Abstract

Construction site fires caused by spatiotemporal overlaps between hot work (ignition sources) and combustible substances remain a critical concern. The traditional method identifies fire hazards based on the intersections among hot works and other works with combustible substances. However, the intersections between hot work and built elements containing combustible materials are ignored, which can also lead to fire accidents. In addition, the detection of such intersections relies on the computationally intensive proximity search from the ignition source to the potential combustible substances, resulting in a long-time calculation in large construction projects with the dynamic construction process. To address this limitation, this study proposes a voxel-based fire hazard identification method applicable to large 4D-BIM models, fast and accurately. By discretizing BIM into reusable LEGO voxels, both the construction activities and the building components can be mapped to the voxels, enabling a simultaneous intersection identification between ignition sources and both activities and BIM elements. In addition, voxel-based proximity searching is efficient, enabling a fast and accurate fire hazard identification. Validation tests demonstrate high accuracy with calculatable spatial error (maximum 0.57 m for 200 mm voxels) and superior efficiency (126–1368% faster than mesh-based methods). By reusing the voxelized BIM data, the speed can be enhanced by between 400% and 1975%. This method offers an efficient and reliable digital solution for proactive construction fire safety management in 4D-contexts.

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