3D solution eases communication
Software that offers interoperability is the way forward in the fast and accurate dispersion of data in order to save time and money, says TAHIR SHARIF, president of buildingSmart ME.
01 June 2010
DESPITE the technological evolution that has been taking place within the construction industry for many years, not much has changed to ease the communication gap faced within various aspects of the construction process, which has in itself become complex with numerous stakeholders.
To date, the only real solution for this problem has been to develop bespoke processes and product configurations, maximising the technological efficiency for a project. While this addresses the immediate need, the customised option does not benefit future projects or clients.
The sheer size and complexity of modern-day projects necessitates frequent exchange and updating of data. If this is not communicated accurately and quickly, the resulting waste in cost and time can mean the difference between profit and loss.
It has, therefore, become important to find a way to share data in common formats. In other words, software tools need to have interoperability.
So how much of the problem is down to the lack of interoperability? In 2007, McGraw-Hill Construction produced a report titled ‘Interoperability in the construction industry’. Using data from a comprehensive sample of construction businesses, the following results were published: on average, 3.1 per cent of project costs were related to the non-interoperability of software; engineers reported the biggest impact with four per cent of project cost, while owners estimated 2.5 per cent; manual re-entering of data ranked as the biggest single problem, with 69 per cent of those surveyed reporting this activity as the main cost.
Common language
There are a number of organisations working out solutions for interoperability. Central to most of these is the Building Information Modelling (BIM) process and technology, which promotes collaboration between disciplines. To be fully effective, the technologies employed by those disciplines need to send and receive accurate information seamlessly and information exchange between software tools requires a common language.
From a purely technological perspective, interoperability can be defined as the ability to communicate and manage electronic data effectively, without the need for human input in terms of manipulation or translation of data.
However, from a business perspective, interoperability is the ability to implement and manage collaboration between project team members. As the BIM contains much of the factual and visual data relating to a project, it is the natural starting point for successful implementation of interoperability into the construction process.
The 3D solution
Using BIM to pass information between the design team members (principally architectural, structural and MEP), requires interoperability between the various CAD systems used by the team. This produces what is now commonly referred to as the 3D solution. However, extending the concept of interoperability, 4D models can be created to incorporate time and construction programmes and 5D models, incorporating financial control. In fact, the process can be expanded to any ‘n’ D – incorporating such activities as environmental analysis, detailing, manufacturing, logistics and facilities management.
Existing technologies and processes fall into two categories:
• Industrial standards and protocol, which relate to systems that have been developed to provide some degree of general interoperability between existing users. The main advantage is that they can be applied, in part or whole to many technologies already in common use. The disadvantage is that they do not currently provide the total solution across all applications.
Among the common standards is industry foundation classes (IFC), the integration standard developed by buildingSmart, formally known as the international alliance for interoperability (IAI). It has been and continues to be, developed to improve the communication, productivity, delivery time, cost and quality throughout the whole building life-cycle, based upon model-based construction objects and activities. Based on the BIM concept, IFC’s principal advantage is that the format supports activities at all stages of the building and construction process. Other standards include cis/2, SDNF. DWF, DXF, DGN and DSTV;
• Strategic software vendor partnerships, which relate to interoperability between specific applications. The main advantage is that within the defined application, they usually provide seamless integration. The disadvantage is that work is required to develop further integration with systems outside the partnership. There are two common protocols used to create these types of applications – API (application programme interfaces) and COM (common object model).
APIs act as vehicles to transfer 3D geometry or object information between applications to facilitate bespoke internal, client and third-party development They are normally written adopting Microsoft’s Visual Studio .NET development platform.
NET applications have the advantage over COM technology as they are built directly on top of the computers operating system supporting multiple platforms and devices and thereby allowing a more flexible approach.
Case study
The diesel project at Neste Oil’s refinery in the Finnish town of Porvoo is the first building project in which structural design incorporating concrete structures, has been implemented from start to finish using 3D product modelling. Intelligent data transfer between systems enabled parallel progress in plant and structural design. The project also saw the creation of a joint design environment for use by several design firms.
The project entails building a new production line comprising a residual oil unit and hydrogen unit. Significant extensions and modifications are also being implemented in the refinery’s existing process units and infrastructure.
Plant design has been implemented using 3D modelling tools since the early 1990s. In Neste Oil’s project, there was strong motivation to take structural design comprehensively into the 3D era while enabling data transfer between stakeholders in an intelligent format. 3D modelling was exploited in the first ever project to also model concrete structures entirely in 3D, including the reinforcements and cast-in embeds. The models were used to produce general drawings as well as those required for steel, element and cast-in-situ concrete fabrication, along with the related lists. About 230,000 components were modelled and 9,800 drawings, together with hundreds of reports, were produced for a range of needs.
Section manager Matti Sainio from Neste Jacobs says: “Even though structural design represents just 0.4 per cent of the diesel project’s total costs, linking it with the plant design has been vital to the project’s success. Data communication between systems has made it possible for plant and structural design to advance in parallel.”
Neste Oil mandated 3D-modelling-based design for the entire diesel project. Tekla Structures was selected as the structural design tool and a software environment jointly developed by four companies (namely Neste Jacobs, JP-Kakko, Sweco Pic and Consulting Engineers Poysala & Sandberg) was created based on the Tekla system.
The project set ambitious objectives for the collaborative use of models and the quality of data content. All structural designers worked using the same multi-user modelling databases in the Tekla Structures environment. The project’s size and the number of stakeholders made it more practical to divide the object into more localised 3D models. For data transfer between plant design and structural design, the 3D MicroStation file format was chosen to communicate steel and concrete structure geometry to the plant viewing models. Particular areas of development in structural design were collision detection and pipe support design. In total 12,000 tonnes – or approximately 200 km – of pipe were fitted during the project, some fabricated abroad from costly special materials.
Prefabrication
“Efficient collision detection during the modelling stage has saved a lot of time and money. The same benefits were sought by modelling the pipe supports with real structures. This has made it possible to prefabricate the steel structures’ secondary supports rather than fabricate on site,” says Markku Eerikäinen, manager, information management at Neste Jacobs.
About 29 people were employed to design the steel structures and eight for their concrete counterparts. The design work employed traditional design data, that is, structural design and construction information drawings.
“Compared to previous projects, the component suppliers’ libraries that allowed us to pick up parts of the correct shape and dimension were a significant step forward,” says Arto Malmström, project manager, JP-Kakko.
Sweco Pic’s role in the diesel project’s structural design covered connections linking the plant’s processes and the steel and concrete structures related to the sulfur chain sub-project including machine foundations, pipe bridges and work platforms. Some of the structures were located outside the actual process area whilst others were connected to existing processes. Many of the structures contained modifications to the refinery’s existing systems or were connected to them, raising the level of challenge in design.
Consulting engineer Poysala & Sandberg designed several of the buildings in the process area, including two distribution substations, an instrumentation facility, storehouses and a cooling water facility. “We’ve designed steel as well as cast-in-situ and element concrete structures for the project. The lagging and reinforcement design was done almost completely with 3D modelling,” explains team manager Matti Ahonen.
The experience gained in the diesel project has since been utilised in Neste Oil’s subsequent biodiesel project.
