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Description:
In October of 1999, Dowco Consultants Ltd. entered into a contract with Helmark Steel Inc. of Wilmingtion, DE. to provide the detailing for a 39 Storey (plus the roof structure) high-rise building in Times Square, New York.
The challenges
No square corners in the structure, an unforeseen variation and quantity of connections required, unknown locations for many of the steel members, sloping columns (one of the main columns slopes over 5 degrees for the full height of the structure), a roof that actually starts on the 38th floor and spirals up through the 39th to what would be the 40th floor, and to work around areas where designs were incomplete.
The Solutions
A dedicated team using Tekla Structures: The computer model was constructed with enough accuracy to produce the required material orders and first generation of floor plans (used to coordinate the missing locations of the floor beams). The next chore was to apply the connections. These were supplied to Dowco, 10 volumes comprising of over 300 separate design packages with some of the connections being presented in tabular form and others appearing for over 500 unique locations. The first 8 volumes are secured in binders averaging 4” thick while the last 3 volumes are too large to fit in one binder. As detailing started, it became apparent that we needed to isolate areas of the building. This was due to the constant revisions to the structure and its connections, especially in the lower floors. Another reason was the construction schedule; to meet the drawing output required, we at one time had over 20 people working on the project. To ease the strain on the system the original model was broken down into 11 separate models. With the use of Tekla Structures, we were able to detect and solve many bolting and erection conflicts before they became erection problems.
Dowco produced well over 7000 drawings for this project. Congratulations and many thanks to the team of detailers and checkers who have triumphed over the many challenges and setbacks that were encountered.
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