Articles by Tom Sawyer

Virtual design and construction is the topic of a new professional certification program at Stanford University’s Center for Integrated Facilities Engineering (CIFE). But it’s not so much about 3-D modeling, software, hardware or magical visualizations as it is about an integrated approach to linking all the tools at your disposal, including data-driven design and organization and decision process modeling. The course teaches that VDC isn’t a tool but a framework that leverages an array of technology to accomplish superior work. Photo: Parsons Brinckerhoff Mezher focused on VDC planning for the Alaskan Way Viaduct Deep-Bored Tunnel project. + Image Image: PB

At an Oct. 14 conference in Charlotte, N.C., for power-users of 3-D design technology, executives and developers from Bentley Systems Inc., Exton, Pa., unveiled a tool they call an i-model, which they described as both an “elaboration” of a DGN file and as a “container” for encapsulating, circulating and re-incorporating 3-D design information and other project data of any format involved in a workflow of review and collaboration. Related Links: Containing Data: Dynamic Collaboration Unlike other 3-D model combining, viewing and reviewing tools, an i-model’s components retain their original geometric precision and “provenance,” or self-describing information about their formats, standards

An infusion of $220 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding is letting the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission accelerate work on 170 miles of levees of the Rio Grande flood control system in Texas and New Mexico. The El Paso, Texas-based commission says the work will improve flood protection for more than two million U.S. residents. El Paso, Texas Photo: International Boundary and Water Longhorn Excavators is one of the first contractors out of the gate to upgrade levees along the lower Rio Grande River in Texas and New Mexico. Related Links: Stimulus: A

Three contracts funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are helping speed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ rehabilitation of the Markland Lock, near Warsaw, Ky., on the Ohio River. The contracts come after a catastrophic malfunction put the lock’s downstream gates out of commission. Warsaw, Ky. Photo: USACE Workers rig a crippled gate in the Ohio river’s Markland Lock for removal. A mishap on Sept. 27 put the gate, scheduled for replacement in 2011, out of commission. Stimulus funding is helping the Corps push recovery by letting more parts of the lock rehabilitation program go off at once.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is hastening already-awarded rehabilitation contracts for the Markland Lock and Dam on the Ohio River after the lock’s downstream miter gate detached and sunk to the bottom of the lock chamber. The Corps says a “catastrophic equipment malfunction” on Sept. 27 disabled both 250-ton leaves of the miter gate, taking one off its hinges. It then crashed into the other. Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers One of the lock’s 250-ton doors came off its hinges and went to the bottom, damaging its twin. + Image Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sonar shows

With a 500-participant, trans-Atlantic crowd and the venue of a science center­—reached by a rollicking boat ride across New York Harbor from Manhattan—the H209 Forum, “Water Challenges for Coastal Cities,” struck an aquatic note from the start. The Sept. 9-10 conference at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J., was a joint production of Dutch and New York interests who used the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic landfall in New York Harbor to launch a dialogue on mutual concerns about water challenges of all sorts, including increasing demand on water supplies and infrastructure and the prospective effects of

For more than 30 years, the oil, gas and chemical process industries have successfully used virtual design and construction to ensure engineering and procurement specifications are in order, and all clashes are resolved before construction begins on the enormous, complex and expensive facilities the industry requires. But VDC, as a planning and construction management tool made necessary by the high stakes and great risks involved in the creation of the plants, turns out to be not enough. Plants are undergoing constant maintenance, refurbishment and change. Keeping on top of the activity and associated data is of vital importance to keep

Virtual design and construction is gaining ground in the utilities markets because of its ability to speed large-scale planning and development of energy projects. Though current applications on projects have just begun to touch the full potential of the approach, experienced users are enthusiastic about the financial benefits of debugging a project by building it first on the computer. Photo: Mortenson Mortenson uses VDC to layer environmental data, old-stump locations and grading plans for wind farm-site optimization. Photo: Bentley Bentley’s Substation V8i aids distribution planners with data modeling. Related Links: Digital-Modeling Veterans Want Data for Life Cycles Building Information Modeling

A case challenging the patentability of business methods will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in December. The outcome may rock innovators and inventors in the construction industry. Bilski v. Doll is Bernard Bilski’s last appeal. Doll is John Doll, acting director of the U.S. patent office, which has rejected Bilski’s patent for a method to hedge risks in commodities trading. The case would normally be a far cry from construction, except the language of the most recent rejection, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in October, added a new bar for any business-method patent