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BIM adoption within the structural steel phase will be examined in an upcoming article in the July edition of Structural Engineering magazine. In the article, New Millennium's Ricky Gillenwater, Information Technology Director, and Carl Pugh, Engineering Manager, review the pro's and con's around early BIM adoption. Here is a sneak preview from the article...
Ricky:
BIM fosters significant timeline reductions. For example, we participated in a BIM-based Target store project that resulted in about a 60% reduction in their usual timeline for shop drawings. Another obvious advantage is the more rapid and accurate integration of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing designs. But other important advantages have included such objectives as reducing building height, maximizing space, and minimizing the amount of structure.
Ricky:
People conceptually understand that if you remove a single MEP clash during the 3-D steel joist modeling phase, then you just prevented costs in new materials, production, shipping, on-site crane time, and erection labor. But what is the real savings? On one of our BIM projects, a stabilizer plate needing a bottom chord extension could easily have been missed during a traditional 2-D approach, but it was quickly identified in the 3-D approach. If missed, a field adjustment and back charge would have been applied. We see these scenarios often using BIM. They are all real, prevented costs.
Carl:
Integration into a building model eliminates a lot of time and costs that cannot be gained from a 2-D approach. Seeing how our steel joists fit within the structural framework eliminates potential errors that you will never see from a 2-D approach or realize from a human visual perspective. But we still haven't put numbers to it all, and that's why project owners and developers can't evaluate BIM as they do other ROI decisions. Prevented costs are typically not well measured in our industry, a project ends and there is no full post-mortem. Unless you are the owner of a series of similar projects, like a major retailer, then you don't have the opportunity to measure as you go, to see just how significant the BIM process can be by way of costs prevented and revenues gained. Similarly, the trades have yet to put numbers to their contributed value.
Ricky:
The structural design process has always depended on communication throughout. But on a BIM project, everyone participating knows the process is openly based on information sharing, file sharing. Missing information doesn't stay missing for very long and you can visualize what needs to be completed or corrected. Errors are exposed, get noticed and fixed. But this higher level of ongoing scrutiny and information sharing can make the BIM process very challenging, because the digital model is constantly being updated between the trades.
Carl:
If the project is not clearly defined up front, BIM will not overcome these obstacles any better than a traditional approach. It might eventually help the back-end, but it is most effective when the scope is well defined early. We recently developed a 3-D steel joist model for a large project, only to learn that the dimensional data we used for the model was inaccurate. Had we built according to the model, the building would have had an exterior dimension that was wrong by several feet. It wasn't our error, but for everyone on the BIM coordination team it was a humbling reminder that the BIM process facilitates fact checking and communication, but it doesn't replace it.
Ricky Gillenwater is Information Technology Director and Carl Pugh, PE, is an Engineering Manager at New Millennium Building Systems. For over a year, they have been integral to the company's participation in BIM-based structural steel joist projects.
For more information, please contact:
Ricky Gillenwater: ricky.gillenwater@newmill.com
Carl Pugh: carl.pugh@newmill.com
Or contact: bim@newmill.com
PRO: The BIM-based design of the structural steel phase of a Target store reduced the timeline by about 60%. CON: The virtual model does not replace the need for individual scrutiny and intensive early collaboration.
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To meet the growing interest in castellated and cellular beams, New Millennium has invested in the manufacturing of these unique steel beam options. The company started manufacturing the beams in May. The castellation pattern is cut using a state-of-the-art, fully programmable plasma table. Engineering data is downloaded to the plasma table providing tremendous flexibility to the process. Patterns are available using either hexagonal or round holes. Beams up to 90 ft. long can be produced, using the full range of AISC beam shapes. They can be furnished "castellated only" like a stock beam, whereby a fabricator adds the end connections and other details; or they can be furnished fully fabricated, ready to ship to the job site.
“We believe there is a lot of opportunity for growth of the castellated beam in the commercial construction market,” says Art Ullom, a General Manager at New Millennium. “Backed also by the structural beam mill capabilities of our parent company, Steel Dynamics, we are expanding our steel beam products. As floor spans in the marketplace continue to increase, for a multitude of reasons, castellated beams are an excellent solution to these longer bay requirements. The castellated beam is also a great way to provide for brighter, more open parking garages that are less costly than concrete parking garages.”
Castellated beams production: Water lubrication during the plasma torch operation gives the illusion of molten metal.
New Millennium Building Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of Steel Dynamics Inc.
