Enhanced function modeling for early assessment of conceptual innovative construction technologies

• The method integrates merits of parametric solid modeling with function modeling.
• Geometric and material parameters are extracted for early assessment.
• Functionality, cost-effectiveness, and operability assessed with utility functions.
• An innovative safety protection device is demonstrated.

Early assessment of an innovative technology plays a very important role for successful innovation of construction technologies. However, lack of required parametric information of traditional function modeling method makes it impossible to conduct early technology assessment in the conceptual development stage. This paper presents an enhanced function modeling method, namely Solid-model Enhanced Function Modeling (SEFM), which extracts two types of important parameters from the solid models of a construction technology: (1) geometric parameters that specify the dimensional information of physical technology components; and (2) material parameters that specify the strength and quality grade information. A set of specific utility functions are developed to cope with the proposed SEFM. Such a combination offers a useful tool for the analysis of innovative technology alternative in the early technology development stage. The innovation of a fall protection safety fence is selected as a case study to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed SEFM.