Bligh Tanner embraces and nurtures engineering technology through the use of original and emerging software. Our staff have the experience, dedication and the resources to undertake a vast array of projects, applying our knowledge to create the best results.
Autodesk Revit is building information modelling (BIM) software for architects, structural, mechanical and electrical engineers, designers and contractors developed by Autodesk.
Autodesk Revit Structures allows for structural components to be modelled in 3D and building information to be accessed from the model’s database. Our structural team has adopted a full Autodesk platform with Autodesk Revit at its core. The use of a Revit platform permits a high level of collaboration with the Principal Consultant’s design team.
Previous project collaboration has allowed us to establish protocols with the architect for information transfer, coordination and clash detection. The Revit platform also permits an enhanced level of communication of complicated structural elements, reducing the risks of misinterpretation and misunderstanding and allowing greater degrees of coordination between disciplines.
On the Waltzing Matilda Centre project Bligh Tanner’s Revit model was coordinated with the architects, landscape Architect’s and service engineer’s models. Clash detection software was used to resolve any clashes before the site phase of the project began. Once the builder began the site phase of the project, mobile 3D scanning stations were used to overlay site conditions with the architectural, structural and shop detailers models. Potential issues were identified and dealt with before they had any cost implications.
Strand7 is a general purpose Finite Element Analysis software package with a vast range of application throughout the engineering industry.The program allows you to construct models, run analyses and investigate results simultaneously using a unified interface.
Bligh Tanner has been putting Strand7 to use as a powerful analysis tool for designing structures with complicated geometries.
The anticipated 4m high sculpture at Rockhampton Riverside Precinct is fabricated from aluminium sheet, folded, welded and dressed.
Analysis was undertaken using Strand7 which permitted the design to avoid the use of any costly internal rib stiffening plates as well as identifying locations of low stresses where plate elements could be reduced in thickness.
300 George Street features a 12m high façade wrap to three podium levels. The pressed and laser cut aluminium panelling was subject to high wind loads. Strand7’s powerful buckling analysis modules provided the means to arrive at a thin plate design saving on material cost.
Rendered image courtesy of UAP
QGIS is a free to use GIS platform for analysing and processing geospatial data, and over the recent years has become a highly powerful open source software, competing with its commercial counterparts.
Bligh Tanner’s water team utilise this program in numerous ways and our capabilities with the software are continually expanding. Recently, we have used QGIS for strategic planning purposes, regional mapping analyses, as well as for producing high quality mapping and processing of flood modelling results.
QGIS was used for the GPOP (Greater Parramatta and Olympic Peninsula) Irrigated Green Grid Strategy – a project with Sydney Water which seeks to optimise an open space irrigation strategy throughout the region that will provide urban cooling benefits to the rapidly developing GPOP area. QGIS was used to conduct regional mapping analyses to estimate the potential irrigation demands of green space within the region, which was used as a basis to create the overall irrigation strategy. This process involved mapping all the open space areas and the future ‘green grid’ through Sydney Water’s geographical database and overlaying infrastructure layers, such as the future light rail network, to see how much of the open space in the region could be irrigated through a future recycled water network.
The figures produced in QGIS were fundamental visual aids in communicating the strategy and potential urban cooling benefits to stakeholders, including the CEO of Sydney Water, and representatives from the Greater Sydney Commission.
SketchUp is a 3D modelling computer program valuable for a wide range of drawing applications including civil engineering.
With the use of SketchUp native tools, various plugins and extensions as well our own programming we have adapted Trimble SketchUp Pro for Civil Engineering designs.
The models produced are dimensionally accurate, visual and easy to navigate. They can be readily interrogated in a live meeting environment (i.e. taking dimensions, grades, level differences, cutting sections) which proves helpful in checking feasibility of ideas and ruling out non-workable concepts.
Preparation of design documentation is easy, with the drawings directly linked with the model. When there is a change in the model the drawings update automatically with little drafting needed.
Sketchup Pro was utilised for Bunnings at Acacia Ridge. The software allowed us to create an x-ray view of the adjoining road to understand service relations for the proposed road widening.
Like many infill and redevelopment sites, the new site was complex. Located in a busy urban environment it had dense below ground services networks, heritage aspects and soil contamination issues. Bligh Tanner used Sketchup to construct detailed 3D engineering models of the proposed existing scenarios. The 3D models are highly visual, dimensionally-accurate and can be displayed and interrogated in real time on a screen during design team meetings, pre-lodgement meetings with authorities, and community consultations.
MCM/MCAP by BIRDAIR is a large deflection finite element method stress analysis software package specialising in design development for tensile structures such as membranes or cable nets. The MCM platform is an interactive mesh, shape, and load creation program for membrane and cable net model pre-processing and manipulation and is used in conjunction with MCAP, the analysis platform, for structural shape generation and stresses.
The programs use text commands allowing users to run analyses while protecting the integrity of established text files within the iterative design process. Functionality includes 3-dimensional geometry; user defined material properties for membranes, cables or rigid elements; variable nodal fixity; shape generation of equilibrium form without applied loads; various options for applied loads such as prestressed forces, wind uplift, snow, or internal pressure; and more.
Bligh Tanner has recently used this software to design the structural components of a fabric cover used to contain gases released in a natural decomposition process. A distributed mass system was established to restrain against ‘ballooning’ of the anchored cover while still achieving a desired storage volume. Varying operating pressures required the inflation level of the cover to change over time and Bligh Tanner was able to visually demonstrate the anticipated form of the structure under these operating stages. Understanding the performance of the cover material properties and ensuring the integrity of the anchorage system were integral to the development of a sustainable and safe working design.
Bligh Tanner’s civil and environmental expertise are often called upon on projects involving waterways of land affected by flooding. Flooding can occur in multiple ways, including creek floods, river floods and overland flow. Where sites are affected by one or more of these types of flooding, modelling is commonly used to better understand and evaluate the potential impacts of the project on flood risk, both in terms of risks to the site, and evaluating the potential impact the site causes to flooding in the local area.
The use of flood modelling software in engineering work is becoming increasingly commonplace, as advancements in computing power mean the everyday office computer has become capable of running complex 1D/2D hydraulic models in a more time-effective manner than previously possible. Our team uses XP SWMM and TUFLOW software packages on our projects to assess overland flow risks, evaluate flood impacts for a site, and to characterise velocities and flow behaviour on creek restoration projects. We then use a combination of other technologies to communicate the flood risks and results to clients, stakeholders and community. For example, through mapping outputs in QGIS, or by showing the flood surface levels three-dimensional in SketchUp.
Flood modelling helps ensure a project does not worsen flooding in the area. This was a key engineering consideration in the award-winning Small Creek project, where channel modifications cause changes to flood behaviour and have the potential to impact flood levels downstream and in the local area. We used XP SWMM to model existing and design scenarios and evaluate the impacts (i.e. relative changes in flood water levels) of possible earthworks, channel modifications and thickened vegetation on local catchment flood events.
Through an iterative design process between earthworks modelling (using 12D software) and flood modelling, the results showed that by re-engaging the floodplain and vegetating the corridor, the velocities significantly decreased across all modelled scenarios, yielding benefits to water quality and an overall win for the project.