A Streamlined Laser Scanning Verticality Check Method for Installation of Prefabricated Wall Panels

Abstract

Installation quality check is essential for ensuring the construction quality of prefabrication construction. The existing techniques for assessing the installation quality of prefabricated wall panels heavily depend on manual inspection and contact-type measurements, which is labor intensive and slow. Laser scanning was previously adopted in construction quality check, however, few studies have focused on using laser scanners to assess the verticality of prefabricated wall panels, and no method has been developed for effective practical implementation. This study proposes a streamlined laser scanning approach for onsite verticality check of prefabricated wall panels. Based on systematic experiments of using the point cloud data collected by different types of laser scanners, and 25 prefabrication wall panels of four shapes, this study validates the proposed method and compares the use of different laser scanners. To facilitate an effective streamlined process for practical use, this study identifies the point cloud segmentation parameters under different laser scanning data sets and suggests suitable parameters for these case scenarios. These parameters can be adopted directly or used as references for practical application of the proposed laser scanning method in the installation verticality check. This study contributes to improving the efficiency of installation quality check of prefabrication construction, and facilitating the digital evolution of the construction industry. Checking the verticality of the installed prefabricated wall panels is crucial in construction quality control. However, traditional methods for assessing the installation quality of prefabricated wall panels heavily depend on manual inspection and contact-type measurements, which is labor-intensive, slow, and costly. For project involves a large number of same or similar type of prefabricated construction elements, this repetitive work also causes human fatigue and in-efficiency. This paper proposes a laser scanning method to streamline the quality check process for the installation of prefabricated wall panels. By systematically experimenting with the point cloud data collected by different types of laser scanners for various wall panels of different shapes, this study validates the effectiveness of the proposed method. Another major contribution of this research is preidentification of optimal segmentation parameters for laser scanning point cloud. This means construction professionals can use these parameters directly or as references for identifying suitable segmentation parameters for other projects. The streamlined laser scanning method contributes greatly to improving the efficiency of installation quality check of prefabrication construction practice, especially when large number of identical or similar elements are used.