers, building materials, machine equipment, and weather conditions as well as their subsequent effects on construction carbon emissions and costs. The proposed model was applied to a steel building to verify its operability. A series of targeted optimization strategies were proposed, and their carbon reduction and cost-saving potentials were quantified and compared using the BIM-ABM model. This study integrates BIM and ABM to estimate construction carbon emissions and costs, demonstrating the feasibility and operability of the integration. The proposed model not only considers the specific characteristics of the evaluated project but also presents the dynamic changes of construction carbon and costs on a daily basis, thereby significantly enhancing the accuracy and temporal resolution of results. It lays an important foundation for future studies and can promote sustainable construction.