Bim for BuiLding engineering
This category applies to creative and effective uses of information-based
approaches in the engineering process. Of particular interest are projects
in which BIM was used to analyze and design the engineering system
and enabled a design or project approach or specific benefits.
WINNER BioMed Engineering and Optics Laboratory Building m/e engineering, p.c.
The Biomedical Engineering and Optics building
at the University of Rochester is a 95,000 square-foot teaching/research facility. The five-story
structure includes laboratories, offices, and lecture
halls surrounding an atrium. Its design incorporated
a green building methodology for laboratories to
enhance performance and efficiency. BIM enabled
the complete coordination and redesign of a space-challenged mechanical penthouse with a curved
roof structure.
Waste heat from a campus cogeneration plant is
the sole heat source for the building. The central
atrium required a smoke exhaust feature that greatly
increased the complexity of the system. The 3D
building models were imported directly into computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software to analyze
airflow, smoke density, and temperature during a
simulated atrium fire. This provided considerable
time savings by eliminating the need to recreate
the building design in the CFD software.
The laboratories and support spaces are served
with separate variable-volume supply and exhaust
systems based on use of space. Mechanical
systems are housed in the restricted confines of a
penthouse with a curved roof structure. The penthouse is a prominent design feature of the building,
and its shape — and the space available for the
mechanical systems — changed many times during
the design process. Each design change entailed
a corresponding redesign of the mechanical
systems, a task performed quickly and efficiently
using 3D modeling. The design team also created
a large number of section and isometric views
from the 3D models to show contractors how to
install the mechanical systems.
The design team used MicroStation for the
modeling of spaces and mechanical systems.
The 3D PDFs generated were shared with other
team members and contractors for coordination
and production of shop drawings. Bentley Building
Mechanical Systems was used to model the atrium
and its associated mechanical systems. Bentley’s
BIM solutions saved countless hours and greatly
improved the documents created.
