Abstract
Sustainability and interoperability are two closely related concepts. By analyzing the three fundamental facets of sustainability—economic, ecological and ethical/social—it is easier to address their connection with the concept of interoperability. This paper focuses on the economic aspect, in the field of civil engineering. In this area, due to the local nature of many of the software tools used, interoperability problems are frequent, with few studies addressing the economic impact of this, especially in small engineering firms. The main contribution of this paper is a design methodology for linear works based on the federation of building information modelling (BIM) models created with different software tools, conceived to break the interoperability issues between these applications. As an example, this methodology is applied to a mountain road widening project. A detailed economic analysis of the application of this methodology by an engineering Spanish firm reveals the important cost reductions that the integration of the software tools provides versus the prior practices.
Highlights
Sustainability and interoperability [1] are two closely related areas
The geometrical and nongeometrical information exchange through Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) [3] files are the main instrument to integrate the typical workflow in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry
Once the initial topographic surface and the designed linear work are defined, both surfaces are exported from the linear construction design software with a specific format that can be read by the structural calculation software
Summary
Sustainability and interoperability [1] are two closely related areas. In the globalized environment we live in, it is impossible to achieve the environmental, social or economic sustainability of any process if the stakeholders and mechanisms that enable the development of the process are unable to exchange and understand shared information. The integration of the topographic surface definition with modelling and calculation tools is important and frequently leads to interoperability problems, which are an added difficulty In this context, this article presents a working methodology that allows for the association of different databases involved in a civil engineering project, avoiding frequent interoperability issues that are typical. Computational design allows the model to be highly flexible since the modification of the characteristics of the linear work implies an automatic adaptation of the structural elements This concept of “associativity” that is linked to the propagation of design changes is the critical factor used to maximize the benefit of integration between different applications that support the collaborative design process. It is important to mention that ISO 19650:2018—Organization and digitization of information about buildings and civil engineering works, including building information modelling (BIM)—a standard which provides recommendations for a framework to manage information including exchanging, recording, versioning and organizing for all actors [3] has recently been published
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