BSc Civil Engineering: Construction & Project Management Assignment

This document presents a comprehensive solution to a Construction & Project Management assignment. The assignment covers key concepts such as network diagrams, critical path analysis, and activity crashing. The solution includes detailed calculations, explanations, and answers to the questions posed in the assignment brief. The first question involves sieving test results and soil classification. The second question focuses on a constant head permeability test. The final question addresses project scheduling, critical path identification, and crashing activities to optimize project completion time and cost. The solution demonstrates the application of project management techniques to real-world construction scenarios.

Construction & Project Management
Q1)
Q2)
i) Critical path: activities with zero slack of head event and zero slack for tail event
A => C => E => G
ii) Completion time = 2 + 2 + 4 + 5 = 13
iii) Variance = σ 2p = ( 2
6 )
2
+ ( 2
6 )
2
+( 4
6 )
2
+ ( 5
6 )
2
=1.3611
Q3a)
Activity Activity time ES EF LS LF LS-ES
A 6 0 6 4 10 4
s 1,8
3,16
2,12
7,12
12,12
16,9
15,4
F
4,9 5,4
9,9 10,4

B 8 15 23 15 23 0
C 3 23 26 23 26 0
D 6 26 32 26 32 0
E 6 6 13 10 16 3
F 7 13 20 16 23 3
G 5 0 5 10 15 10
H 8 5 15 15 23 10
I 2 13 15 18 10 3
Completion time = 32 weeks
Total cost = £198,000
Cost on CP = £180,000
Number of critical path = 1
Critical path = B => C => D
3b) Crash
Activity Activity time ES EF LS LF LS-ES
A 4 0 4 3 7 3
B 4 4 8 4 8 0
C 2 17 19 17 19 0
D 4 19 23 19 23 0
E 4 7 11 9 13 2
F 6 11 17 13 19 7
G 3 4 7 10 13 6
H 6 7 13 13 19 6
I 2 11 13 7 9 4
Completion time = 23 weeks
Total cost = £316,000
Cost on CP = £296,000
Number of critical path = 1
Critical path = C => D
The project would take between 32 and 23 weeks depending on the activity
completion time that vary between the normal time and the crash time.

 Crashing activity B by a week an additional cost of 6,000 would be incurred
 Crashing activity C by a week an additional cost of 2,000 would be incurred
 Crashing activity D by a week an additional cost of 3,000 would be incurred
The best choice would be to crash an activity having the lowest incremental
(additional) cost – therefore, in this case we would choose to crash activity C by one
week at an additional cost of 2,000