A Semantic Data Model to Represent Building Material Data in AEC Collaborative Workflows

The specification of building material is required in multiple phases of engineering and construction projects towards holistic BIM implementations. Building material information plays a vital role in design decisions by enabling different simulation processes, such as energy, acoustic, lighting, etc. Utilization and sharing of building material information between stakeholders are some of the major influencing factors on the practical implementation of the BIM process. Different meta-data schemas (e.g. IFC) are usually available to represent and share material information amongst partners involved in a construction project. However, these schemas have their own constraints to enable efficient data sharing amongst stakeholders. This paper explains these constraints and proposes a methodological approach for the representation of material data using semantic web concepts aiming to support the sharing of BIM data and interoperability enhancements in collaboration workflows. As a result, the DICBM (https://w3id.org/digitalconstruction/BuildingMaterials) ontology was developed which improves the management of building material information in the BIM-based collaboration process.