Three-Dimensional Parametric Data Exchange for Curved Steel Bridges

Abstract

Improved software interoperability is key to realizing more fully the potential benefits of integrated and accelerated project delivery in a way that also somehow ensures product quality. The increasing appeal of three-dimensional (3-D) building information modeling (BIM) notions applied to bridges [known as bridge information modeling (BrIM)] motivates the need for principled prescriptions of associated electronic data exchanges between various project stakeholders and the various software applications that they use. Such data exchanges must be sufficiently precise to facilitate detailing for fabrication and construction while being sufficiently concise to facilitate parametric modeling and thereby avoid needless data duplication. The highway geometry to which bridges must conform distinguishes BrIM from the building column grid orientation of BIM at the outset of the bridge life cycle. In contrast to the over defined highway geometry in the LandXML data exchange standard, a 3-D control curve is defined, presented, illustrated, and recommended as the basis for parametric data exchange suitable through the life cycle of steel I-girder bridges on (straight and) curved alignments. This 3-D control curve combines in a single curve the traditional horizontal control line and profile grade line that bridge structural engineers receive from highway designers to define bridge geometry. Data exchanges associated with three distinct stages in the life cycle of a steel bridge are defined and illustrated: analysis and design, detailing for fabrication, and erection and construction. The data exchange based on a 3-D control curve provides the data integrity required through the life cycle of a steel bridge.

Overview of BIM application for bridge - highway and infrastructure projects in Viet Nam

“…BIM is widely becoming a competent tool in the construction industry and it's applied to the entire life cycle of buildings [8,9,[10][11][12]. BIM is not only just a geometrical representation of a building but also an intelligent virtual 3D model of the building as it contains all information about every component for its whole life cycle [13,14,15].…”

A NoSQL data management infrastructure for bridge monitoring

“…By adhering to the data exchange standard, information models can be translated into different file formats for different applications in a seamless manner, which can reduce work loads and human errors on manual file conversion (Eastman et al 2011, Bernstein et al 2012. There have been several research efforts to develop information modeling standards for bridge engineering applications (Chen and Shirolé 2006, Shirolé et al 2008, Karaman et al 2013, Ali et al 2014. To facilitate interoperability, semantically meaningful languages, such as extensible markup languages (such as XML), are employed to represent the bridge model.…”

“…Research efforts have also been initiated towards developing bridge information modeling (BrIM) standards for bridge structures (Chen and Shirolé 2006, Shirolé et al 2008, Samec et al 2014. Current BrIM efforts focus primarily on the geometric information and material properties (Karaman et al 2013, Ali et al 2014. Standard markup language, such as XML, is employed as the modeling language to facilitate data interoperability.…”

A data management infrastructure for bridge monitoring

“…To achieve interoperability, many of current efforts focus on developing data exchange standards based on easily understandable marked up language such as XML. Karaman et al proposed an interoperable data schema for curved steel bridges [17]. Ali et al described a data schema for concrete-bridge [18].…”

“…BrIM includes parametric information (such as 3-dimensional geometry), structural information (such as material), and management data (such as inspection output) and is intended to support data exchange among applications and project participants [15,16]. BrIM schemas use extensible markup language (XML) as the basic syntax to attain interoperability [17,18]. While XML based model representation has been shown appropriate, the XML based schemas often involve complex data structures such as nested data hierarchy.…”