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Galadari, A I (2008) Evaluation of road construction alternatives: A regretful approach, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , University of Colorado at Denver.

Ghafoori, M (2023) Developing building maintenance and upgrade system (BMUS) to minimize operational cost of existing buildings within available budgets, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , University of Colorado at Denver.

  • Type: Thesis
  • Keywords: complexity; decision support; energy consumption; market; optimization; uncertainty; cooling; equipment; building maintenance; life cycle; lifecycle; operation and maintenance; simulation; fossil fuel; investment; owner; supplier
  • ISBN/ISSN:
  • URL: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2841209349
  • Abstract:
    Operation and maintenance phase is the most costly and longest period in a building's life-cycle, exceeding the cost of initial design and construction. The largest contributors to these costs are energy and water consumption. Moreover, poor maintenance planning, design errors, lack of knowledge in facility management, and low maintenance quality contribute to high operational costs. Furthermore, energy and water-saving investments are often overlooked due to challenges like lack of capital, skilled workers, and uncertainty of expected savings. However, technological advancements in building system components and equipment provide a significant opportunity to reduce building operation and maintenance costs. Due to complexity of buildings as intricate systems, decision makers are always faced with a challenging task of maintaining and upgrading their buildings to ensure that buildings meet the requirements to perform their function during their intended lifetime and meet available budgets. The objective of this research study is to develop new models that can identify optimal selection of upgrade measures and maintenance interventions to minimize operation and maintenance costs of a building or a portfolio of buildings within available budgets. There models are developed and integrated in an innovative Decision Support System (DSS) called, Building Maintenance and Upgrade System (BMUS) to identify upgrade and maintenance interventions for a building or portfolio of buildings. These new models are designed to (1) identify optimal selection of upgrade measures to minimize equivalent annual cost of existing buildings; (2) generate optimal maintenance and upgrade interventions of existing buildings within available budgets; and (3) identify optimal maintenance and upgrade interventions for portfolio of buildings (i.e. a university campus) within available budget. The present BMUS contributes to existing knowledge by presenting new models that (1) consider a wide range of upgrade and maintenance interventions for building fixtures and equipment as well as envelope components, (2) integrate updatable databases from vendors and suppliers to generate up-to-date and practical recommendations, (3) integrate maintenance and upgrade interventions in an optimization model to allow decision makers and building owners to simultaneously upgrade and maintain their buildings during their lifecycle and within available budgets, (4) consider reactive, preventive, and predictive maintenance strategies based on component types, (5) employ a simulation-based approach for calculating cooling and heating energy consumption based on HVAC and building envelope components, and (6) use computationally efficient approaches for identifying optimal upgrades and maintenance interventions for induvial building as well as building portfolios. The application of BMUS in optimizing the operation and maintenance of existing buildings is expected to have broad and profound impacts, including (1) promoting the adoption of the latest water and energy-efficient equipment and fixtures when they become available in the market and upgrade budgets are available for buildings; (2) reducing energy and water consumption in existing buildings; (3) reducing the need for and reliance on fossil fuels; (4) reducing carbon and greenhouse gas emissions caused by the operation of existing buildings; and (5) reducing operation and maintenance costs of existing buildings.

Mulholland, S M (2021) Incentivizing effort in highly collaborative construction and design teams, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , University of Colorado at Denver.

VanDemark, L P (2021) Mitigating risk of site development disputes, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , University of Colorado at Denver.