Virtual trial assembly of steel structure based on BIM platform

Abstract

Using virtual trial assembly (VTA) instead of physical trial assembly for complex steel structures can significantly reduce manufacturing costs and time. At present, owing to the lack of specialised VTA systems for steel structures, VTA is usually implemented through a third-party quality inspection system or a manual program, which faces difficulties regarding applicability to complex steel structures and transmission of assembly information. With regard to the application of BIM in the manufacturing stage, this study proposed an innovative framework that implements the VTA of a complex steel structure on a building information modelling (BIM) platform. This study elaborates on the technical details of each step in a complete VTA process, starting with a BIM model. In this study, Revit was used as the research platform, and a VTA program prototype based on the Procrustes Analysis algorithm was developed using the built-in Dynamo visual programming plugin. This prototype achieved two basic functions: geometric inspection and assembly testing. Finally, the VTA of the steel truss girder of a suspension bridge with a main span of 1000 m was considered as a real case to verify the proposed method.