Project Description

In September 2007, the Applied Technology Council (ATC) was awarded a grant from the Charles Pankow Foundation to develop an extended set of Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) for Structural Components for inclusion in the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI). This project seeks to improve productivity in the design and construction industry by taking the lead in developing a basis for incorporating and integrating structural design codes, analysis tools and methods into the IFCs of the IAI effort.  US participation in IAI is led by IAI-North America, whose knowledge base, development and technical work is accomplished primarily through Domain Committees, made up of industry professionals.  Based on literature provided by IAI, the IAI-North America Domains include Architecture, Building Services, Codes and Standards, Facility Management, Libraries, Project Management and aecXML, which is working to facilitate exchange of AEC (architectural, engineering, and construction) data for e-commerce using the internet and ifcXML based on the IFC model (XML is Extensible Markup Language). Currently no domain group is active in the scope of the proposed IFC extension project.  

What is an IFC?

Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) are the means to exchange chunks of data related to buildings that software vendors have agreed to use when their software systems exchange data.  The systems are said to be interoperable when the meaning of the chunks of data and how they are assembled have been agreed upon in advance so that any software could exchange, interpret and use the data correctly. In other words, IFCs are analogous to words in a neutral language that two foreigners communicate in.  For example a Swede and a Nigerian may choose to communicate in English.  The words have defined (i.e., agreed upon) meanings that could be put together, in ways defined by the language rules, to communicate complex thoughts.  Similarly, complex structures of building, facility and life-cycle information are assembled and clearly communicated using IFCs.

 The International Alliance for Interoperability defines IFC’s as data elements that represent the parts of buildings, or elements of the process, and contain the relevant information about those parts. IFCs are used by computer applications to assemble a computer-readable model of the facility that contains all the information of the parts and their relationships to be shared among project participants. This project model (i.e. Building Information Model or BIM) constitutes an object-oriented database of the information shared among project participants and it continues to grow as the project goes through design, construction and operation.

The ATC/CPF research project, “IFCs for Structural Components,” will enable construction project teams to exchange information with structural engineers, and vice versa, by enabling their software systems to be interoperable and communicate directly and without error.

Vision Statement

Create a robust process for seamless, efficient, reproducible exchange of accurate and reliable structural information that is widely and routinely utilized among all tools and stakeholders. Generate it once; use it many times - interoperability.

Scope

ATC will develop a framework and a pilot set of IFCs for Structural Components.  The effort will initially require consultation with IAI-North America, followed by systematic and careful planning for implementation (considering the protocols already in place for IFCs) and a feasibility study to explore how to best encourage utilization of the completed interoperability capability by the design and construction community.

The results from the research effort will be documented in a series of reports that describe reference structural engineering processes, and the data exchange requirements and framework for developing IFC data model extensions for structural engineering, in appropriate language and format as required by IAI.  These results will be available for incorporation into the evolving National Building Information Model Standards (NBIMS). The report will also document the capabilities and provide guidelines on best practical use from the professional engineer’s perspective.  In addition, it will describe the findings of the feasibility study on encouraging utilization by the design and construction community.

Work products will include:

Task 1: Strategic Work Plan. A strategic planning effort will be undertaken to clearly define the end work product objectives and the path to success that will be taken to achieve the work product goal. In the development of the Strategic Work Plan, human factors will be addressed.

Task 2: User Requirements and Business Process Report

• Three Interim Reports.  Interim reports will be presented at incremental junctions of Concept Report, Development Report and Definition Report completion and will each cover a set of specific business processes, user and data exchange requirements, and include practical guidance for applying the IFC supported business processes.
• Work-session Reports.  Work session reports will be prepared to summarize the relevant discussion and resulting outcomes and conclusions. These are internal working documents and are not deliverables to CPF.
• Draft Final Report.  Will build on the three interim reports with appropriate introductory material and conclusions.  A “draft” final report at 95% completion.
• Final Report.

The project workgroup will follow NBIMS procedures to execute this research and development and the results will be available for incorporation into the evolving National Building Information Model Standards (NBIMS). 

Task 3: Model View Definition.  Developed from the work session reports the new IFC extensions will be defined and integrated into the IFC data model.  A data set with specific data-elements required for structural engineering data exchanges (Structural Model View Definition) will be defined to enable rapid implementation of the capability into industry software.  Software implementing these capabilities provides the interoperability gateway between the structural domain and other industry processes.

Task 4: Validation Test Report.  Once the IFC Structural Model View is implemented in software, an IAI testing program will be conducted against it to certify that Structural Model View data is correctly implemented. Finally, the project team, in conjunction with the NBIMS Committee, will validate the effective exchange of structural data elements in the defined processes from a user/structural perspective.

Task 5:

Dissemination Work Plan.  The dissemination work plan defines the strategies to be implemented to market and distribute the development of the IFC to stakeholders – engineering practitioners, industry and software creators.

Diffusion Summary Report.  This report will capture the effectiveness of the dissemination process by summarizing the diffusion success, documenting the implementation of the dissemination strategy and seeking out measures to quantify the effectiveness of the plan.

Generalized Schedule

The project is intended to last approximately two years. The schedule for deliverables is:

1. Strategic Work Plan: 12/21/07
2. Dissemination Work Plan: 3/25/08
3. Concept URBP Report: 5/21/08
4. Development URBP Report: 8/27/08
5. Definition URBP Report: 11/5/08
6. Final Draft URPB Report: 3/13/09
7. Final URBP Report: 4/10/09
8. Model View Definitions: 4/17/09
9. Diffusion Report: 9/24/09
10. Validation Test Report : 10/23/09

Draft material will be posted to this website as it is developed.

Sponsor acknowledgement

The funding for this project was provided by the Charles Pankow Foundation. For further information, please go to www.pankowfoundation.org

Project Participants Roster

Project Management Committee (PMC)

Chris Rojahn, Principal Investigator

Applied Technology Council

201 Redwood Shores Parkway, Suite 240

Redwood City, CA  94065-1175

Thomas McLane, Project Manager

Applied Technology Council

2111 Wilson Blvd., Suite 700

Arlington, VA  22201

Ed Dean, Lead Technical Director

Nishkian Dean

425 SW Stark, 2nd Floor

Portland, OR  97204

Michelle Anderson, Project Administrator

Nishkian Dean

425 SW Stark, 2nd Floor

Portland, OR  97204

Thomas Liebich, IFC Consultant

AEC3 Ltd

Wendl-Dietrich-Str. 16

D-80634 München, Germany

Robert Lipman

NIST

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8630

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

Project Advisory Panel (PAP)

Francois Grobler, Chair, Project Advisory Panel

US Army Engineer Research & Development Center

Construction Engineering Research Laboratory

Champaign, IL  61826-9005

Chuck Eastman

College of Architecture, 0155

Georgia Institute of Technology

Atlanta, GA  30332

Dan Frangopol

Lehigh University

117 - Mountaintop - Bldg. H

Bethlehem, PA  18015

Jim Jacobi

Walter P. Moore & Associates, Inc.

3131 Eastside, Second Floor

Houston, TX  77098-1919

Steve Jones

McGraw-Hill Construction

Two Penn Plaza, 9th Floor

New York, NY 10121-2298

Paul Mlakar

US Army Engineer Research & Development Center

3909 Halls Ferry Road

Vicksburg, MS  39180

Deke Smith

National Institute of Building Sciences

1090 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 700

Washington, DC  20005-4095

Consultants

Erleen Hatfield, P.E., Lead Engineering Consultant

Thornton Tomasetti

51 Madison Avenue

New York, NY  10010

Aaron White, Engineering Consultant

Walter P. Moore and Associates, Inc.

11900 West Olympic Boulevard, Suite 750

Los Angeles, CA  90064

Technical Support

Peter Mork, Technical Support Services

Applied Technology Council

201 Redwood Shores Parkway, Suite 240

Redwood City, CA  94065-1175

Industry Participants

Luke Faulkner
American Institute of Steel Construction
1 E Wacker Drive Suite 3100
Chicago, IL 60601

Rob Tovani

Computers & Structures Inc

1995 University Ave Suite 540

Berkeley CA  94704

Frank Wang

Tekla Inc.

114 Town Park Drive – Suite 500

Kennesaw, GA 30144

Raoul Karp

Bentley Systems, Inc.

2744 Loker Ave West Suite 103

Carlsbad CA  92010

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