pLant rooKie of the year
Projects that demonstrate first-time use of Bentley products in the organization that
delivers clear benefits to the business or project in the form of increased quality,
time savings, decrease in errors, regulatory compliance, and so on.
San Jose Creek Central Plant Expansion sanitation districts of Los angeles county WINNER
The Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County Joint
Administration Office provides wastewater collection, treatment, and recycling as well as solid waste
disposal for approximately 5.2 million people. The
building’s central plant was modified to increase
chiller capacity by more than 100 percent without
expanding the existing facility.
The short design time allotted for the project dictated the need for rapid documentation of existing
conditions, facility design, and construction. Very
accurate drawings were needed due to very tight
clearances in the chiller room and the fact that the
new centrifugal chillers are significantly larger than
the original units.
Existing chillers and boilers had ultimately been
installed in a different configuration than that indicated on the original drawings, and the as-built
drawings did not reflect any upgrades done since
original construction in 1993. Laser scans were
imported into Bentley Cloud Worx to allow the
3D design work to be performed on the existing
system in PlantSpace. The 3D software helped
engineers avoid possible interferences and also
enabled the designers to use the plant space
more economically.
Plant engineers estimate that a partial manual
survey would have identified less than half of the
piping and equipment, and incorporating the
results into drawings would have taken a couple
of months. Scanning the entire plant using the
laser-scanning technology took two days. The
ability to scan the entire plant proved helpful
when unanticipated interferences forced the
rerouting of pipes or repositioning of equipment.
The 3D model constructed from the laser scan
allowed engineers to analyze the constructability
of the new design and detect interferences before
construction. Also helpful was animation of the
crane and forklift work needed to install the
chillers in a confined area. 3D files showing the
existing structural framework, along with the new
and existing mechanical and electrical systems,
helped designers locate free space for pipe
support placement and minimize the need for
new structural supports.
