UTILIZED SOFTWARE 

STAAD, SYNCHRO, OpenSTAAD Connect Edition, OpenSTAADPy COM Interface

LOCATION 

USA

ORGANIZATION/COMPANY 

Arcadis

Along the shorelines of New York City and Virginia Beach, rising seas and storm surges have made flood protection an urgent engineering priority. Arcadis was tasked with delivering a 200 million USD portfolio of gates and floodwalls — more than 20 gates and 25 walls — but the traditional path was slow and unforgiving. Each structure demanded 16 to 24 hours of bespoke modeling and another 4 to 8 hours of manual report formatting, adding up to over 600 hours of modeling across three years. Under schedules that tight, there was little room to optimize designs or fully interrogate critical load combinations, and every unexamined assumption meant heavier structures and more carbon locked into concrete and steel.

The team's answer was AutoFW Designer, a Python-based platform linked programmatically to STAAD.Pro through the OpenSTAADPy COM interface. It generates a full finite element model — 156 nodes, 120 plates, 60 base and 60 stem elements — in seconds, applies USACE load combinations, and runs twelve automated structural checks across five wall typologies covering every configuration in the Virginia Beach program. An integrated design optimizer then trims material where the code allows it, while SYNCHRO 4D visualizes construction sequencing so stakeholders can test phasing scenarios and resolve spatial-temporal conflicts before crews reach the street.

The impact is measurable on both sides of the ledger. Design time fell by 99.4%, from a full day to under ten minutes, saving 400 engineering hours and 70,000 USD in fees. Concrete and steel volumes dropped 5%, avoiding 18 tonnes of embodied CO2 on this project alone, with 135 to 270 tonnes of annual savings projected at scale. Just as importantly, the barriers themselves shield coastal communities, land, and freshwater resources from surge and saltwater intrusion — resilience built with less carbon, delivered faster.