Enhancing maintainability of multi-story buildings in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The research into the issue of maintainability of multi-story buildings in Sri Lanka is still in its adolescent stage. This report summarizes the main deliverables of a research project dealing with maintainability of multi-story buildings using two elements; fa9ade and flat roof, under tropical conditions. Improving the knowledge of maintainability and setting maintainability benchmarks are two key principles of the research framework. In identifying maintainability problems, 26 and 16 numbers of different defects were identified related to facade and flat roof defects respectively. Their causes were identified as faulty designs, inferior construction and ad-hoc maintenance practices. They were taken as maintainability risk factors for both maintainability scoring systems. The existing maintainability scoring system developed by National University of Singapore (NUS-MSS) was tested for its adoptability for multi-story buildings in Sri Lanka due to similarity between environment and buildings profiles in two countries. Statistical /-test was used for the comparison. This model was developed using 13 risk factors related to fa5ade maintainability. These factors are common for maintainability of facades of multi-story buildings here. Further, statistical test results showed that NUS-MSS can be successfully adopted to predict the level of maintainability of fa9ades of multi-story buildings in Sri Lanka A prototype maintainability scoring system for flat roof using the framework of NUS-MSS; on the basis of life cycle costing approach, involving minimum cleaning, repair, replacement and down time, is established using the back propagation neural networks. This system compromised of 12 input risk factors related to flat roof maintainability including building profile, design parameters, choice of materials, quality of construction, maintenance practices, and environment. Low errors of “network” and “generalization” of the network indicated its capability of forecasting the maintainability levels for new designs. Therefore, as a predictive tool, this system would enable owners, designers, facility managers, contractors and any other party with an interest in achieving the most favourable maintainability right from the design/planning stage.