ST-4 Structural Analysis Model and Steel Constructions

Business needs:

Better provision of the collaboration between the disciplines of architecture, HVAC, and structural analysis and design (for steel constructions) is in the heart of the project. The project benefits from long experience of its members within the fields of data integration and from the existing implementations of the data exchange standard of the German Steel Association. The project will re-initiate the previously announced, but later stopped, domain project ST4.

Solution:

The following solutions shall support the business needs:The co-ordination and integration activities between the disciplines of architecture, structural analysis and design, and steel assemblies and fabrication are in the focus of the project. The co-ordination is supported by the extended IFC object model, which allows the following:

to identify and describe existing elements from architectural and HVAC design,
to add and communicate data necessary for structural analysis,
to communicate the essential results from structural analysis,
to communicate data among different steel construction applications for design, detailing, production preparation,
to provide data suitable for numerical control (NC).

Expected benefits include the increase of design quality and effectiveness by reducing the need of re-keying information and shorter decision cycles. A higher level of risk control is achieved.

The previous IFC3 project ST-4 about loads and load definitions, which had been proposed in 1998, is revitalized by this extended proposal. The ST-4 projects added the basic structural analysis features to the IFC model, which benefit the other IFC extension models within the structural domain, notably the ST-1 and ST-2 project.

In particular:
The collaboration with the ST-1 project should ensure a consistent way to extend the IFC model in regard to the structural steel extension, whereas the collaboration with the ST-2 project should ensure a consistent way to extend the IFC model in regard to the foundation design.

Scope of work:

In Scope:

The scope of the ST-4 project is the support of the communication between the architect/project coordinator and the structural engineer (with reference to the other project participants) using different software systems and the data exchange among various structural analysis and engineering software packages.

In particular the ST-4 project supports the following business cases:

the creation of the structural analysis model from elements of the architectural model
the use of the structural analysis model within various structural engineering software
the communication of structural steel construction among software applications for design, detailing, production preparation and back to the architect/project coordinator

Following is in scope to support the business cases:

actions, action combinations, and reactions
structural system (based on linear and planar structural elements)
steel construction members (including profiles, materials, mechanical properties)
structural connections and boundary conditions

Out-of scope:

finite elements
special construction types, like structural shell constructions, etc.

Project team
*Project leader*	Chapter	Roles	Contact email
Thomas Fink	GS	S	thomas.fink@sofistik.de
*Technical leader*	Chapter	Roles	Contact email
Thomas Liebich	GS	I MSG	tl@aec3.de


*Participants*	Chapter	Roles	Contact email

Supporting Activities

German Steel Construction Association: Provides full access to the existing data exchange specification "Produktschnittstelle Stahlbau" (data exchange specification for steel construction), which is already implemented and in practical use. The specification includes a full requirement specification and EXPRESS data model. The use has been provided for free to the IAI.

BMBF project "iCSS": The BMBF (German Ministry of Education and Research) project iCSS (intelligent Client Server Systems) provides contributed resources for carrying out the information requirement analysis and domain modeling.

Stiftung Industrieforschung project "PSS integration into IFC": The project, Integration of the PSS "Product Interface Construction Steel" into the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) to establish the Steel Construction Domain is supported by the German Industry Research foundation and provides the contributed resources for the information requirement analysis and domain modeling within the steel domain.

EC IST project "ISTforCE": The IST (Information Society and Technology) program of the European Commission funds the ISTforCE project, which supports the ST-4 project by providing contributed resources for carrying out a survey of existing structural steel models, including the CIMsteel CIS-2 model.

Project addresses

Project web site:	http://cib.bau.tu-dresden.de/icss/structural-papers/
Project FTP site:
Project email:

Remarks

THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN INTEGRATED INTO IFC2x2 (Release May 2003)

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ST-4 Structural Analysis Model and Steel Constructions

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