Dowco BIM Services in Practice #1 – Analysis Model Creation

Dowco offers various Building Information Modeling Services. In this chapter of "Dowco BIM Services in Practice" we explain how the use of Dowco BIM Services can greatly benefit engineering offices in making structural analysis models.

We have recently been helping an engineering office to build an analysis model for a large international airport project. This project has several qualities which make it very hard to achieve the best possible result by doing the project in the traditional way:

• Our client was not part of the project from the beginning, but was brought in just recently to double check structural analysis and design of steel
• The quality of existing documents does not always meet the North American standards, making it sometimes very difficult to form a complete understanding of the structural systems used in the building
• The obvious issue is the size and complexity of the model, making it laborious to model the structure in analysis tools available for our client

However, a detailed Tekla Structures was available. This was a great asset, as the model was used for fabrication and thus represents the actual structure very accurately. This Tekla Structures model can with reasonably small effort be used to create the analysis model for the complete airport. The process to make the analysis model directly from Tekla Structures model goes as follows:

• Together we investigate the model and communicate what parts of the model shall be part of the analysis model
• What locations and types the analysis elements shall have: neutral axis, reference axis, shell, beam or tension only elements, etc.
• Making test analysis models from different parts of the building to be checked by our client for approval
• Communication with our client was handled by using several different tools, each of them having their unique benefits for certain purposes
• Tekla models, as customer had a Viewer configuration of Tekla Structures
• Tekla Model Reviewer models
• Video conferencing
• Textual reports describing which objects to include/exclude/modify in the structural analysis model
• Modifying the analysis models as per our client's needs and providing complete analysis models

This is actually the core of the whole BIM concept: being able to use existing and accurate information again for a different part of the project so there is minimum amount of duplicate work. Also, if there is accurate information available, doing the same work again will most likely highlight any errors in the end product. So by following this workflow, the customer did not only save a lot of money but can also trust that the analysis model is true to life.

Check out future issues of Details to see more examples how Dowco BIM Services helps our customers in real life problems. And can also help you. Don't hesitate to contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .