الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract The layout planning of tower cranes that defines the types, the quantities and the positions of the tower cranes, has a significant impact on the overall productivity and cost effectiveness of construction projects. This research developed an Agent Based Simulation (ABS) modelto simulate tower cranes operations and interactions between different elemets/agents to overcome the limitations of previous research.It calculates the time and the cost of tower cranes operation cycles, taking into account the potential conflict among the working tower cranes. In addition, the proposed model has a procedure for using intermediate points in case of inability of one crane to serve a certain task. The proposed model is able to compare between several combinations of tower cranes layouts, to achieve the optimum tower crane layout plan that fulfills the requirements with respect to the time or the cost.Three stand-alone applications are developed based on the ABS model; simulation experiments, tower crane optimization and supply points optimization. A case study was provided to demonstrate the capabilities and contributions of the developed ABS model |