CCCC Highway Consultants Use Openbim for the Maintenance of a Bridge Across the Yangtze
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
2018 international Award submission CCCC Highway Consultants use openBIM for the maintenance of a bridge across the Yangtze Overview: display. Other existing systems of the owner About the Project CCCC Highway Consultants The Third Nanjing Yangtze Bridge is a that were relevant to maintenance (such as 4.7-kilometer cable-stayed bridge across the document management, health monitoring, Location: Yangtze River. The bridge was opened in and office automation systems) have been 2005 and is the third bridge over the Yangtze integrated with the maintenance platform. Nanjing, China at Nanjing. Its six lanes carry traffic from the G42 Shanghai–Chengdu Expressway and The bridge was designed and built using Objectives: the G2501 Nanjing Ring Expressway. conventional 2D tools and processes. As a Develop a maintenance result, there were no 3D models of the bridge management system with 3D In 2017, the bridge owner engaged CCCC available to CCCC Highway’s development model display capabilities Highway Consultants to develop an asset team, and they had to create a model of the management system—a data entry, display, bridge from scratch. The team used BIM Software used: and management platform that would software—Autodesk Revit—for their modeling CATIA, Revit, Unity, XBIM continuously manage asset performance and efforts. Model import tools and IFC open maintenance activities. The goal of the system standards were used to transfer the BIM models buildingSMART tools: was to standardize and record information and underlying metadata into the maintenance IFC2x3 and actions related to ongoing maintenance, system. thus establishing a lifecycle data chain for each asset component. Model creation CCCC Highway Consultants used Revit to Moreover, the owner could use the platform generate a 3D model of the full length of the and its maintenance data to support bridge. This master model is composed of tens decisions regarding the timing and sequence of thousands of component models. These of component inspections, repairs, and models include graphical representations replacements. This would help the owner of the components as well as attributes increase safety while lowering maintenance related to the individual components, such as costs and develop more data-driven, material type, construction/installation date, China’s CCCC Highway evidence-based maintenance management manufacturer, and so forth. The component Consultants Co., Ltd. developed programs and plans in the future. models also include links to related project data an asset management system and documents, and applicable design and that standardized and captured The owner wanted the system to be highly construction/installation drawings. maintenance processes and data for intuitive for its maintenance staff, particularly the Third Nanjing Yangtze Bridge. when locating bridge components. Therefore, The accuracy and content of the model is based they wanted users to be able to see a display on the owner’s maintenance management Highlights: of the bridge structure on their screen— needs. In general, the accuracy model is at enabling them to visually navigate and locate Level of Detail 300 (LOD 300). This accuracy • A virtual 3D model allows bridge components. matches the construction documents that were users to visually navigate the used to build the bridge. The model contains bridge structure and locate System Design accurate dimensions, location, quantities, and components. CCCC Highway Consultants developed the orientation of the bridge components. Also, the • The bridge was designed and asset management system using the Unity interfaces and connections between the various built using 2D approaches, engine. Unity is a real-time development components are graphically represented. It so BIM software was used to platform with 3D data import and optimization should be noted that components not needing create a model of the bridge, tools used by development teams to create maintenance management are not represented post-construction. interactive, immersive experiences based on in the model, which makes the model lighter • IFC open standards were used digital models. The system can be accessed and improves graphic display times in the Unity to transfer BIM data into the via a desktop or web-based client, as well as engine. maintenance system. a mobile app for maintenance data input and The components in the bridge models The owner uses the system to manage, were classified and coded to ensure better locate, and intuitively display the model and information exchange and sharing. ISO its underlying maintenance data. This includes 12006-2, an international standard dealing information inherited from the original IFC files, with the structuring of projects, was the as well as the dynamic information added during classification standard used during the management and maintenance. Powerful modeling process. search capabilities give users the ability to query static and dynamic component attributes openBIM strategies to support their ongoing bridge maintenance Once the bridge was fully modeled in Revit, efforts such as reporting or graphical display CCCC Highway Consultants moved all of the of defect and maintenance data, or statistical “The system we developed for information into its newly-developed Unity analyses of component data. the bridge owner can be used asset management system. Currently, there For example, when a specific component is for a variety of infrastructure is a direct link between Unity and Revit, and inspected, it is assigned a technical condition types, such as bridges, tunnels, the Unity platform supports the IFC standard. rating. These ratings can be queried and output and roads. And virtual models But during CCCC Highway’s Consultants in textual reports, or displayed graphically by development efforts, this was not the case. from a variety of BIM authoring automatically color-coding bridge components So the team used a two-step process. tools—such as Revit, Civil 3D, based on their rating. CATIA or MicroStation—can First, they used a Revit “Export to Unity” In addition to standard model operation (such be imported into the system. plugin to export the bridge’s geometrical/ as zooming or panning), the Unity platform also Regardless of the infrastructure graphical information from Revit to the OBJ has roaming modes such as fly arounds and file format (an open geometry definition file type or authoring tool, the IFC walk overs. In addition, bridge components format). This OBJ file was then imported standard provides an excellent can be located quickly in a variety of methods, into Unity. Once the model was in Unity, the channel for data transmission including visual navigation, component tree team used Unity post-processing features to and is a critical part of our selection, and fuzzy searches. improve the quality and display time of the openBIM strategy.” model graphics in Unity. Next, all of the non-graphic attributes and Zhunhua Li, classification codes needed to be transferred Department Manager, from the Revit model to Unity. So the team CCCC Highway Consultants exported the models to the IFC format using CO., Ltd. standard Revit export tools. Then they used xBIM (eXtensible Building Information Modeling)—a .NET open-source software development BIM toolkit that supports IFC standards—to extract and import the IFC data required by the Unity-based maintenance management system. Results The owner has realized significant maintenance efficiency improvements and cost savings through the use of their asset For more information about management system. The maintenance data buildingSMART International, and activities recorded in the system—data please visit: related to a component’s defects, inspections, and repairs—can be quickly queried and www.buildingSMART.org displayed. This fast and accurate reporting has reduced Or contact us: the time spent searching for information Email: [email protected] necessary for ongoing component maintenance Tel: +44 923 277953 With component IDs as the index, the by an estimated 30 percent. In addition, the time geometric models and data were all linked spent locating specific defective components, in the Unity database (based on the division researching data related to those components, and basic information of the IFC standard), and formulating a maintenance plan has been with all of the component’s original geometric reduced by an estimated 50 percent. dimensions, positions, relationships, and attributes restored. And in the future, the owner is contemplating expanded uses of their asset management Maintenance operations system. For example, since the Unity platform During ongoing bridge maintenance, the supports virtual reality experiences, the asset management system is used for system could be used to orient and train new standardized entry of maintenance data maintenance staff. And the data stored and relating to defects, inspections, repairs, and compiled by the system can be used for a technical status/ratings. Unlike the original broader big data analysis of their management static attribute data imported from the 3D and maintenance performance. model, this data represents the dynamic attributes of the bridge components that are changing over time. 2019 buildingSMART International Ltd. is a registered company in England and Wales no. 5024694. buildingSMART tools and standards are registered trademarks, including openBIM®. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners and are not endorsed explicitly by buildingSMART International..