Archives
October 17, 2008
Issue #90
BE Newsletter
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Events
Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC)
Oct. 18-22, Chicago
WEFTEC, the largest water quality event in North America, offers the best water quality education and training available today and is a leading source for water quality developments, research, regulations, solutions, and cutting-edge technologies.
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National Council of Structural Engineers Associations’ 16th Annual Conference
Oct. 23-25, Cleveland
The National Council of Structural Engineers Associations (NCSEA) serves to advance the practice of structural engineering and, as the national voice for practicing structural engineers, protect the public’s right to safe, sustainable, and cost-effective buildings, bridges, and other structures. The preliminary schedule is posted online.
>> more
11th Annual SCDOT/ACEC-SC Meeting
Oct. 23, Columbia, S.C.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation and the American Council of Engineering Companies of South Carolina provide a forum for improving the coordination and understanding between SCDOT and the consulting community as it relates to the design and construction of transportation projects. Presentations include “Design to Construction in a Connected 3D Environment” and “Improving Efficiency in Roadway Alternatives Using GIS.”
>> more
FIATECH Annual Members Meeting
Oct. 27-29, Boston
The theme of the fall members meeting is “Creating Sustainable Business Value: Deploying Innovative Technologies.” In meetings and workshops at this members-only event, FIATECH will identify hands-on approaches to deploying state-of-the-art and emerging technologies and solutions that will significantly improve the business effectiveness of the capital project industry and enable members to create sustainable business value in their companies.
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Bentley Roads and Bridges User Conference – West
Nov. 3-5, Scottsdale, Ariz.
This conference provides three days of civil software training offering technical presentations and hands-on workshops featuring InRoads, GEOPAK, LEAP Bridge, RM Bridge, Haestad, and more. If you cannot attend this event, you could attend Roads and Bridges User Conference – East in December (see below).
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ASCE Annual Conference 2008
Nov. 6-8, Pittsburg, Penn.
The theme of this year’s conference is “The Civil Engineering Workforce, A Look Ahead.” The dwindling United States workforce for all engineering and scientific disciplines is a growing problem, and civil engineering is no exception. If the U.S. is to address the challenges it faces with an aging infrastructure, shrinking energy and water resources, and globalization, it must act now to attract, educate, and train talented young people to civil engineering to compete in a rapidly changing, technology-driven world.
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Land Development West 2008 Conference and Expo
Nov. 13-14, Los Angeles
The Land Development West Conference and Expo is a national, two-day event that brings together professionals responsible for land and community development to explore ways to better accommodate growth while ensuring healthy, attractive communities in which to live and work. Now in its fifth year, the event takes place twice annually, once in the East and once in the West, and features compelling keynote presentations, intensive learning sessions, as well as an exhibit hall with some of the country's leading suppliers of land development products and services.
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ASBI International Symposium 2008: Future Technology for Concrete Segmental Bridges
Nov. 17-19, San Francisco
The first American Segmental Bridge Institute (ASBI) International Symposium on “Future Technology for Segmental Concrete Bridges” is ASBI’s 20th and most ambitious convention. This three-day program provides a world view of outstanding achievements in design and construction of concrete segmental and cable-supported bridges, as well as an authoritative perspective on the durability and sustainability of these bridges. Of the 64 symposium presentations, 22 are about projects or topics from outside the U.S. or are by speakers from outside the U.S. In addition to the technical program, the symposium will feature exhibits of products and services important to concrete segmental bridge design, construction, and maintenance.
>> more
AEC-ST and Ecobuild Fall Conference
Dec. 8-11, Washington, D.C.
Bentley is offering three-hour workshops and one-hour seminars at the AEC-ST and Ecobuild Fall Conference, including:
- W112: Benefiting from BIM in the Real World
- W212: Exploring Design Options with GenerativeComponents
- S112: BIM Benefits Integrated Practice
- S212: BIM in Sustainable Design: Not Just a Checklist
- S312: Project Integration: Getting the Team Connected
- S412: Construction Simulation
- S512: Feedback: Using IT to "What-If" Your Designs
Bentley is a gold corporate sponsor of the event, which explores the breadth of green building, sustainable design, renewable energy, high-performance building, and information collaboration strategies, including Building Information Modeling (BIM) for construction. Among the exhibit highlights are BIM Storm – LIVE! and the buildingSMART™ alliance pavilion/theater. Register by Oct. 30 for early-bird pricing.
>> more
Bentley Roads and Bridges User Conference – East
Dec. 15-17, Hollywood, Fla.
Three days of civil software training offering technical presentations and hands-on workshops featuring InRoads, GEOPAK, LEAP Bridge, RM Bridge, Haestad and more.
>> more
The New daratechPLANT 15th Annual Plant Industries Conference: Meeting the Challenges – Technologies and Processes in the New Plant World
Feb. 23-25, 2009, Houston
The daratechPLANT 2009 conference represents a unique source for understanding the evolving strategies and technologies for the plant industries, including process, power, oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and shipbuilding. The conference includes three tracks – Thought Leadership, Pulse of the Industry, and State of the Practice.
>> more
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AEC and GIS news
FIATECH ISO 15926 web seminar
11 a.m. to noon, Oct. 21, presented by Robin Benjamins, Bechtel
Join FIATECH for a look at the IDS-ADI project and its plans extending into 2009. Highlights include the ISO 15926 Compliance Specification, RDS/WIP 2.0, the IDS-ADI Wiki, and the ISO 15926 Primer. This seminar will also include an extended question and answer period that will give participants an opportunity to ask questions about what ISO 15926 is, what the parts are, what the benefits are, who’s involved, what you need to get started, and so on. Attendance is limited, so reserve your place now.
>> more (register)
Engineered in India, Almost
Experts are of the view that however bad the global scenario may turn out to be, engineering services will offer a lot of opportunities in India. For instance, the emission standards in automobiles will become more stringent. There will be a greater focus on eco-friendliness of products as usage patterns continue to change. Moreover, cheaper products with more features will be the order of the day. All these will drive the engineering services boom.
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Álvaro Siza scoops RIBA Royal Gold Medal
The Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza has scooped one of the industry's most prestigious prizes – the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Royal Gold Medal. The 75-year-old, whose full name is Álvaro Joaquim de Melo Siza Vieira, is among Portugal's most famous architects and has joined an exclusive gold-medalists club that includes the likes of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. Although he has yet to build a permanent structure in the U.K., the Pritzker Prize-winner designed the Serpentine Gallery’s 2005 summer pavilion in London with long-time collaborator Eduardo Souta de Moura.
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Public-private predicament
Efforts at the European Commission level to unify tolling operations and correct the perceived environmental imbalances caused by road use across the 27 European Union member states could, if left unchallenged, compromise the concession business model that has worked so well for many decades, according to Fabrizio Palenzona, president of the European Association of Tolled Motorway, Bridge, and Tunnel Concessionaires (ASECAP).
>> more
Lift Off: Launching Our Future Today!
That was the theme of this year’s ECC Conference, which recently took place in Scottsdale, Arizona. The record 573 delegates learned from a number of leaders in the industry what the next five to 10 years heralds for the engineering and construction industry globally.
A plenary session involved executives from the refining, power, and mining (coal) industries, who looked five to 10 years out at what capital projects they are planning. U.S. refining is turning to diesel production to remain globally competitive; Southern Company has no chance of meeting the edict that 20 percent of the generation production should come from renewable sources; and more generation from coal is the only way the U.S. will not face common power blackouts, as happens in South Africa. The presentations are all freely available from the ECC web site.
>> more
CIO Workshop EMEA
Sept. 24-25, London
The theme of the 4th European CIO peer group symposium was “Information Management for Tomorrow’s Asset Infrastructure.” The event was sponsored by Bentley and led by an independent CIO advisory panel. Some 37 senior-level executives shared their experiences and ideas with a distinguished peer group. Tracks included:
- Approaches to drive change through an organization to deliver sustainability,
- Asset-lifecycle requirements in the water, rail, and energy sectors, now and in the future,
- Zero-asset management to make IT functions cost-effective, flexible, and robust in the face of change.
Industry representatives from the water, rail, and energy sectors were on hand to discuss their perspectives on information management needs, and providers in these areas attended to discuss and develop possible solutions. The format was highly interactive, and concrete results were developed in plenary sessions and breakout groups, emphasizing actionable and immediate conclusions that attendees could take home and apply in their own organizations.
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Are Organizations That Do Not Use Geoinformation at Higher Risk Than Those That Do?
Spatial information is an integral component of forward-thinking organizations. With tools that can work with spatial information, these organizations can more effectively understand their assets, operations, and customers, as well as threats and uncertainties. In short, their strategic foundations are stronger and their ability to adapt, respond, and reorganize quickly is more fully enabled. Without this capability, organizations are hindered from participating at leadership levels and their ability to compete is dramatically restricted.
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Amsterdam – Urban Islands
In the most densely populated area of the Netherlands, the city of Amsterdam undertook the monumental challenge of designing a community for 45,000 inhabitants on 495 hectares of nonexistent land. The city created a new landmass by reclaiming seven islands with dredged sand in IJmeer, a lake on Amsterdam’s east side. Residents with a fondness for waterfront property will have their choice of custom homes or high-rise apartments.
>> more
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User stories
LAR-IAC (Los Angeles Region Imagery Acquisition Consortium)
Infotech Enterprises Ltd
The objective of this California-based project was production of uniformly color-balanced, seamless digital orthomosaic tiles at 0.33 U.S. survey feet pixel resolution and two-foot contour generation covering about 3,100 square miles. This was part of the digital aerial imagery data and related photogrammetric services for the whole area of Los Angeles County. The digital aerial images needed to be acquired in RGB as well as CIR bands using the latest digital-mapping camera to provide accurate and high-quality output orthoimagery for the entire project area. Infotech deployed a team of about 130 photogrammetry engineers for aerial triangulation, LiDAR editing, digitization of break lines, contour generation, and orthogeneration. The firm chose MicroStation, MicroStation GeoGraphics, and Bentley Descartes because of their customization capabilities, user-friendly nature, and powerful production and editing tools.
>> more projects from The Year in Infrastructure 2007
Click to enlarge image.
Oil Product Pipeline (Construction Phase I)
JSC Giprovostokneft
JSC Giprovostokneft’s project was to model a terminal tank farm, part of the Kstovo-Yaroslavl-Kirishi-Primorsk trunk oil product pipeline. The new oil pipeline will establish a new light-oil export corridor for shipment via the Primorsk marine terminal near Saint Petersburg, Russia. The project includes construction of line facilities, rehabilitation of an existing head pump station, construction of six intermediate pump stations, and rehabilitation of a terminal tank farm. Using AutoPIPE, the firm designed and analyzed the aboveground and underground pipelines in a complicated geologic and climatic environment. It automated the calculation of pipeline/soil interaction characteristics and developed a procedure for active length calculation with the selection of optimum soil points. Its compliance with Russian standards, codes, and regulations also enabled the firm to avoid purchasing additional certified software tools.
>> more projects from The Year in Infrastructure 2007
Click to enlarge image.
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Bentley news
BE Awards of Excellence nominee FIGG's new I-35W bridge opens three months early
In the bridge project, FIGG's team deployed MicroStation to prepare 3D PDFs of reinforcing steel drawings. This technology allowed the team to review 3D reinforcing bars from all angles and code them for easy identification during field replacement. Using the same platform resulted in seamless file sharing across all team members, which made design completion faster and achieved high-quality plan documents. The 3D model acts as a virtual construction assembly that accelerated the actual construction, saving valuable man-hours in the field in subfreezing temperatures. With the help of the 3D technology, the new I-35W bridge opened to traffic on Sept. 18, three months earlier than planned.
>> more
Water Predicament!
Bentley’s Darwin Calibrator is a handy tool for finding water leaks. As David Chadwick explains, the genetic algorithms used actually run backwards!
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Rebuilding the Chisholm Trail: Modern Approach Revives Historic Route
An agreement signed in 2000 between the City of Fort Worth, North Texas Toll Way Authority (NTTA) and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) brought new life to the 8.2-mile Southwest Parkway project, which will connect Fort Worth to the 13-mile Chisholm Trail project in Johnson County. To meet NTTA’s aggressive 18-month deadline from the notice to proceed to final design of the Southwest Parkway interchange, HDR had to mobilize and seamlessly integrate a national design team of 134 engineers, CAD designers, and administrative staff from 12 offices, as well as 40-plus team members from four sub-consultants. Bentley’s ProjectWise was selected as the collaborative tool and document management system (DMS) for all 20,000 project files.
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A Model of Efficiency
Part L and Energy Performance Certificates may be viewed as a burden by some in the U.K. construction industry, but Alan Jones of EDSL believes that the U.K. is leading the way in modeling sustainable and energy-efficient buildings. Modern Building Services (MBS) Focus looks at how the latest modeling software is going global.
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Bio-Framed
This story discusses how GenerativeComponents was used to design a world-class event and sports administration complex – the missing link in Melbourne’s sporting infrastructure.
>> more
ConstructSim Celebration
Bentley held a celebration reception in Calgary, Alberta, on Sept. 23 to welcome the ConstructSim and OpSim users to the Bentley community.
ConstructSim is the first software to model the construction process and provide a construction management environment that links data from design deliverables, schematics, project management materials, and resource management systems in a virtual and visual model. This linked model allows users to create and track work packages that closely match the actual construction workflow, enabling project managers to more quickly identify issues with time-critical activities or incorrect materials, thereby avoiding costly mistakes, schedule overruns, and change orders. This unique “work-facing” orientation of ConstructSim provides an ideal tool for the construction project superintendent or field crew supervisor to organize, manage, schedule, and record the progress of actual installation processes and tasks.
Users of ConstructSim expressed approval of the Bentley acquisition. For example, Zachry Construction Company CIO Norm Thurow said, “We are thrilled that Bentley will be incorporating ConstructSim and OpSim throughout its solution offerings.”
Commenting on the aquisition, Bhupinder Singh, senior vice president, Bentley Software, said, "We look forward to integrating Common Point’s technology with our ProjectWise Navigator platform and comprehensive portfolio of applications and collaboration servers to address the construction and operation of infrastructure projects. The acquisition perfectly leverages the applied research we have prioritized for the last year to support work packaging. This combination will enable infrastructure projects to proactively surmount design-for-construction issues, in particular, through ConstructSim’s unique construction simulation capabilities."
Additional celebrations are being planned around the world. The next one is scheduled for Nov. 11, in Houston.
>> more
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Sponsors
HP delivers workstation technologies that help you work efficiently and reduce costs.
The HP workstation line includes mobile, desktop, and blade workstations. HP offers a choice of processors including Intel dual-core processors or quad-core processors or AMD processors. In addition, HP offers highly secure Blade Workstations, which provide the capability of remote engineering from centralized server-based workstations with powerful 3D performance.
>> Learn more about HP and great deals on HP workstations
>> Learn more about HP and Bentley
Building Design+Construction’s 2008 Moisture Control Webcast
Nov. 13, 2 p.m. EST
Join BD+C’s experts for a free information-filled webcast, "Moisture Protection and the Building Envelope." This AIA/CES-approved education program will address mold problems, water intrusion, and building envelope energy leakage in your projects. Register today at www.loginandlearn.com or directly at the following link!
>> more
The 2008 Fall Members Meeting will be hosted by Keith Roe, chairman, president and CEO of Burns and Roe Enterprises. The theme of this meeting is “Creating Sustainable Business Value: Deploying Innovative Technologies.”
>> more
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Learning Paths
New learning paths for MicroStation, GEOPAK, and InRoads provide online training roadmaps to transform businesses into productive learning organizations.
With learning paths, an organization can increase its revenue and profitability by developing a well-trained, highly effective workforce that can offer more services and deliver more projects on time and within budget.
Learning paths for MicroStation, GEOPAK, and InRoads are now available, so users can:
-- Find the best training for different applications, schedules, job roles, and experience levels,
-- Plan for optimal professional development to fit any budget or business goal,
-- Measure and communicate skill development and talent portfolios through learning units and online transcripts.
Learning paths for additional Bentley applications will be available soon.
>>more
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Bentley LEARN: Anytime, Anyplace Learning
A subscription to Bentley LEARN delivers unlimited access to OnDemand eLearning to everyone in your organization, and Bentley’s new multimedia presentation demonstrates how you can use Bentley LEARN to develop a well-trained, highly effective workforce that will:
-- Improve team productivity and advance careers,
-- Reduce travel costs and reduce the organization's carbon footprint,
-- Increase profitability by delivering more projects on time and within budget,
-- Showcase skill development and talent portfolios with learning units and online transcripts,
-- Maximize return on training investment through anytime, anyplace learning.
See how other organizations are gaining competitive advantage with Bentley LEARN, about its features, watch short videos describing user experiences, and link to OnDemand eLearning resources
>> more
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Recent Bentley press releases and news alerts
Energieversorgung Mittelrhein Joins Bentley’s Enterprise License Subscription Program
New Release of Bentley’s SewerCAD Helps Engineers Effectively Evaluate Capacity, Size Pipes, Select Pumps, Locate Overflows
News Alert: Bentley Opens 2009 BE Awards Student Design Competition
Bentley and Tsinghua University to Support Sustainable Building Development in China
Bentley Launches Building Performance Group, Names Noah Eckhouse Vice President
Autodesk and Bentley to Advance AEC Software Interoperability
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© 2008 Bentley Systems, Incorporated 685 Stockton Drive Exton, PA USA 19341. Bentley, the "B" Bentley logo, BE, AutoPIPE, Bentley Institute, ConstructSim, Darwin Calibrator, Bentley Descartes, Enterprise License Subscription, GEOPAK, GenerativeComponents, Haestad Methods, InRoads, LEAP, MicroStation, MicroStation GeoGraphics, MX, OpSim, ProjectWise, ProjectWise Navigator, RM Bridge, SewerCAD, and STAAD are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated, or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.