The CNY 23.6 billion Lipu-Yulin Expressway will run through Guilin, Guigang, and Yulin in Guangxi province and is an important section of G59, China’s national expressway network. Guangxi Transportation Design Group Co., Ltd., is responsible for the overall design and coordination of the project, as well as providing technical support for the construction unit. The large-scale project, which requires complex and comprehensive management, faces many challenges including long distances, large amounts of land requisition and demolition, and citizen-control factors that need to be considered in the planning phase. The main line of the project is 263.1 kilometers long and requires exceptional communication and coordination among teams, multiple disciplines, and public entities.
The expressway design includes several technically complex bridges, such as the Xiangsizhou Bridge, with a span of 450 meters and the largest-span, cable-stayed bridge in Guangxi province, and the Pingnansan Bridge, the largest span-arch bridge in the world under construction, with a span of 575 meters. The expressway also includes super-long tunnels, such as the Wenwei Tunnel, which runs 4,705 meters and is located in mountainous regions with rough terrain and poor geological conditions.
The BIM design team was required to determine how to build a full-factor scenario project model quickly and optimize the route plan. The team depended on Bentley software to enable the design, collaboration, and management across all teams while meeting contractual-scheduled requirements. Project goals include saving design time by 20 percent, limiting deviation between target cost and actual cost to 2 percent, and achieving a profit margin of 5 percent.
The BIM team used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in combination with ContextCapture to create large-scale, reality meshes for the project. The models were used to perform 3D analysis to ensure the safety clearance of equipment and structures and conduct site planning and optimize construction site space utilization to reach 95 percent optimization. Using OpenRoads, the team created 3D models for planning construction sites and temporary sites, arranging service areas, and selecting spoil ground to avoid wasting land resources, which saved land use by 5 percent and avoided 4,100 square meters of building demolition.
MicroStation was used to perform 3D parametric modeling, with ProStructures used to accurately model the steel structures; these applications identified problems and reduced design errors design rework to save 15 working days. OpenRoads and OpenBridge were used to perform 3D design of roads, bridges, and tunnels to quickly and accurately locate the structures, perform parametric modeling, and improve design efficiency by more than 200 percent. BIM 5D construction management was achieved using the project’s electronic sandbox system based on MicroStation to manage 3D content while combining the data with a web GIS to provide information browsing and sharing. ProjectWise was used to provide collaborative design across all parties and professions and reduced communication costs by CNY 400,000.
Combining Bentley technology with BIM methodologies, the design team was able to achieve economic savings as well as reduce staff input of design and construction management by 10 percent, which reduced resource hours by 30 percent and greatly improved the quality of construction, laying the foundation for timely and high-quality project completion.
Changhai Wang, BIM center director, Guangxi Communications Design Group Co., Ltd., said, “Using Bentley’s project team collaboration system leveraging ProjectWise, improved information sharing and communication among team members. Having the most updated information at our fingertips helped us reduce the number of meeting by 15 times
and communication and collaboration costs by more than CNY 400,000.”Nagpur, in the state of Maharashtra, India, is seeing growing economic activity. With motorized transport dominated by two-wheelers contributing to congestion, pollution, and accidents on its roads, Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Limited (Maha Metro) is working hard to deliver a safe, reliable, efficient, affordable, commuter-friendly, and environmentally-sustainable rapid public transport system for the region.
When complete the Nagpur Metro project will be 41.7 kilometers in length and include 40 stations and two depots. While the current public transportation system only accounts for 10 percent of total trips, Nagpur Metro will provide first- and last-mile connectivity via feeder services that will include shuttle buses, battery-operated vehicles, pedestrian facilities, and bicycle-sharing schemes, enhancing accessibility for all classes of commuter.
The Government of India’s Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation conducted a study that concluded that of 564 large infrastructure projects implemented in India, 42 percent were delayed, and 31 percent had no definite time of delivery. With railway projects reportedly experiencing more than 95 percent cost overruns and 118 percent time overruns, Maha Metro knew it would encounter many challenges and needed a different approach. Opting to follow international best practices on the metro project, it took an asset-centric approach, one that would incorporate a common set of standards, workflows, and objectives from the planning stage and consider the whole lifecycle of the railway, including operations and maintenance.
The team at Maha Metro began with the definition of standards, processes, and workflows for inclusion in its digital project management platform based on Bentley’s OpenRail CDE solution. Having developed Employers Information Requirements (EIR) that referenced the PAS 1192 suite of British Standards, and mandated their use in all supply chain contracts, Maha Metro decided to set up an owner’s support office to assist with successful implementation. With the help of Bentley Systems, Maha Metro created a BIM academy to encourage adoption of its CDE, BIM compliance, and aid onboarding of the supply chain.
At present, Maha Metro’s CDE is home to around 12,000 3D models, drawings, and project-related documents. It provides an ongoing source of trusted information for the 22 design consulting companies, 15 contractors, and a consortium of five organizations that make up its general consultants, enabling seamless collaboration across 30 disciplines on the project.
Anticipated savings because of Maha Metro’s adoption of OpenRail CDE and this pioneering approach for the Indian rail market during design and construction include:
Maha Metro also has its eye on operational expenditure during the capital expenditure phase and has configured its CDE to record all engineered components, systems, locations, properties, specifications, and drawings. The CDE also helped Maha Metro procure vendor data, vendor manual, vendor drawings, bills of materials, and specifications. Lastly, through the CDE, Maha Metro could install or construct assets, including test data and inspection reports, that cover all of the lifecycle stages. When completed, this trusted source of information residing in the CDE will form the operational backbone of Nagpur Metro’s infrastructure for years to come, and it is expected to generate savings of around USD 222 million over a 25-year period.
“We are happy that we chose Bentley as the partner to realize our digital project management approach in successfully executing our project from concept to operations. The team’s innovative use of Bentley technology to manage design, construction, and handover has already been acknowledged by other large infrastructure owner-operators as an important first step to introducing a new culture for delivering rail projects in India,” said Brijesh Kumar Dixit, managing director, Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Limited.As part of a coordinated development plan, Zhongguancun will integrate the resources of Beijing, Tianjin, and Zhongguancun to build a new science and technology city. The CNY 2.2 billion project includes the design and construction of roads, utility pipelines, a 174,000-square-meter park, and green roadsides spanning 477,000 square meters. Given the large geographic span, wide construction area, and tight construction timeline, the overall project consultant CCCC Water Transportation Planning Design Institute (CCCC) implemented a collaborative BIM process to coordinate the many engineering disciplines to deliver the new digital city.
In keeping with the idea of a truly digital city that incorporates a municipality’s needed services, the project scope encompasses a wide range of utility, transportation, and environmental disciplines. Included within the project scope is the construction of 16 roads with a length of approximately 30 kilometers; a layout of rain and sewage diversion pipelines with a length of approximately 78 kilometers; water supply pipelines with a length of approximately 40 kilometers; intermediate water pipelines with a length of approximately 26 kilometers; gas pipelines with a length of approximately 43 kilometers; thermal power pipelines with a length of approximately 40 kilometers; power pipelines with a length of approximately 45 kilometers; and telecommunication pipelines with a length of approximately 39 kilometers. Additionally, the project team is responsible for designing and constructing a city park with an area of approximately 174,000 square meters. The roadside will be green with an area of approximately 477,000 square meters, and the river and water environment will be comprehensively improved. CCCC acts as the overall consultant and implementer of the BIM process on this project. The organization is responsible for the creation and application of BIM technology in the design, construction, and operation and maintenance of models in all stages. CCCC is responsible for setting up a BIM project management platform, building project digital assets, and assisting the construction of the regional smart park and smart city.
Using Bentley’s integrated BIM applications, including ContextCapture, LumenRT, MicroStation, Navigator, OpenBridge Modeler, OpenRoads, ProjectWise, ProStructures the team generated a comprehensive 3D model of the entire city. CCCC identified and remedied more than 200 collision points, optimizing design and reducing costly rework. Performing construction simulation facilitated construction management, shortening the construction period by 64 days to save CNY 6.6 million in costs. ProjectWise provided a connected data environment to streamline workflows and improve design efficiency. Integrating ContextCapture to generate a reality mesh from UAV terrain data collected on site enabled the team to facilitate earthworks planning, saving approximately CNY 40 million.
To stimulate the economic development of Kunming City and the surrounding region, Yunnan Yunling Engineering Cost Consultation (YYECC) was charged to create a rapid transportation system in the city’s southeastern section. Part of a larger urban revitalization project worth RMB 90 billion, this RMB 9.914 billion project included a total construction mileage of 65.48 kilometers, consisting of roads, bridges, tunnels, and urban underground pipe corridors. As the BIM management organization, YYECC was responsible for coordinating industrialized and automated processes for data transfer and sharing through a connected data environment leveraging Bentley’s ProjectWise.
Leveraging a CDE based on the collaboration and management capabilities of ProjectWise, combined with the engineering and design capabilities of other Bentley applications, YYECC developed a comprehensive and owner-supported BIM methodology. The process was designed to ensure that information was shared, but it also established the digital DNA required for future decision making by the owner-operator. Because this project will run for 20 years, and include more than 25 different participating organizations, a robust BIM process that is supported by enabling technology is paramount to success.
LumenRT’s visualization capabilities enhanced the appearance of the model and allowed the team to share simulations with the executors and directors of the project so that they could better understand the progress of construction. The process improved visualization efficiency by 70 percent.
Additionally, YYECC organized and supported the creation of a sophisticated digital twin model of the project, covering the entire 20-square-kilometer project area. This process resulted in a 90 percent coverage of the entire project area, with 3,650 design and test drawings, plus management of process standards, cost information, and project supervision data numbering in the hundreds of copies.Â
Through its robust use of BIM methodologies to industrialize the project execution and delivery, YYECC has achieved significant ROI. Where in previous projects, four full-time employees were required for managing approvals of cost submittals, only one person is now required to accomplish the same scope. Additional benefits included reducing the review and approval process from one week to one hour, lowering the deficiency of acquired early-stage materials by 40 percent, improving information quality on site by over 30 percent, enhancing design efficiency by 25 percent, and reducing design drawing errors by 60 percent. These tremendous benefits were recognized by the government as well, which has issued numerous citations to the project and has introduced a new directive to other projects in the region to adopt similar BIM methodology and technologies.
YYECC already sees benefits of their industrialized project delivery. By creating a robust CDE, YYECC says that the digital twin model will serve as the basis for not only better construction projects, but also a key factor for improving digital urban management for future generations in Kunming City.
Chao Li, deputy director, Yunnan Yunling Engineering Cost Consultation, said, “Bentley’s ProjectWise decreased the time it took to approve materials used on the project by 40 percent, and giving the project team the ability to access information in the field improved information integrity by 30 percent.”Founded in 1968, Andeavor is a highly integrated marketing, logistics, and refining company, operating in 18 states in the United States and employing more than 14,000 employees. The company operates 10 refineries and 7,500 miles of pipeline in the mid-continent and western United States with a combined capacity of about 1.2 million barrels per day. Andeavor works to create a safer and cleaner future with reliable transportation fuel solutions.
As an owner of many refineries with an ongoing portfolio of capital projects, Andeavor used a brownfield environmental upgrade and expansion project of an oil refinery located in the state of Washington to understand how to benefit from Advanced Work Packaging (AWP) to achieve real benefits. AWP has been published as a best practice by the Construction Industry Institute (CII) since 2015, and the construction industry is gradually beginning to adopt this approach.
The three-phase refinery upgrade project on which Andeavor is using AWP will expand the NHT reactor to process 46,000 barrels of naphtha per day and involves the installation of a new isomerization unit to increase the amount of octane available in the refinery. The project will also include installing underground pipes, earthworks, and foundations, as well as nine modules fabricated overseas and all the interconnecting and tie-in components.
Andeavor used ConstructSim and Navigator with Bentley’s outcome-based AWP best practices, and Team Builder Solutions, a Bentley Channel Partner, customized on-site implementation to ensure data reliability for project controls and transparency regarding installation work packages (IWPs). ConstructSim enabled progress audits to help keep contractors focused on key deliverables and maintain schedule adherence, avoiding progress over-reporting.
Not only did the project team overcome many challenges (most of them cultural) with sustainable and practical work processes, it was able to measure and show tangible business benefits. For example, increasing time on tools from the industry average of 34 percent to over 40 percent saved 4,000 craft labor resource hours. Significant cost savings were also achieved by reducing the cost of construction planners building the IWPs manually, dropping from an average of 10 hours per IWP to three hours per IWP using ConstructSim, saving more than 1,000 resource hours in construction planning alone. The time that was saved also led to savings in material handling and crew mobilization costs. Other outcomes included improvements in safety, measurement, communication, and productivity.
Douglas Hill, CEO and principal project consultant, Team Builder Solutions, said, “This project proved the value of Advanced Work Packaging for supporting Andeavor’s desire to improve their capital projects program. Andeavor’s Project Management Team embraced the best practice paired with a customized implementation process. Together with Bentley’s expertise in its solutions and education through the Construction Academy, the team was able to develop an approach that will enable them to replicate this success.”This project won the 2018 Construction Industry Institute Implementation Award (https://www.construction-institute.org/blog/2018/july-2018/andeavor-receives-cii-implementation-award).
Oman Gas Company (OGC) is the principal gas transportation company of the Sultanate of Oman established in 2000. OGC operates a 2,500-kilometer high-pressure gas transmission network that runs the length and breadth of the Sultanate with annual gas transmission volumes of around 21.549 billion cubic meters. Other facilities include three compressor stations and 38 gas supply stations. The majority of the Sultanate’s industrial sectors, from power and desalination plants to fertilizer, methanol, petrochemicals, refineries, steel, and cement plants, rely on OGC to deliver the gas for their operations.
OGC adopted an advanced reliability and integrity program that ensures production availability to meet its customer demands and achieve its goal of becoming “a world-class midstream gas value chain company.” The organization has digitized its reliability and maintenance program by implementing Bentley’s AssetWise Asset Reliability solution. To reduce human intervention and avoid human fault analysis, the system leverages the inherent capabilities of AssetWise Asset Reliability to automate several processes including:
The software utilizes these inputs to calculate reliability and availability of an individual asset based on an exponential reliability model. The weekly calculations are based on series and parallel configurations, which were previously performed monthly by a dedicated reliability engineer using Excel spreadsheets.
The system introduces digital workflows using handheld devices for routine operator duties to bridge the disconnect between engineers and field operators by mapping trends, monitoring operational parameters, and providing necessary technical support remotely. It also ensures that operational key performance indicators (KPIs) are achieved by monitoring the compliance status regularly.
Bentley’s AssetWise Asset Reliability solution triggers an alert and email notification as soon as any value is out of range. With this technology, OGC has calculated a significant increase in reliability performance. This calculation is based on failure reduction against Mean Time to Repair and Cost of Lost Production Opportunity, which greatly impacts revenues and profits.
Fahmi Reza, head of reliability and condition monitoring, Oman Gas Company, said, “The auto-alert and email notification features of Bentley’s AssetWise Asset Reliability are enabling us to improve our reliability growth at a significant rate of about 9 percent in a year.”Telecommunication infrastructure owners have some of the most widely distributed and remote assets to build, maintain, and repair. With approximately 27,000 distributed sites and 6,000 communication towers under management, Telstra is Australia’s leading telecommunication service provider. Traditional inspection methods of towers involve manually taking photographs and measurements. This requires workers climbing on the towers, usually in remote areas, making the process dangerous, inefficient, costly, and time-consuming.
In 2017, Telstra engaged SiteSee to perform automated as-built and condition assessment reports by applying machine learning and object recognition technology to 3D reality meshes. The objective of the AUD 66,000 project was to assess the suitability and accuracy of SiteSee’s technology and provide a business benefits analysis for performing a portfolio-wide rollout.
Creating 3D models of communication towers using reality modeling applications is a challenging task and requires specific workflows, camera settings, flight plans, and a sound understanding of photogrammetry principles. As a recognized reality modeling solutions provider of Bentley Systems, SiteSee provided reality modeling training and support to Telstra’s UAV teams and preferred contractors tasked with performing data capture. Captured imagery was then uploaded to SiteSee’s platform for processing and analysis. SiteSee’s web-accessible solution achieved 98 percent object recognition accuracy of all installed equipment with a dimensional accuracy of +-10 millimeters over 50 meters. As-built information was then automatically assessed against Telstra’s database of records to deliver actionable information for multiple department groups and third-party stakeholders.
To enable SiteSee’s object recognition technology and position elements accurately within a 3D environment, SiteSee utilized Bentley’s ContextCapture. Previous attempts using other photogrammetry solutions had resulted in low-quality 3D meshes. However, Bentley’s ContextCapture produced highly accurate 3D reality meshes when flown using SiteSee’s proprietary capture methodology. From an environmental perspective, SiteSee’s technology is minimizing site visits, mobilization of access equipment, and the need for tower climbs by up to 60 percent. From a safety perspective, SiteSee’s additional value-add electromagnetic energy (EME) simulation is improving radiation compliance for carriers with cellular installations on towers in populated areas. Using Bentley’s reality modeling technology, SiteSee’s EME assessments provide as-built transparency on antenna placements, which allows engineers to make accurate EME assessments without physically climbing towers.
For wireless network engineering design teams, SiteSee’s web-accessible reality mesh and object recognition technology reduced travel and design time by a minimum of eight hours. Through development of an automated UAV application, data is captured in less than 20 minutes. SiteSee was also able to identify damaged equipment, which caused the tower to repeatedly drop coverage. By notifying the appropriate departments, SiteSee was instrumental in returning service to customers.
Utilizing off-the-shelf UAV equipment and cloud-based processing and hosting services, SiteSee’s condition assessment and tower auditing solution is highly scalable and easily reproducible. When compared against traditional tower assessment solutions requiring teams of engineers, climbers, or access equipment to lift assessors into place, SiteSee provides improved accuracy and transparency at less than 25 percent the cost of a standard inspection. Moreover, easily accessing up-to-date, as-built information and making more informed decisions allows clients to benefit from reduced site visits for planning and design works.
SiteSee’s unique application of machine learning has already been recognized by multiple third parties, including Spar3D. SiteSee’s globally applicable solution has also been recognized by TowerXchange, with SiteSee’s co-founder Lachlan Crane being awarded the under 35 Rising Star award for new technology. Crane summarized Bentley’s contribution to SiteSee’s success by saying, “Bentley’s ContextCapture provided the foundation technology stack for SiteSee to deliver premium web-accessible 3D mesh models.”The London sewerage system was designed in the Victorian era to serve a population of 4 million people. There are now more than 8 million people in London, and this growth has put significant strain on the system, causing it to spill millions of tons of sewage into the tidal section of the River Thames each year. This happens about 50 times during a year. The Thames Tideway Project will reduce these occurrences to about four a year. The project has been divided into three contracts, East, Central, and West with a total value exceeding GBP 4 billion. There are many challenges facing a project of this scale, from marine construction works in the River Thames, creating a new profile to the river walls, to solving design issues where large gas mains are present in proximity to the existing rivers walls. Therefore, it is critical that such services are protected during construction works.
AECOM, part of a joint venture consisting of Ferrovial Agroman and Laing O’Rourke (‘Flo’), is the main designer on the Central Contract to the Main Works Contractor. AECOM undertook to host the Central Contract on behalf of Flo using Bentley Systems’ Connected Data Environment based on ProjectWise for its ability to manage engineering data and its scalability from small to large projects. Using workflows, defined document coding, and managed workspaces, AECOM has delivered a controlled and secure CDE to manage this highly complex project. ProjectWise, as the hub of the CDE and leveraging the established project standards, provides a central repository for all project data produced by each stakeholder involved on this contract. This ensures that they are working to a common standard, including temporary and permanent works.
MicroStation and OpenBuildings Designer act as the deliverables format for drawings and models, as defined by the main client. AECOM adopted these applications because of their compatibility with each other and with ProjectWise. AECOM also used Bentley Rebar, Navigator, Pointools, Descartes, gINT, Bentley Facilities Manager, and ContextCapture. Using these interoperable applications ensured limited risk and avoided the need for additional processes.
AECOM has already realized numerous benefits and savings through the adoption of a digital twin and a CDE. iModels were produced from the Design Master Model on a weekly and monthly basis and available for all stakeholders to see the development of each site as it progressed. The project team used the iModels to carry out multidiscipline clash checks that were sent to the design and modeling teams to resolve. The project team also used iModels during the internal design review process. Using the project digital twin and CDE also resulted in “non-engineering” savings, including increased IT security and reliability, better access and editing control, improved automatic PDF generation, and reduced travel costs for project members by enabling real-time access anywhere, at any time.
Barry Jones, associate director and BIM manager with AECOM, said, “Bentley ProjectWise provided the controlled environment in which to build a virtual representation of the assets of eight individual sites, comprising multiple disciplines, producing more than 140,000 documents from more than 40 stakeholders, consisting of more than 1,000 users in a coordinated fashion through the design phase and into construction and as-constructed in preparation for a handback to the client.”The City of Agra is an International Heritage City and a major tourist destination. It is situated on the banks of the Yamuna River, which is fed perennially by Himalayan glaciers and has been a source of Agra’s drinking water for centuries. However, rapid growth in urbanization and construction of irrigation networks has substantially reduced fresh water inflow into the downstream stretches of the river.
Cities situated along the river, including Delhi, discharge a large quantity of partially treated and untreated sewage and industrial waste into the river throughout the year. The Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam is a government corporation under the Uttar Pradesh state government that provides statewide water supply services. Realizing the social and economic significance of providing an adequate potable water supply to the populace and to industries, U.P. Jal Nigam initiated an improvement scheme for water supply in Agra City.
The Agra Water Supply System draws water from the Yamuna River to supply the city. It serves about 65 percent of the present population with potable water through a complex water supply system network. The distribution system is considerably old, as evidenced by high Unaccounted for Water (UFW), which is suspected to be mainly caused by physical losses due to the system’s poor condition. The operation of the existing system is considered intermittent supply, running six-to-eight hours per day on average. Using Bentley’s WaterGEMS and STAAD.Pro applications, NJS Engineers India P Limited created and analyzed a comprehensive model of the entire water network. The target outcome was to identify gaps in the current system and to create a forward-looking performance model that would enable U.P. Jal Nigam to predict water supply for decades to come, while moving from an intermittent supply system to a 24x7 system.
Using Bentley’s WaterGEMS and STAAD.Pro applications, the NJS team conducted numerous studies and analyses of the existing and future network upgrades. Creating a real-time, shareable GIS-enabled model of the network, U.P. Jal Nigam’s operations teams can now monitor inventory in real-time, instantly reducing operating and production costs. Through the detailed analysis model, future upgrades to the water network will ensure 100 percent water supply to the region by 2030, 24 hours a day. Studies also found several undersized pipes in the existing network, which can now be prioritized for replacement to ensure the future network is fully capable of meeting the increased demand, while covering 100 percent of Agra City and regional inhabitants. Using the GIS-enabled model into operations will identify problems in the network faster and shorten the time to make decisions on new connections or maintenance via a single collaboration platform. These benefits are in addition to the INR 360 million saved in the design and construction phases of the projects as a result of having more accurate models.
The City of Agra, now celebrating the 350th year of the Taj Mahal, faces a wide range of urban physical and social problems that threaten to irreparably damage its valuable tourist trade as well as the health and welfare of its citizens. The project, when completed, will provide safe and reliable water supply 24x7 in Agra and improve the living conditions of all residents in the concerned areas.
“The measurable or projected results achieved using Bentley technology included reducing the number of large-scale drawings by 35 percent, saving 300 resource hours, and 60 resource months during construction,” said Rohit Dembi, ITES Head at NJS Engineers.Bankura is an administrative unit in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is part of Medinipur—one of the state’s five administrative divisions. The Damodar River flows in the northern part of the Bankura district and separates it from the major part of the Burdwan district. The district has been described as the “connecting link between the plains of Bengal on the east and the Chota Nagpur plateau on the west.” West Bengal Bankura has been selected for this water distribution improvement project by the Public Health and Environmental Engineering Department (PHED) of West Bengal. PHED is headquartered at Kolkata for Multi-Village Bulk Water Supply Projects and is jointly funded by PHED and the Asian Development Bank.
This project was limited to four of the eight blocks in the Bankura District: Mejhia, Gangajalghati, Indpur, and Taldangra, and is of critical importance to the region, as less than 4 percent of the 359,172 habitants in the 600 villages contained within the four blocks have a piped drinking water supply. The aim of this project is to connect the remaining 96 percent of the population through developing new water systems to meet supply, while rehabilitating the existing, aged water system to continue supplying existing customers. The scope of the project calls for adding 4,000 kilometers of new pipeline to the existing 100 kilometers of pipeline, leveraging a single hydraulic model covering more than 50 unique scenarios. DTK Hydronet Solutions used Bentley’s WaterGEMS to perform the design engineering on this INR 12.38 billion project to improve the lives of more than 1 million inhabitants in the region.
Projects of similar scope had required four months of effort to create the initial hydraulic model. Using WaterGEMS, DTK Hydronet Solutions’ engineers accomplished this new model in one month, saving 75 percent in project resource-hour costs. WaterGEMS’ sophisticated modeling capabilities enabled the team to model the existing network and develop proposed roadmaps for the new network in a single GIS model, including assessing more than 39,000 junctions within the network.
Village population and density projections were included to help future-proof the design. This solution enabled the team to create its initial model of the entire network (existing and proposed new) in just five days. Difficult topography assessments, changes in transmission routes, optimal scheduling of pumping operations and energy-to-cost calculations were all performed on the model as it was revised to yield the final proposed design. In only 25 days, not only was the initial design created, optimized, and finalized, but multiple worst-case scenarios, high-demand analysis, and other “what-if” scenarios were assessed that could not have been performed outside of the single hydraulic model in WaterGEMS.
Devashir Karve, water engineering consultant at DTK Hydronet Solutions, said, “Bentley WaterGEMS enabled ‘conceptioneering’ in this 4,000 kilometer-long, multi-village rural water supply’s single hydraulic model to benefit about 1 million villagers in India. Design evaluation and analysis was efficiently done in an optimal timeframe of 25 man-days making the project the first of its kind!”The South-to-North Water Diversion Project is a major foundational strategic project to alleviate the severe shortage of water resources in northern China, especially in the capital of Beijing, to optimize the allocation of water resources, and to support the development of Beijing and Tianjin. The Beijing Institute of Water was tasked with this CNY 3.4 billion project to support the Hexi Branch sub-project in creating construction drawings of multiple pumping stations, water transmission lines, and water treatment plants.
Leveraging BIM methodologies to manage the design and information management, the entire system was designed using 3D modeling and Bentley’s ProjectWise as the central collaboration environment. From these design models, construction drawings and secondary design analyses were conducted using MicroStation for annotation and rebar assessment, greatly improving the efficiency of creating detailed drawings. In addition, the project team used Descartes to create surface digital engineering models and building models, allowing the team to track construction completion digitally, rather than relying on paper queries for information.
Bentley’s HAMMER was used to analyze and calculate the hydraulic transition between the pumping stations and to calculate pressure distribution along the path in case of pump shutdown, ensuring that the system can operate safely under any circumstance. Three-dimensional geological models of the entire site using MicroStation resulted in 60 percent faster modeling times compared to previous 2D methodologies. This process also enabled the direct creation of a complex pipeline mesh model to calculate the shortest clear directions to optimize the design and protection of various pipelines. This innovative, first-of-a-kind approach saved 80 percent in design time compared to previous 2D methods.
By combining full lifecycle management concepts, the Hexi branch project carried out design work of intelligent water in the initial design phase. From this intelligent water design, the project has developed a strong technical basis to support operation of the project through leveraging 3D collaborative design results, building reliable model information archives and enabling the project to fully realize digital design, digital construction management, and digital operations.
Xin Yin, chief engineer of the Information Center for the Institute, stated, “This project is not only an example of 3D application in water supply engineering for an urban long-distance tunnel, but it is also a successful 3D practice in design, construction, and management. Taking this project as a symbol, we will lead 3D design trends in long-distance, super-large-pipe water transmission engineering, ushering in a new era in the industry in which 3D collaborative design is widely applied to the field of water conservancy design.”The Cha’anling-Ziaojiazhou region in China’s Zianning District is a highly developed region and home to 350,000 consumers of electricity. Historically, the region has experienced unreliable power supply, making consumer delivery unstable. Cha’anling-Ziaojiazhou is highly urban, with complex topology complicating the task of adding new power lines. Moreover, major highways that cross the region complicate the ability to add new transmission lines without impacting commercial and residential traffic. Further complicating potential improvements, the region borders the flood diversion area of the Yangtze River, meaning that potential flooding around future towers must be accounted for from the beginning. These factors mean that finding a solution to deliver improved power requires a new approach.
The Hubei Provincial Electric Power Survey and Design Institute was tasked with designing and delivering a new 220-kilovolt transmission line to provide power for a newly constructed substation in Xiaojiazhou. This transmission line is a significant step for improving the lives of the 350,000 daily users in Jiayu County. However, the obstacles that faced the Design Institute are significant. To solve these challenges, the engineering teams began by creating a fully immersive digital twin of the affected regions using ContextCapture. Modeling the entire region, including multiple cities and highways, established an immersive digital baseline from which the design studies could be made. Leveraging Bentley’s OpenBuildings Designer, Bentley Substation, and STAAD.Pro, Hubei’s engineers created a digital engineering model of the transmission line, which could be added to and combined with the immersive digital twin to visualize the new line and identify potential obstacles and issues. Analyses of the design could be performed and optimized to ensure that the new towers were structurally sound, to minimize interference with the urban and traffic areas, and to reduce design time compared to previous methods. The resulting design, leveraging Bentley’s iModel technology, was fully deployable into a three-dimensional earth view, ensuring that multiple stakeholders could review the planned route and design.
Implementing a completely digital workflow combined with immersive models has paid significant dividends during the design phase. In addition to increasing online collaboration, planned design time was reduced by 12 percent, checking time by 16 percent, and planned field work by five days. The design saved six houses in the region from being demolished, while ensuring that each of the major crossing areas were optimally designed. Design optimizations resulted in savings of material costs, with the new tower designs reducing weights by 1.2 percent and the total route length decreasing by half of a kilometer.
Through increased collaboration with contractors and design departments, design reviews to reduce conflicts between towers, lines, and the environment were optimized, reducing future rework and in-field problems. Using a digital design and collaboration model, the Hubei Provincial Electric Power Survey and Design Institute realized savings of more than CNY 6 million on a CNY 32.21 million project. The Hubei Provincial Electric Power Survey and Design Institute’s transformation to a digital environment has resulted in a design that not only saves money but also improves the lives of the residents in the Xianning District while preserving the environment.
Liang Zhang, an engineer with POWERCHINA Hubei Electric Engineering Corporation Limited, said, “The innovative use of Bentley software for the design of overhead electric transmission lines reduced design time by approximately 40 hours through multidiscipline collaboration. The full electric transmission line pole tower layout model, supported by the reality model, reduced the checking and auditing time by 32 hours. About 12 percent of the total design time and 16 percent of the checking time were reduced.”The Xinjiang 750-kilovolt substation project is in the Bortala Mongolia Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China. New energy in this region has developed rapidly. The installed capacity of domestic wind power is 445.5 megawatts, and the installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation is 530 megawatts. Accelerating the delivery of photovoltaic power and wind power in the Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture will require strong grid support and high-voltage, large capacity outbound channels. The completion of the Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture 750-kilovolt transmission and transformation project will add a new way of delivering energy sources that not only increases the safety and reliability of power supply in the region, but also significantly improves the living standards of local people.
Using a variety of Bentley applications, including OpenBuildings Designer, LumenRT, MicroStation, STAAD, and Bentley Substation, the Northeast Electric Power Design Institute was tasked with delivering a new 750-kilovolt substation. The organization established a connected data environment based on Bentley’s ProjectWise for seamless collaboration among project participants. This CNY 500 million project was only possible by adopting a true design and analytical modeling approach, fully leveraging the power of digital twins to optimize the design work, improve collaboration between design partners, and realize substation savings for the total cost of the project. Leveraging a fully digital design philosophy resulted in reductions in occupied area within the fence region by 30 percent, earth volume by 70 percent, and reduced building footprint by 60 percent, resulting in significant savings in design time, total design costs (30 percent), and schedule (completed three days early).
Yuhang Zu, the lead for 3D designs for new construction, stated, “More applications of 3D designs in transformer substation projects can help us complete more designs better and more efficiently. In real 3D designs, we can express, analyze, and exchange designs and deliver our design in a 2D or 3D manner. 3D collaborative design gets much closer to the nature of design: design from scratch. During this process, a real ‘3D space’ is available for fulfilling our designs, that is, representing and extending ‘3D imagination’ in the minds of the designers. Additionally, 3D collaborative designs place more emphasis on the efficiency of the team than on the efficiency of certain individuals or disciplines.”
Olak Lempit is located within the district of Banting, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. Most of the population of Olak Lempit is of Javanese origin who migrated from Indonesia. Olak Lempit is located near the Lempit River, from which the town’s name derives. With its strategic location 30 minutes from Malaysia’s largest international airport, KLIA, and 45 minutes from the country’s busiest shipping port of Klang, the village rapidly developed into an industrial zone with various plants and manufacturing factories, commercial offices, shops, residential houses, and international schools. This growth has resulted in the need to expand the power supply in the region. The Olak Lempit substation will be expanded from a 275/132-kilovolt substation to a 500-kilovolt substation. The owner, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), expects the work to be done using the latest substation technology.
TNB awarded Pestech International Berhad an RM 79.5 million contract to build this next-generation substation in Olak Lempit. Facing a tight 15-month schedule and knowing the significant benefit that this project will have on the region for generating additional power, Pestech undertook a digital approach to deliver a very challenging project. Complicating this project are a number of topological, environmental, and economic considerations. The existing and planned sites are surrounded by palm oil plantations and villages. Multiple contractors will be working on the site to deliver both the new transmission lines as well as other expansions to the substation facility. Utilizing existing infrastructure where possible, while minimizing raw material and equipment costs, places an additional economic and logistical challenge on the project. Lastly, the existing design must be future-proof for future expansion, including the addition of a new power generation plant that is expected to enter the grid in 2023.
To meet the challenges of this complicated project and its environment, Pestech needed a very robust, collaborative, efficient, and digital approach. Using iModels and a host of Bentley applications, including OpenBuildings Designer, ContextCapture, MicroStation, ProjectWise, and Bentley Substation, Pestech created a digital twin of the existing site and leveraged the power of the solutions’ integration to create a new substation design. From creating 3D models of the existing region to checking for obstructions, obstacles, and clashes, to using intelligent modeling to optimize the substation design, this digital approach enabled Pestech to realize a more complete and cost-effective design. Enabling seamless collaboration between previously disconnected disciplines, while also implementing a connected data environment that maintained engineering information accurately, allowed virtual models of the design to be realized.
Because of Pestech’s digital workflows, numerous benefits to the project have been realized. These include a 50 percent reduction in drawing creation time, a 60 percent reduction in revisions due to clashes and interferences, a reduction of cable schedule reviews from days to hours, and a 10 to 20 percent reduction in cable and electrical component waste. These savings have helped Pestech realize an RM 200,000 savings compared to similar projects. Pestech’s digital advancement has realized savings not only for this project, but also contributed to realizing the continued future growth of Olak Lempit.
Sean Lee, an assistant manager with Pestech, said, “[We] implemented Bentley Substation throughout the project [on the] primary and secondary design: Bentley Raceway and Cable Management for cable routing design; Navigator for walk-throughs and clash detections; ProjectWise for document management; and MicroStation for 3D modeling. Using symbol libraries and report templates developed in 2D and 3D are easily produced with reports automatically generated. This had reduced the design time by an average of 50 percent out of the different functions implemented.”
The INR 11.98 billion Chenab Rail Bridge, which is under construction, is located between Bakkal and Kauri in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), India. At 359 meters above the river bed, the rail-arch bridge will be the highest in the world and, with an arch span of 467 meters and 1,315 meters in length, the longest span-exclusive, broad-gauge rail line and seventh longest single span bridge. The bridge is a part of the Jammu-Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Line (JUSBRL) project being undertaken by the Indian Ministry of Railways, which consists of many tunnels and bridges in highly rugged and mountainous terrain with difficult Himalayan geology. The bridge will reduce the current 12 hours of travel time to six hours to help stimulate the local economy and provide weather connectivity between the summer and winter capitals of Jammu and Kashmir.
The alignment crosses the deep gorges of the Chenab River near Salal Hydro Power Dam, which necessitates the construction of a high, long-span bridge. A steel arch configuration was chosen for the aesthetics, economy, and availability of local expertise and construction materials. The bridge site selection was based on important technical and geological parameters, such as the narrow valley at the site, competent rock mass at each bank, favorable orientation of joint sets, straight reach, and river flow without cross-currents.
The project faced several challenges, such as slope stabilization, high-wind, extreme weather, seismic activity, and possible terrorist attacks, which required the bridge to be built to withstand 260-kilometers-per-hour wind forces, blast impact loads, and temperatures below -20 degrees Celsius. Sophisticated train control and bridge monitoring are also required to ensure train regulation for wind speeds, earthquake activity, and strain gauging of critical steel components. Construction must be done with cable cars, using the world’s longest span cable crane.
The organization used OpenRail Designer to meet the rigorous rail alignment demands, OpenBridge for bridge planning and analysis, and STAAD for structural behavior analysis of the massive bridge. ContextCapture was used for construction planning, monitoring, inspection, and surveying. The application was critical in managing the construction site progress and conducting inspection during construction to accelerate the project and ensure quality, repeatable documentation of the bridge inspection. ContextCapture helped save 225 days in surveying, equating to USD 40,000 in savings, and reduced construction inspection time by 80 percent, resulting in savings of more than USD 100,000.
B.P. Awasthi, executive director – Track at Indian Railways, noted, “Bentley’s ContextCapture solution empowered our project teams to efficiently and effectively carry out construction monitoring, ensuring immersive visibility, safety, and adherence to delivery schedules.”
As one of the first rail railway bridge projects in India to adopt the latest technology to traditional survey and construction work, the success of this iconic project will change traditional workflows and will trigger the use of modern tools in similar projects worldwide.
The Hannam Bridge was commission in 1976 and, at the time, it was considered the foundation of the infrastructure system in South Korea. After more than 40 years of operation, the bridge, as well as hundreds of other same-generation bridges, are aged and deteriorating and reaching the end of their design life. As a result, there is an urgent demand for bridge maintenance or rehabilitation across the country’s infrastructure while also ensuring that construction does not impede the flow of transportation. To ensure that there is a strict monitoring and inspection system and efficient rehabilitation, the Korean government developed a new bridge maintenance system (BMS). Â
The ongoing deterioration of bridges is a serious concern for transportation agencies and emphasizes the need for a cost-effective, proactive strategy to provide preventive maintenance. Therefore, the establishment of a new generation BMS provides a more reliable decision-making process for bridge maintenance. Object-oriented 3D models were utilized to provide the level of detail, analysis, evaluation, and collaborative workflows needed during the design process and support BIM methodologies required for the new BMS system.
The bridge maintenance team created a digital twin to be paired with a physical entity and then represent its existence to help with monitoring and data analysis. First, a 3D geometry model was generated using the as-built document of the existing bridge using OpenBridge Modeler. Next, a “reversed” 3D surface model was created using ContextCapture and a 3D scanning procedure. Noteworthy in this 3D model is the combination of photo scanning using drones for the lateral and top surface model, and laser scanning cloud data for the bottom surface model. At the end of this task, the 3D models are overlapped based on predefined marks, which are included within the digital twin and attached to the real bridge before 3D scanning procedure. The overlapped model can be considered as the performance digital twin of the physical bridge, including damage records, and represents the as-is model at the beginning of the maintenance project.
Lastly, RM Bridge was used to derive an analysis model from the digital twin for assessing the future behavior of the bridge. Using the digital twin, inspection work can be implemented automatically with a camera and the aid of a damage detection framework, which uses image processing and image tracing methodology. Once the damage is detected, cracks, material degradation, corrosion of steel elements, or other issues are assessed to determine reduction of structural parameters. A chain of analysis cases is conducted according to different combined load cases. The results are then compared and discussed, and the future behavior of the bridge is analyzed. Using digital twins helps the bridge management team determine required repair/strengthening measures in the new bridge maintenance system to better manage the monitoring and inspection system for all Korean bridges.
The CNY 10.5 billion Yaoshan-Luanchuan section of the Zhengzhou-Xixia Expressway is 78.8-kilometers long and is a bi-directional and four-lane expressway, which includes 88 bridges, four interchanges, two interoperability hubs, and two super-long tunnels. The bridge and tunnel ratio is 59.8 percent of the project. The project is critical for developing an efficient transportation network to support the region’s economic development strategy and promote social economic development.
Henan Provincial Communications Planning Survey & Design Institute Co. Ltd. is a one-stop engineering technical service and provides construction, surveying, design, and technical consultancy on highway engineering on projects in China, Southeast Asia, and Africa. The company employs BIM methodologies to improve design quality and efficiency, cultivate BIM expertise, innovate employing BIM data in the highway industry, and reduce the time and capital cost in the design, construction, and operation lifecycle.
The expressway project team faced a variety of challenges to ensure the accurate design of the model and used Bentley’s civil applications to include subgrade roads, bridges, tunnels, and culverts within one model and ensure collaboration across all disciplines in highway design. OpenRoads was used to build a 3D model defining the cross sections of roads and importing data related to horizontal and vertical sections. The project team also used the model for bidding. OpenBridge Modeler was used to build parametric models for bridges with higher efficiency than past work processes. ProStructures was used for models for steel bars in bridges and to detect collisions and errors in design, decreasing the number of errors in construction drawings by 1,350. OpenRoads and MicroStation were used to streamline section drawings of tunnels, set up stations for different tunnel sections, and automatically generate tunnel models. The team developed plug-ins for automatic coding of components, increasing coding efficiency by 90 percent compared to traditional methods. LumenRT was used to produce 3D animation and videos for visualization deliverables. The model was also used to integrate PDF documents and design drawings; and iModels were imported into Navigator to communicate information to construction sites.
The team also addressed how to combine a GIS-based, BIM project management platform with construction management and meet the owner’s requirements for BIM model accuracy, model separation, and member information coding. Using these innovative applications, the project team reduced design errors and changes, provided design feedback, and improved quality optimization of the drawings by 97 percent. In addition, BIM methodologies helped to improve efficiencies in the lifecycle of the project and provide reference for future projects. Reducing the usual design and construction errors resulted in lower construction costs and increased economic efficiency.
Guiting Zhang, director of research and development center for engineering BIM-applied technology, said, “Bentley’s infrastructure products helped us take important steps toward realizing BIM practices for this highway project. In terms of roads, bridges, and tunnels, we improved the drawing quality, reduced construction drawing errors by over 1,350 items and human costs by CNY 200,000, raised modeling efficiency by 50 percent, and created substantial benefits for the owner organization through multiple deliverables. The BIM project management platform combines codes with components, carries multistage data, and controls and manages project construction quality. At the same time, this platform offers a complete database for the later-period operation and management and will bring positive economic benefits to this region.”
The estimated CNY 26.5 billion and 152-kilometer Zhongshan-Kaiping Expressway in China’s Guangdong province is a large-scale, fast-paced project that spans design and build and leverages Bentley technology throughout the entire workflow. The main line starts from the Hengmen Island in the east of Zhongshan, connects with the proposed Shenzhen-Zhongshan Channel, and ends at Enping, Jiangmen. The project includes 21 towns, 13 main roads, two rail transits, and 12 navigable waterways along the line. The construction operation area is widely distributed, requires complex technology, has sensitive environmental concerns, and includes nearly 40 organizations involved in project construction for project supervision, inspection, and testing.
To ensure success with such a significant project, POWERCHINA utilized BIM processes and Bentley’s 3D design and construction software to ensure the efficient management of the entire project. Leveraging digital data throughout the workflow and coordinating across multiple disciplines and teams were critical to the Expressway project, which faced difficult challenges, such as tight construction deadlines, complex business processes, cumbersome engineering data, and sharing of data across the number of entities involved in the project.
Using ContextCapture to create oblique aerial photography, the organization produced 80 million original photos to realize plan comparison and selection, enhance communication, and quickly determine the impact of demolition in densely populated areas. In the design and construction process, 3D models are used to design the planning of the main line and the layout of the construction sites. Temporary land for construction use will be established within the road border lines as far as possible. The sites and space backlog are reduced by 1 percent through the comparison and selection of multiple plans, and the environmental impact and interference with residents are reduced.
By using Bentley’s civil design and construction applications, the team was able to adjust the construction sequence, allocate construction progress, and optimize the construction organization design. As a result, people, materials, and machines were used efficiently, resulting in a 5 percent reduction in engineering cost compared with the original construction plan, saving almost CNY 1.3 billion. Additionally, the construction progress was shortened by 68 days. Â
Based on the cooperation and sharing of the design-construction management system, 124 design changes and 230 quality inspections were handled with no accidents. The development of the Zhongshan-Kaiping Expressway BIM project has prompted the design institute and construction units to develop a design and construction-integrated management platform to support BIM processes. Using OpenRoads, OpenBridge, MicroStation, and Navigator, the design institute was able to create an accurate 3D model of the project and ensure accurate and error-free design. The design team optimized the design to avoid engineering shutdowns and increase of quantities caused by design changes, and indirectly saved more than CNY 80 million in engineering costs.
To build the project efficiently, the team employed a BIM process to coordinate and share information among all project management parties. POWERCHINA independently developed a design and construction-integrated management platform to integrate
business data, such as engineering environmental models, engineering BIM models, oblique photography models, orthophotos and design changes, schedules, quality, and safety.
Tonggeng Ji, chief engineer of POWERCHINA (Guangdong) Zhongshan-Kaiping Expressway Co., Ltd., said, “Bentley’s road solution optimized the design process and reduced the increased costs due to design changes. It is no exaggeration to say that from the office, I can now clearly understand the on-site conditions, carry out technical discussions based on the model and BIM processes, and make better decisions.”
The Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) initiated an estimated USD 750 million reconstruction project to replace structurally deficient and functionally obsolete interstate bridges through downtown Birmingham. The existing bridges are located along the only east-west interstate through the Birmingham Business District and is primarily an elevated six-lane-divided highway through this 3.5-mile section of the city. The twin bridges include 189 bridge spans, which require new girders and deck sections. The reconstruction project consisted of 23 new bridges, eight bridge widenings, five bridge replacements, and 16 retaining walls.
ALDOT understood that the construction process had to be precise and efficient with as few construction delays as possible. For these reasons, ALDOT used 3D design and construction analysis to identify potential issues and potential construction delays before the project broke ground. The visualization group of ALDOT’s design bureau was tasked with providing a complete 3D model. To support precise cost estimation and lower bids for the project, it was critical that the digital engineering model include accurate and timely data to support multiple uses, including visualizations, design checks, construction analysis, clash detection, right-of-way negotiations, lawsuits, aesthetics, and construction bidding.
The project faced many challenges, including a fast-paced schedule, information coordination, utility coordination, public involvement, and changes in the overall design. Because of public and stakeholder concerns, the visualization group used MicroStation Luxology rendering capabilities and LumenRT to create visualizations that were instrumental in winning approval for the project.Â
To meet the objectives of replacing the structurally deficient and functionally obsolete interstate bridges, ALDOT used 3D design technology to ensure efficient designs, and eliminate costly construction delays. The scheduling of the project was critical, and the design needed to be created quickly and information exchanged across teams to support the 14-month construction schedule.
A critical element in any construction project are utilities, and ALDOT invested millions into locating and relocating them, engaging the visualization group to ensure that there were no clashes in the model. The organization used MicroStation’s clash detection capability to ensure that utilities were properly located in the design to minimize errors in construction. ALDOT saved over USD 10 million by implementing the BIM review methodology supported by Bentley’s technology.
Bentley’s applications also allowed ALDOT to reduce the environmental impact by minimizing noise levels in a developed urban area and eliminating dangerous and unnecessary access points along the interstate. OpenRoads was used to create the digital terrain models, and StormCAD, CulverMaster, and FlowMaster were used to address drainage and utilities design. ALDOT used ProjectWise to allowed designers, department heads, drafters, reviewers, and consulting teams to have access and ensured that everyone was working on the right data.
Using ProjectWise on the project, which is currently under construction, helped the consulting firms save thousands of dollars on time and delivery, and ALDOT to save tens of thousands of hours creating 3D models to meet the rigorous scheduling demands. ProjectWise enabled inspectors and contractors to access design files on tablets, saving hundreds of hours in meeting time and processes used on previous workflows.
Matt Taylor, P.E., state engineer, ALDOT, said, “Using Bentley’s integrated civil design and collaboration applications allowed us to quickly produce an accurate 3D model that included grade, terrain, signage, pave, striping, signals, lighting, bridges, drainage, and utilities. It eliminated design errors, minimized construction change orders, and helped save waste in public money while building safer infrastructure.”
High Speed 2 (HS2), the new high-speed rail network that will run between London in the south and Manchester and Leeds to the north, is one of the most challenging and complex projects that the United Kingdom has undertaken. With trains eventually operating at speeds of up to 250 mph – faster than any other network in Europe – the entire scheme is priced at GBP 56 billion and is the most expensive construction project in Europe to date.
The Skanska Costain STRABAG (SCS) JV brings together the combination of tried, tested, and successful partnerships and worldwide high-speed rail experience for phase 1 between London and Birmingham. This phase includes approximately 200 kilometers of new high-speed rail and four new stations across seven main works civil contracts, three separate enabling works contracts, and six route-wide systems contracts in addition to new rolling stock.
Bentley’s OpenRail solution, comprising applications and services for the comprehensive planning, engineering, project delivery, and operations of rail and transit infrastructure, is enabling SCS to meet the timescales it has set. OpenRail’s foundation, Bentley’s Connected Data Environment (CDE), which leverages digital workflows including those outlined in the PAS 1192 suite of British Standards, is providing the project team with access to trusted information wherever and whenever it is needed. In combination with Bentley’s integrated applications that include OpenRail Designer, OpenRoads, and OpenBuildings Designer, the solution is streamlining the detailed engineering and design of portals, tunnels, ventilation shafts, retaining structures, and earthworks through the automation of previously manual processes. In this way, OpenRail is helping the digital advancement of SCS’s team and work on this complex project in many areas, a few of which include:
With OpenBuildings Designer being used as the principal modeling application due to its data group and information management properties, the team is thinking about the future operation and maintenance of the railway. By linking asset information directly to the design model, SCS is enabling discussions with operators and maintainers to happen much earlier on with a project of HS2’s size and complexity, allowing different stakeholders to comment on the design and change elements that they feel will make a tangible contribution to the safe and efficient running of the network.
“Using Bentley solutions has allowed us at SCS to realize our mission statement of creating a project that will be seen as the ‘Digital Blueprint of Future Infrastructure Projects,’” said Peter Ruff, head of BIM for SCS. “They have allowed us to create, manage, and leverage intelligent BIM models and the data housed within them on a complex project, and see a significant increase in productivity, efficiencies, and collaboration between a large team and a multi-staged contract.”
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