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Campus Renewal Steel Debuts New Model

Posted on 09/29/2015

by Tom Finan, Executive Director, Construction Forum STL

When the Bi-State Fabricators Association, local chapter of the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) held its “SteelDay” event at the Engineering Center on Lindell last Friday, the featured speaker was Erica Winters-Downey,  Great Plains region engineer for the AISC, who presented a continuing education program, “Innovations in Steel”.

Her presentation covered innovative structural steel systems, including staggered truss, in-wall beams, and a mild resurgence of steel in parking structures. But the real show-stopper was a presentation by Andrew Gayer,  vice president/regional leader of engineering, HOK, on the use of design technology in the structural steel design of the BJC Campus Renewal Phase I project.

Gayer said HOK has been “semi-electronic” since 2006 – using no paper,  relying instead on marked-up and electronically stored PDFs. After seeing a presentation on 3D structural steel submittal and review at a SteelDay event in 2013, Gayer said HOK decided that “this is the next place we want to go.”

“I don’t want to be the bleeding edge but I don’t mind being the leading edge,” Gayer stated.

HOK held informational meetings and gave presentations with stakeholders and vendors during structural design. HOK had the vendors from SDS/2 Detailing and Tekla Structures present the capabilities of their respective systems to the owner, construction manager, potential fabricators and erectors, the architect, and the structural engineer.

gayerThey realized that in terms of specifications that incorporated electronic structural steel fabrication models there was, “nothing in the public realm,” said Gayer. The HOK-led team built their own spec, which allowed the bidders to elect either SDS/2 or Tekla, but stating, “A single model shall be created and maintained in the following systems… Model origin point and coordinates shall match Project’s as represented in the Design Team’s Revit Models.” (to download Gayer’s PowerPoint slides on the fabrication spec and design process, click here).

Once the project was bid and awarded, Gayer said, “3D was going to be used down the line. We’re not using our model, we’re using Ben Hur’s (the successful steel bidder’s) model.”

structural steel submittalThere is still the need for some 2D models, Gayer said. But he added that, “there’s no stamp on the sheet – the beam in the model will carry the approval.” The model contains significant meta data, Gayer said.  Key to the success of the process he noted is having a well-organized data exchange system and sufficient computing horsepower. The zipped model file is 200MB, which balloons out to 2GB unzipped.

“Things moved very quickly,” he noted. The steel package was released for bids with drawings and Revit models on Aug. 19. Following receipt of bids, a process meeting was held with the presumptive low bidder, Ben Hur, who had elected to use SDS/2. That was followed a pre-detailing meeting with the selected detailer and fabricator, and training by SDS/2 technical staff.  The first submittal was due on Nov. 26.

Once SDS2 was chosen by the presumptive bidder the team was pretty well committed to that technology. They might have left a bit in the lurch if the successful bidder had used Tekla. While Gayer said the Tekla vendor provided excellent support, “Tekla didn’t have the same interaction (as SDS/2).”

Steel-Day-GraphicSteel erection began in March of this year. Gayer said that there were far, far, fewer structural RFis (a total of five) on the project than might have been expected on a project with 10,000 tons of steel and over 12,000 pieces in the two buildings. The model, which is accurate to 1/256th of an inch, has allowed faster turnarounds per submittal (20 to 50 percent gains), clash detection through Navisworks, and the ability for the CM/Design team to confirm correct installation of components.

Following Gayer’s presentation, 40 members of the audience boarded a charter bus to experience the results of the 3D model on an up-close-and-personal basis.

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