Optimization of Scheme Surface Fitting
The Wanda Plaza project in Hefei is situated at the heart of Binhu New District, encompassing a total construction area of 187,600 square meters. The building stands 24 meters tall, with certain sections reaching heights of up to 30 meters. The development includes six distinct business types: exterior facade, basement, indoor pedestrian street, entertainment building, movie park, and water park. Its exterior facade is designed to resemble an unfurled scroll, featuring a broad and open span. The entire structure is composed of steel, enclosing all functional spaces within this steel framework, which presents significant challenges in terms of spatial coordination.
Typically, facade design teams focus primarily on visual presentation, often overlooking geometric implementation details such as surface continuity and abrupt curvature changes. While this approach enables rapid visualization, it leaves important aspects unaddressed. These details, however, are crucial for the construction drawing team when making decisions about structural systems, as well as mechanical and electrical equipment positioning and defining design boundaries. As a result, optimizing the exterior facade for the Wanda Plaza project emerged as a major challenge.
In one version of the Hefei Wanda Mall project, the canopy’s exterior facade consisted of two double-curved surfaces, designed to create the scroll-like effect. During the process, the design team provided the structural outline to the construction team, who then discovered that the two surfaces were not continuous, leaving a significant gap that hindered further development. Ultimately, the BIM team addressed this issue by creating a continuous surface fit, preserving the original design intent. They supplied the necessary contour lines to the designers, effectively facilitating the design process.
Another challenge involved surface curvature optimization. The initial design failed to ensure smooth curvature transitions, resulting in sharp turning points that complicated both design and installation and increased costs. For example, the water park’s exterior initially featured a maximum curvature variation of 0.002, which was excessively sharp. This required custom-shaped steel structural members, raising both the complexity and cost. The BIM team optimized the curvature, reducing variations to 0.0001, which smoothed out the surfaces. More importantly, this allowed for steel members to be fabricated and assembled in straight segments, meeting shape requirements while simplifying design, processing, and installation.
Optimization of Facade Segmentation
The entire structure of Hefei Wanda Mall is clad with metal panels using upright locking edges. This covers a large surface area and represents a significant portion of the overall cost. The segmentation method directly determines the final material usage and assembly process for the panels. When the facade design is finalized, more regular divisions are preferable as they benefit sheet metal fabrication, transport, and on-site installation. Therefore, selecting the appropriate segmentation scheme is crucial for both design efficiency and cost control.
Initially, the facade plan divided the curtain wall surface into equal 2412mm segments along the longer edge. The surface was segmented horizontally at equal elevation points, forming short-side aluminum plate joints, while the long-side joints were vertically separated every 1000mm to ensure perfectly horizontal seams. However, BIM analysis revealed significant variations in both curvature and the length of the long sides at the same elevation. While the largest edge measured around 2412mm, the smaller edges ranged from 2250mm to 4500mm. Without controlling the length of the aluminum plate’s long edge, the plan proved impractical.
The BIM team proposed a revised solution: using the quarter points on the small contour sections of the curtain wall surface as references, both sides of the contour were divided into equal 2412mm segments. Corresponding points on each side ensured that the horizontal joints were approximately level, and the grid size remained manageable for processing. This approach produced a more uniform distribution of short segments across the curved surface, resulting in consistent long-side aluminum plate sizes averaging around 2412mm, effectively resolving the issue.
Comprehensive Optimization of Basement Pipelines
The basement of Hefei Wanda Plaza is extensive, accommodating multiple computer rooms, a high concentration of pipelines, and complex routing. The project required rapid design progress and frequent plan adjustments, presenting the design team with a significant challenge: how to quickly complete a functional design under a compressed schedule while ensuring specified net height requirements were met.
BIM technology provided an effective solution. For the Hefei Wanda Plaza project, the design team first completed the initial scheme, determining the main routes and preliminary pipe diameters for the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, and shared these details with the BIM team. Using the structural model, the BIM team identified the most critical net height positions and conducted a comprehensive 3D pipeline layout. If any part of the design failed to meet requirements, it was reported back to the design team for modification, and the BIM model was updated accordingly. This iterative process continued until an optimal pipeline layout was achieved, meeting all net height requirements. Additionally, the final BIM model allowed for custom section CAD drawings at designated locations, accelerating drawing production and greatly improving efficiency.
Within the basement of Hefei Wanda Plaza, an integrated BIM model was used to define 47 section areas: 31 for public walkways, 2 for unloading zones, 2 for supermarkets, and 12 for computer rooms. The required clear heights were: 2700mm for public walkways, 3600mm for unloading areas, 3700mm for supermarkets, and 2800mm for computer rooms. After comprehensive management and adjustments, 3 sections did not meet the net height requirement for public walkways, while the remaining 44 sections met their respective requirements. Based on the BIM results, the designers promptly modified the scheme and submitted the construction drawings, thereby avoiding errors and rework during the mechanical and electrical construction process.
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