Deterioration prediction of community buildings in Australia

For maximizing longevity and performance of infrastructure assets integrating the requirements of triple bottom line of sustainability, including environment, economic and social/functional constraints, a well-developed and validated asset management (AM) process is essential. A proper AM model requires the ability to predict the future condition states of the assets in order to plan ahead for decisions on maintenance and refurbishment activities needed. A current research project conducted at RMIT University in collaboration with six local councils and the municipal association of Victoria is aimed at developing an integrated reliability-based model for management of community building assets. The paper presents a comprehensive review of the current building management practices of six local councils in Australia; and captures the gaps in knowledge, which hinders an efficient AM process. An integrated asset management framework developed with consultation of stakeholders is presented. A three-level building component hierarchy developed to manage the complexity of building assets in an organized manner is demonstrated. Data collected by the councils have been analysed to understand the challenges in forecasting building deterioration using discrete condition data. Derivation of a Markov process based model using discrete condition data for deterioration prediction of community buildings is presented. The conceptual framework for integration of the deterioration model with triple bottom line indicators is proposed.