Journal of Advances in Engineering and Technology [JAET] Volume 02 Issue ii

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://rda.sliit.lk/handle/123456789/3693

Browse

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Open Access
A Case Study of Assessing the Accuracy of Secondary Consolidation Prediction Using Qualitative Approach
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Welikala, C.O.; Vidurapriya, K. V. D.; Thilakasiri, H. S.
Infrastructure constructed, especially over soft organic soil layers, can be subjected to excessive settlement within its life cycle due to the complex behaviour of the soft soil with time. However, with necessary actions prior to construction, the impacts from such soil layers can be mitigated to some extent. The case under consideration is a leisure resort in Matara, a 15-storey hotel resting on a raft foundation near the southern coastal line of Sri Lanka. With time, some cracks have formed within the building, and an investigation was done to identify the cause for the crack formation. It has been determined that cracks have appeared due to the excessive settlement of the subsurface. Furthermore, ground investigation results suggest that a peat layer is beneath the building within a depth of 15-24m. As per the survey report on the settlement of the building, secondary consolidation of the soft soil significantly impacts the excessive settlement. Therefore, three methods were used to predict the secondary consolidation settlement of the peat layer beneath the building. The methods are prediction using empirical correlations, laboratory experiment results that will follow the constant coefficient of secondary consolidation throughout time and the qualitative method, which assumes that the secondary consolidation coefficient varies with time. Based on the above techniques, predictions were made, and results suggest that the qualitative method has a significant accuracy compared to the actual settlements of the building. These observations provide some proof that the coefficient of secondary consolidation varies with time according to the qualitative approach and does not remain constant throughout the lifespan of the building as suggested by conventional methods.
Open Access
Conflict Handling Styles used by Design Team Leaders During Post Contract Stage of Building Construction Projects in Sri Lanka
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Nuwandhara, R.M.K.K.; De Silva, G.H.S.P.
In comparison to other industries, construction sector encompasses a distinct, complex, and a competitive environment. It enriches the community with improvements when individuals with diverse perspectives, abilities, and degrees of construction expertise collaborate with each other. In this highly competitive multiparty context, conflicts have been labeled as one of the key constraints that prevent the `success of construction projects. Conflict is a fact that everyone must deal with on a regular basis. Construction projects are therefore not an exception. It entails different types of conflicts. To handle these different types of conflicts, construction professionals use different conflict handling styles. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate design team leaders’ preference of conflict handling styles and its impact on team spirit of the members of the design team during the post contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka. To collect data, an e-based, closed-ended questionnaire was used incorporating the conflict handling styles introduced in Rahim's Dual Concern theory. The questionnaire was answered by 56 professionals who have the experience of working in the design team during the post contract stage. The study was limited to the building construction projects in Sri Lanka. To analyze the gathered data, descriptive statistics such as mean, percentage, count correlation co-efficient etc. were used. The study has revealed that during the post contract stage, the design team leaders use all five conflict handling styles of Rahim’s Dual concern theory: integrating style, obliging style, dominating style, avoiding style, and compromising style in different frequencies to handle conflicts among design team professionals. The design team professionals often use compromising style and rarely use integrating style, obliging style, dominating style, and avoiding style to handle conflicts among the design team professionals during the post contract stage respectively. Furthermore, the study indicates that these styles bring different levels of impact to the team spirit of design team professionals during the post contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka. The team spirit of design team members is shown to be strongly affected by the compromising style. In contrast, the other four conflict handling styles, integrating style, obligating style, dominating style, and avoiding style, were identified to moderately impact team spirit. Moreover, findings revealed that all these five conflicts handling styles show a strong relationship with the team spirit of design team members during the post-contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka. The research findings may assist construction industry design team leaders and other stakeholders to manage conflicts in a more efficient way and provide an insight to the way to handle conflicts to improve the team spirit of the design team during the post-contract stage of building construction projects in Sri Lanka.
Open Access
Machine Failure Prediction Using Multilabel Classification Methods
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Kumari, H.M.N.S.; Nawarathne, U.M.M.P.K.
Early detection of machine failure is crucial in every industrial setting as it may prevent unexpected process downtimes as well as system failures. However, machine learning (ML) models are increasingly being utilized to forecast system failures in industrial maintenance, and among them, multilabel classification techniques act as efficient methods. Therefore, this study analyzed machine failure data with five types of machine failures. Initially, a feature selection approach was also carried out in this study to determine the variables which directly cause machine failure. Furthermore, multilabel k-nearest neighbours (MLkNN), multilabel adaptive resonance associative map (MLARAM), and multilabel twin support vector machine classifier (MLTSVM) in adapted algorithms, Binary Relevance, ClassifierChain, and LabelPowerSet in problem transformation approaches, and Random Label Space Partitioning with Label Powerset (RakelD) in ensemble classifiers were employed. To train these models, both the original data set as well as data frame after the feature selection was used, and hamming loss, accuracy, macro, and micro averages were calculated for each of these classifiers. According to the results, MLkNN in adapted algorithms and LabelPowerset in problem transformation approaches performed better than other classifiers used in this study. Therefore, it can be concluded that MLkNN and LabelPowerset could be used to classify multilabel with positive results.
Open Access
Smart Health Monitoring System
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Gajanayake, G. M. T. S.; Ekanayake, W. E. M. K. D. D; Malinda, G. D. C.; Malasinghe, L; De Silva, S
Due to the high inpatient population in hospitals, regular monitoring of inpatients' vital signs is currently a practical concern. As a solution, our proposed system manages the continuous analysis of the vital signs of every inpatient in the general wards, and informs medical professionals in any location at any time about their inpatients' current states in real-time to improve inpatients' health. The suggested system consists of the following arrangements; arrangement for acquiring health readings, identifying the on-duty reported doctors in charge of wards, arrangement for health data exhibiting unit, fall detection, and ECG acquisition. In addition to these arrangements, a website, and an android mobile application were designed to publish measured inpatient vital signs. This proposed product is both novel and different from the existent products because, it comprises of collective arrangements, and is developed in order to assess hospital wards’ inpatients, whereas other systems are designed for remote health monitoring of patients at home. This paper describes the system that was developed and tested successfully.
Open Access
Measuring Burnout: A Validation Study of The Oldenburg Burnout Inventory for The Sri-Lankan IT Sector
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) de Silva, U; Kumar, S
Burnout is a psychological syndrome emerging as a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job. WHO defines burnout as an “occupational phenomenon” and is included in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Research reveals the existence of this burnout phenomenon across a range of occupations, such as healthcare professionals, teachers, athletes, pilots, IT professionals etc. A study conducted by Yerbo, a mental wellbeing platform revealed that 2 in 5 of the workers in the IT industry show a high risk of burnout. At present, there are few tools available to measure burnout. After the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) is considered the most widely used measure of burnout and is also freely available. The current study is aimed at determining the measurement validity of the OLBI in the local context based on IT professionals. To determine the content validity of the OLBI, an expert panel was employed. In order to examine the construct validity and concurrent criterion validity, a questionnaire-based study was conducted among 161 (n = 161) randomly chosen IT professionals. MBI and DASS-21 were used to explore the convergent and divergent validity of the OLBI. Four items were deemed not essential to measure burnout based on content validation. The MTMM analysis revealed adequate evidence of the existence of both convergent and divergent validity of the OLBI. The current study was able to provide evidence of content, concurrent criterion and construct related validity of the OLBI in the Sri Lankan context based on IT professionals. These findings suggest that OLBI can be used as a reasonable tool to measure burnout among IT professionals in Sri Lanka. Availability of such a tool will undoubtedly help organizations in ensuring their workforce is healthy and productive.
Open Access
Whole Life Costing Awareness and Implementation Challenges in the Sri Lankan Construction Industry
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Jayasinghe, D.I.C; Abeynayake, D.N
Construction industry is highly demanding, especially with regard to the project cost as a significant aspect. However, more informed cost advice can be produced considering the project’s life cycle that begins with the conception and ends with its disposal instead of using a conventional initial capital cost basis. Thus, Whole Life Costing (WLC) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) concepts are essential. Though many LCC research studies exist, WLC studies are minimal in the Sri Lankan construction industry context. Therefore, this study aims to explore WLC awareness and implementation challenges in the Sri Lankan construction industry. A literature review was conducted to search for the concepts. Empirical data were gathered using questionnaires by implementing a quantitative survey strategy. Findings depict that the awareness of WLC in the Sri Lankan construction industry is poor, preventing its benefits. Moreover, this research identified difficulty in identifying includes and excludes for calculating WLC, lack of details at early stages, lack of awareness of WLC benefits, lack of understanding of WLC tools, lack of reliable data and lack of expertise/knowledge on WLC as the primary challenges in implementing WLC in the Sri Lankan construction industry. Therefore, these challenges must be mitigated for the beneficial WLC implementation in the Sri Lankan construction industry while enhancing awareness and knowledge of the WLC concept among professionals, especially quantity surveyors, to facilitate responsible initiation of WLC practices in the Sri Lankan construction industry.
Open Access
Characteristics of Travel Mode Choice of Families with Children Below Five Years Old
(SLIIT, Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Zain, A; Amarasingha, N
Travel mode choices for children under five years old have not been fully explored in past research studies The main objectives of this study were to identify travel characteristics of children aged below five years, travel mode choices for them, and investigate the factors affecting their selection. A survey using a questionnaire was conducted with parents in the Western Province of Sri Lanka to collect data. It revealed that private cars as the most frequent vehicle choice followed by public buses. The Multinomial Logistic Regression analysis identified the age of the child, distance, income, type of vehicle owned, and walking time to the nearest public transport station as the main factors that affect the travel mode choice of children under five years old. Also, the habit of securing the child and the child’s familiarity with the use of a car seat when traveling in a private car were identified as factors that affect travel safety. The recommendations were provided to policy makers, parents, and the public in order for children to make safer, comfortable, economical, and sustainable trips.
Open Access
Impact of Industry 4.0 Technologies on Sustainable Manufacturing
(SLIIT Faculty of Engineering, 2024-03) Ramalingam, A; Perera, C
Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and its associated technologies are increasingly becoming a key aspect of the manufacturing industry in an age where sustainable manufacturing has become a fundamental consideration. Despite Industry 4.0 technologies such as robotics, autonomous systems and Internet of Things (IoT) considered dominant enablers of sustainable manufacturing, the precise impact of these technologies on sustainability remains relatively unexplored as the research in this context remains limited. Therefore, the need for meticulous study and the development of a framework for the assessment of I4.0 technologies’ impact towards enhancement of sustainable manufacturing is evident. The report contains an extensive literature review on several I4.0 technologies, the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) aspects of sustainability and how the respective I4.0 technologies impact the factors contributing to the TBL aspects of sustainability. Through a combination of theoretically available information and practical case studies in the Sri Lankan manufacturing industry, a conclusive framework is developed on how the implementation of the identified Industry 4.0 technologies contribute to achieving holistic sustainability across the Triple Bottom Line aspects. Additionally, through further study and multiplecriteria decision analysis methods, the most sustainably impactful technologies are determined with regards to the manufacturing industry.