News Detail

ACI and BIM: Moving Forward

9/1/2016

Traditional building design is largely dependent upon two-dimensional (2-D) technical drawings (plans, elevations, sections, and so forth). Building Information Modeling (BIM) extends this beyond the third dimension (3-D), augmenting the three primary spatial relationships—width, height, and depth—with time as the fourth dimension (4-D) and cost as a fifth (5-D). BIM allows a virtual information model to be handed from the design team to the construction team and finally to the building services engineers.

ACI first got involved with BIM in 2008 when two ACI staff members became committee members for an Applied Technology Council (ATC) project. The committee's goal was to define pertinent Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) for the structural domain so that information could be efficiently and accurately exchanged between modeling software programs. The Strategic Development Council's (SDC) Technology Forums #23 and #24 in 2008 both had BIM presentations. As a result of those presentations, SDC, a council of the ACI Foundation, identified BIM as an Industry Critical Technology (ICT). An Accelerated Technology Implementation (ATI) team was created with the goal of championing BIM's acceptance in the concrete industry. This ATI team in 2009 proposed developing a strategic plan for the "development of IFCs for cast-in-place structural concrete components to foster interoperability between disparate BIM software.

Both of the SDC forums in 2009 had BIM presentations that continued to raise the awareness level within the industry and made attendees realize the importance of ACI taking the leadership role in developing BIM standards for the concrete industry. Knowing how far concrete was behind steel in using BIM, SDC subsequently recommended that ACI create a technical committee to deal with BIM.

ACI Committee 131, Building Information Modeling of Concrete Structures, was created to develop IFCs. Since November 2009, this committee has been working with researchers at Georgia Tech. ACI Committee 131 has already produced an Information Delivery Manual (IDM) related to cast-in-place (CIP) concrete and is now finalizing development of Model View Definitions (MVDs). The next step is software implementation of the MVDs. These efforts have been made possible through significant funding from the Charles Pankow Foundation, the ACI Foundation, and other ACI Foundation partners.

Last summer, a meeting was held at ACI Headquarters to discuss the current status of BIM in the concrete industry. Attendees included researchers, designers, software vendors, and contractors. The outcome of this meeting showed that while much progress has been made, the concrete industry still has a long way to go. Industry-wide surveys indicate that there is a lack of knowledge about the benefits of BIM and the potential return on investment. Users have concerns about the liability that comes from using shared and editable models. Interoperability issues and a lack of CIP concrete elements in BIM software packages is restricting the increased use of BIM in the CIP concrete community.

There was much discussion about the need for more research to continue development of open industry standards, or IFCs, for data exchange and the financial resources that will be required to do this. In October 2015, the SDC Board approved $100,000 in matching funds for the BIM consulting and development effort. Georgia Tech researchers are currently working on implementing an exchange model for the "reinforcement placement sequence." This was identified by ACI Committee 131 as a high priority among the 24 exchange models defined by the committee in its first report, "Information Delivery Manual (IDM) for Cast-in-Place Concrete (ACI 131.R.14)."

BIM use is increasing by all sectors of the AEC industry, government agencies (both foreign and domestic), and institutional-type owners. In the future, we will see an increase in contractual requirements to use BIM. The increased capabilities and reliance on technology across the engineering, architectural, construction, and owner and operator industries support the fact that BIM is changing how construction functions.

ACI's goal is to assist the CIP concrete industry in moving forward with BIM. This will allow ACI to engage young engineers and the industry to stay relevant and connected on a global level to where the industry is going. ACI's credentials and neutrality position us as the appropriate choice to further the use of BIM as a best practice tool in this concrete industry that we all have chosen as our career.

Michael J. Schneider