DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTI AGENT SYSTEM FOR DESIGN AND PRODUCTION OF HIGH PERFORMANCE CONCRETE

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DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTI AGENT SYSTEM FOR DESIGN AND PRODUCTION OF HIGH PERFORMANCE CONCRETE

DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTI AGENT SYSTEM FOR

DESIGN AND PRODUCTION OF HIGH PERFORMANCE CONCRETE

ABSTRACT

This thesis was designed specifically for developing the software called multiagent system MAS, that executes high performance concrete HPC mix design with the aim of tackling the arbitrary tedious and time consuming nature of conventional HPC mix designs. The MAS identifies the uses of intellectual autonomous entities called agents, capable of executing commands of which the essence is to use them for HPC mix design. These agents were created through the use of computer programming and coding involving a program language known as Hypertext pre-processor (PHP) with an agent logic strategy, derived following algorithms’ from an artificial intelligence protocol called a table driven system. The conventional mix design procedures of HPC which involves calculations from table readings and graph readings for HPC were converted into codes and fed into the respective agents following an algorithm. On application of the software, the analysis showed that for compressive strengths of HPC 60, 75, 80, and 86 N/mm2 the percentage difference between MAS and conventional HPC mix design for cement alone were 0.03683, 0.06385, 0.06246 and 0.045673 which fall within permissible conditions of ten percent. The results also show that MAS are well suited to carry out HPC mix designs, and when compared with conventional HPC mix design; it is user friendly, simpler, faster and easy to operate. Therefore it can be concluded that multi-agent systems can be effectively used for design and production of HPC than conventional methods which is arbitrary, tedious, time consuming and gives approximate results.

Keywords: Multi Agent System, Design, Cement, Concrete, programDesign, Cement, Concrete, program

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title

Certification                                                                                                             ii

Dedication                                                                                                                iii

Acknowledgements                                                                                               iv

Abstract                                                                                                                    v

Table of contents                                                                                                   vi

List of Tables’                                                                                                          ix

List of Figures                                                                                                          xi

CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION                                                                  1

1.1 Background Information                                                                               1

1.2 Problem Statement                                                                                        2

1.3 Objectives of the Study                                                                                 3

1.4 Justification of Study                                                                                      4

1.5 Scope of the Study                                                                                          4

CHAPTER TWO – LITERATURE REVIEW                                                            5

2.1 Concrete                                                                                                            5

2.2 High Performance Concrete (HPC)                                                             6

2.2 1 High Performance Concrete (HPC) Constituents                                8

2.2.2 Performance Enhancing Property/Characteristics of HPC               21

2.2.3 HPC Advantages and Possibilities of HPC                                             25

2.2.4 HPC Preparation                                                                                          25

 

2.3 Agent Systems                                                                                                 26

2.3.1 Agent Definition                                                                                           27

2.3.2 Agent design                                                                                                 29

2.3.3 Agents strategy                                                                                            29

2.3.4 Intelligent agents                                                                                         31

2.4 Multi Agent System (MAS)                                                                           32

2.5 Mix Design Methods of Conventional Concrete                                     37

2.5.1 British Method of Conventional Concrete Mix Design                      38

2.5.2 American Method of Conventional Concrete Mix Design                48

2.5.2.1 Concrete Mix Design Steps                                                                   48

2.5.3 Indian Method of Conventional Concrete Mix Design                      53

2.5.3.1 Requirements of Concrete Mix Design                                              54

2.5.3.2 Types of Mixes                                                                                          54

2.5.3.3 The Various Factors Affecting the Mix Design                                 55

2.5.3.4 Mix Proportion Designations                                                                56

2.5.3.5 Mix Design Procedure (Indian standard)                                           57

2.6 Typical HPC Mix Design Methods                                                               59

2.6.1 Canadian Portland Cement Association Method                                59

2.6.2 Cement and Concrete Association Method of Australia                   60

2.6.3 Method Proposed by Mehta and Aitcin                                                60

2.6.4 ACI Standard Method                                                                                 61

2.6.4.1 Mix Design Procedure                                                                            61

2.7 HPC mix design by Laskar and Talukdar                                                    62

2.7.1 Mix design procedure                                                                                63

2.7.2 Mix design calculation                                                                                68

2.7.3 HPC batching                                                                                                 71

2.7.4 HPC production schedule                                                                          72

         CHAPTER THREE – METHODOLOGY                                                                  77

3.1 Method                                                                                                              77

3.1.1 Input sector phase                                                                                      77

3.1.2 System                                                                                                            77

3.1.3 Output sector                                                                                               78

3.2 Agents in the MAS                                                                                          78

3.3 Agent programming / Flowchart                                                                79

3.4 Operation sequence                                                                                       83

      CHAPTER FOUR – RESULTS AND DISCUSSION                                               89

4.1 Results                                                                                                               84

4.2 Discussion of Results                                                                                      87

       CHAPTER FIVE – CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS                      91

5.1 Conclusion                                                                                                        91

5.2 Recommendations                                                                                          91

5.3 Contribution to Knowledge                                                                          92

Reference                                                                                                                 93

Appendices                                                                                                              100

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background Information

Long- term performance of structures has become vital to the economics of all nations. And concrete has been the major instrument for providing stable and reliable infrastructure since the days of the Greek and Roman civilization. (Russell et al, 1997) At the turn of the 20th century, concrete compressive strength was about N/mm2, but by the 1960’s, it was in the range of 27.6 – 41 N/mm2. Deterioration, long term poor performance and inadequate resistance to hostile environment, coupled with greater demands for more sophisticated architectural form, led to the accelerated research into the microstructure of cements, concretes and the development of more elaborate codes and standards.

As a result, new materials and composites have been developed and improved cements evolved. Today, concrete structures with a compressive strength exceeding 138 N/mm2, are being built world over, with the aid of various new admixtures developed in research laboratories (Russell 1999). Concrete strengths, have now reached high values of up to 800 N/mm2, thus leading to astonishing improvements being made to the properties of concrete. Also, highly durable concretes, capable of extending the service life of structures, are being produced and are now used/placed daily. Increased workability and high early strength accelerate construction schedules. This new generation of advanced technology super concrete is called ‘’high – performance concrete (HPC)’’. HPC can be considered as a logical development of cement concrete, in which the ingredients are proportioned and selected to contribute efficiently to the various properties of cement concrete in fresh as well as in hardened states. HPC has salient features of compressive strength of 80 N/mm2, and up to 800 N/mm2, water – binder ratio of 0.25 – 0.35, a reduced flocculation of cement grains, wide range of grain sizes, densified cement paste, zero bleeding – homogeneous mix, less capillary porosity, discontinuous pores, a stronger transition zone at the interface between cement paste and aggregate, with low free lime content, endogenous shrinkage, powerful confinement of aggregates with little microcracking of about 65 – 70% characteristic strength of concrete and finally it has a smooth fracture surface (Russell 1999).  Collaborative work in construction remains a major precursor to achieving improved productivity, resulting in direct business benefits to construction organisations. It is therefore, imperative that researchers continue to explore state – of – the art paradigms, techniques and technologies that would enhance efficient production and delivery of constructed products with the desired quality, cost(i.e. life – cycle cost), safety and sustainability.

An agent is an autonomous entity which can be a software consisting of programs which tend to work independently to attain its objective. The limiting factors affecting an agent, leaves it vulnerable in efficiency with respect to the time/duration needed for production of HPC. From research, it has been noticed that a higher and more effective system called multi – agent system (MAS), can be invested into. (Troud Grenager 2002) Multi-agent systems (MAS), is one of the worlds fast developing information technology which consists of various agents representing real world entities, and collaborating into a network aimed at achieving various objectives intended for clients. However, with various agents for different individual objectives working independently, numerous problems get resolved simultaneously with respect to attaining the main goal. The multi-agent system achieves its objective in HPC production demand more efficiently if utilized.

High performance concrete (HPC) are used to provide economic benefits for the design and construction of several types of structures – with respect to both structural efficiency and maintenance requirements. However, a speedy delivery of design and production of HPC will be achieved with an effective operation of the multi-agent system, which allows the stretching of the limits of design assumptions and construction practices.

1.2  Problem Statement

The demand for HPC on site; can get to a very high state, given that the types of materials found in HPC vary, depending on the intended use of the concrete. It can be seen that without a good network organisation, the HPC mix with different characteristics needed for various batch production, will be delayed. This is a major hindrance to economic HPC production. The most common varieties of HPC designed to meet high strength or improved durability, typically include: high – range water – reducing agent [HRWRA] and corrosion inhibitors, silica fume (i.e. micro silica), fly ash and slag. Silica fume is a key ingredient of a large portion of HPC mix design, and it is most cost effective in terms of achieving very high strength. It is however, relatively expensive to handle without proper management. Consequently, if supplied in a non – formulated version, the water demand of the resulting concrete mix, is increased approximately by one pound for each pound of silica fume used in the mix, thereby undermining the strength and durability of the silica fume to the concrete mix (Russell, 1999. Thus, when a designer or contractor faces simultaneously these quality challenges affecting production, without agents assigned to resolving rapidly each challenge as they arise, there will be a major defect in the capacity and quality of production. HPC mix design has mainly been done manually, this leads to delay and disagreements, which compromise the reliability of the supplying contractor on the job and this in the construction world, will not be tolerated by clients.

1.3  Objectives of the Study

The main objective of this study is the development of a multi – agent system which performs mix design of high performance concrete (HPC).

The specific objectives are as follows:

  • To develop a user friendly agent for the input of selected suitable specifications for HPC
  • To develop an agent for the running / execution of HPC design
  • To develop an agent that ensures minimal variance in its results for HPC constituents, when compared to that of a selected conventional method of HPC mix design
  • To develop a multi agent system that integrates all the phases of HPC mix design process to yield results using internet browsers as graphic user interphase (GUI)

 

 

 

 

 

  • Justification of Study

This is the jet age, the rapid growth in information technology (IT) and the use of computer based generated software’s used in solving everyday challenges and problems. However, in civil engineering practice today in Nigeria, analogue means of determining, tabulating, computing and processing relevant engineering data has been the case, this has lead to weakness in the productivity and efficiency of civil engineering in Nigeria, likewise the mix design of HPC mainly has been through manual processing generally. Programmed software in developed countries has been a major means of providing time efficient and accurate engineering data tabulation, engineering data processing, engineering data presentation and engineering data calculations. This report will create and elaborate the process of which programmed software can automate mix design of HPC for production.  And hence further put to existence the use of software mix design handling for HPC production in Nigeria.

  • Scope of the study

This study is focused on HPC its constituents, its mix design procedure and programming. With the view to creating the key computer based programmed system, using a certain program language called PHP to perform accurately HPC mix design. The mix design method to be used will be an Indian based HPC mix design; it will be used to structure the calculative aspects of the HPC mix design programming for the software.  It shall also focus on creating essentially with the aid of programming, an adaptable user friendly interface software system for HPC mix design production based on HPC constituents, inputs of relevant HPC constituents, HPC project information and great visual display interactive interface.

DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTI AGENT SYSTEM FOR DESIGN AND PRODUCTION OF HIGH PERFORMANCE CONCRETE

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