Building Information Modelling Usage in Federal Hydropower Design and Construction Management

The use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is widespread within the engineering and construction industry, with huge strides in both usage and technological advances in the past two decades. The benefits of design collaboration, communication, visualization, and risk mitigation are untold. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers foresaw the benefits of BIM and began to write policy for its mandatory use across the enterprise in the early 2000s. As BIM technology evolved, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has struggled to keep pace with the speed of industry but continue to make improvements to policy and more widespread usage across the enterprise. The MILCON program sees widespread use in the planning and design phases using BIM for visualization, communication, creation of 2D construction drawings, and rough estimating. BIM usage stops short in two major areas of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers work: hydropower rehabilitation and construction management. Professionals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in design management, hydropower engineering, and construction management all agreed that BIM, utilized and implemented properly, can have a very strong impact in each major field that would improve efficiencies, aid stakeholders in better understanding of complicated design concepts, and realize a more streamlined construction management process for complicated hydropower work. Through literature review and interviews with construction professionals, this research studied how BIM is being used within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, specifically within hydropower rehabilitation programs, for design and construction management. This research also focused on how private industry has been and is currently using BIM in construction management, and to correlate how processes used in private industry may be used on hydropower generation unit rehabilitation projects at USACE-owned facilities.