The Beijing Fortune Center office building project boasts a total construction area of 175,900 square meters, featuring 58 floors above ground and 4 floors underground, with a structural height of 265 meters. The building utilizes a steel-reinforced concrete frame structure, with a core tube composite system based on a raft foundation.
Given the project’s complex functionality and intensive post-completion usage, the mechanical and electrical engineering systems are both numerous and intricate. The electrical systems include high-voltage power, low-voltage power, fire alarm, and integrated wiring systems. Water supply and drainage comprise domestic water, reclaimed water, sewage and wastewater drainage, fire hydrant water supply, and sprinkler systems. Ventilation systems cover general ventilation and air conditioning, smoke control, and positive pressure air supply. As a commercial building, the design aims to maximize space utilization. However, professional pipeline installation areas are restricted, making it essential to balance ceiling height with construction quality. The frequent pipeline intersections further increase the difficulty of construction.
Mechanical and electrical pipelines are densely arranged on every floor.
A comprehensive layout plan for areas with high pipeline density is crucial to guiding smooth construction progress. Detailed and thorough design within mechanical and electrical engineering is key to ensuring both construction quality and project advancement. Proper organization of construction activities is vital. For construction companies, the application of BIM technology enables coordination among various specialty subcontractors, reducing material and labor waste from repeated demolition and rework. This coordinated approach helps maintain construction quality, shortens the project schedule, and lays a solid foundation for delivering a high-quality project.
Traditional CAD deepening drawings cannot reveal all potential clashes, and detailed construction methods are not always clearly depicted, resulting in weak on-site guidance and reduced efficiency. Pipeline adjustments are generally limited to localized areas, and tracking the cascading global changes from these local modifications demands significant manpower.
By adopting BIM technology, comprehensive and accurate building and specialty models can be established for thorough coordination and optimization. Construction enterprises benefit from using these digital models to calculate the exact requirements for equipment, pipelines, and related components—including types, specifications, and dimensions—significantly simplifying subsequent processes. Critical components can be presented clearly using 3D renderings, enabling workers to execute construction tasks efficiently and to the required standards, guided by integrated layout drawings. BIM software also enables the creation of 4D construction simulations, which greatly appeal to project owners when combined with the project schedule.
Application Conditions for BIM Technology
When implementing BIM, the primary challenge is personnel allocation, which involves practical difficulties. Experienced engineers may have limited computer skills, while younger staff excel in software but may lack construction experience. Before modeling, it is necessary to finalize equipment specifications and dimensions, most of which are determined by the owner. Incomplete BIM software templates and local family libraries further complicate model creation. Additionally, construction inevitably faces structural and installation deviations, requiring timely adjustments to the model.
To address these challenges, the project team decided to train younger employees in Revit software to master basic modeling and establish the overall building model. The team collaborated with the owner and suppliers to collect and organize equipment specifications and dimensions. For equipment with spatial limitations or installation issues in the model, the owner is promptly informed to make necessary adjustments, thus preventing equipment installation conflicts on-site. Each specialty engineer uses electronic construction drawings to model water supply and drainage, electrical, and ventilation systems as base layers, aligning grids to ensure model accuracy by importing building models into the same workspace.
Application Effect of BIM Technology
Focusing on a sample floor—the fourth floor—the project team established models for ventilation ducts, air conditioning water pipes, plumbing, electrical cable trays (both strong and weak current), and fire protection pipes. After merging with the structural model, collision points were identified and resolved, and comprehensive floor plans and detailed drawings were generated. These, together with sectional drawings, guided the orderly construction for all specialty subcontractors.
The team provided a comprehensive plan and 3D renderings for the four-story office area, determining the installation positions and interrelationships of various pipelines, and specifically addressing pipeline intersections. According to pipeline dimensions, the ventilation and air conditioning pipelines were installed first, followed by sprinkler and fire hydrant lines, and finally the electrical piping. Every component installed could be visualized in sectional or axonometric drawings, helping construction teams communicate with workers and project owners, reducing unnecessary demolition and remodeling, and minimizing material waste.
In this project, the designers did not initially consider the comprehensive arrangement of busbars and air ducts in the underground substation. The sequence of busbar placement in the vertical shaft, the relationship between low-voltage cabinets, and the positioning of air ducts and outgoing cables from the cabinets were overlooked, leading to numerous busbar bends. After rearrangement, 16 low-voltage cabinets were adjusted, reducing the number of bends by 28, and the air ducts were repositioned to minimize secondary installation work. These adjustments not only saved materials but also resulted in a more logical and aesthetically pleasing layout.
By utilizing BIM technology, comprehensive layout plans, sectional, and axonometric drawings were exported after modeling and professional arrangement. Workers were briefed in advance, and during installation, no rework was necessary due to inter-specialty clashes, ensuring adherence to the project schedule, quality standards, and successful acceptance upon project completion.
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