CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
9 February 2009
Company News
Arup Achieves 500 Percent ROI on Melbourne Stadium Project With Bioframe Design Using Bentley's GenerativeComponents
Arup, the global design, engineering, and consulting firm, won a 2008 Be Award of Excellence in the “Innovation in Commercial or Residential Building” category for the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium project. The $268 million project is featured in the new publication “The Year in Infrastructure 2008,” available online from Bentley Systems at http://www.bentley.com/YearInInfrastructure2008. The stadium’s cutting-edge bioframe design includes a geodesic roof that uses 50 percent less steel than typical stadium roof structures. Because the roof geometry was subject to many changes throughout the design lifecycle, successful project completion relied on Arup’s ability to conduct optimization studies of the roof to develop the final geometric and structural design.
Using GenerativeComponents (GC), Bentley’s parametric modeling software, Arup created a centerline wireframe of the roof for structural analysis using two scripts. The first contained variables to help define the base geometry and provide the ability to test alternate geometric configurations. The second generated the typical lacing configuration for each shell. Arup conducted optimization studies of the roof steelwork members using data exported from the GC model. The result was 18 alternate geometric configurations. A final study yielded an additional six. By deploying GC for optimization studies and Bentley Structural for documentation and scheduling, Arup estimates a 500 percent return on investment.
Commenting on the project, John Legge-Wilkinson, CAD leader for the project, said, “Realizing a geometric solution for the stadium roof structure was a critical design element of the project. GC gave us the ability to create and rationalize the roof geometry to eliminate errors that occur when manual modeling methods are used. Moreover, GC allowed us to quickly regenerate different geometric configurations, which were used for optimization studies. In total, we regenerated and exported 24 different geometrical configurations using the GC model. These studies would not have been feasible without the ability of GC to quickly regenerate the different geometric configurations and export the data to analysis. The result was an efficient and cost-effective final design.”
For additional information about GenerativeComponents, visit http://www.bentley.com/GenerativeComponents. For additional information about Bentley Structural, visit http://www.bentley.com/Structural.
For information about how to enter projects for consideration in the 2009 Be Awards of Excellence competition, visit http://www.bentley.com/BeAwards.
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