A New Framework to Address BIM Interoperability in the AEC Domain from Technical and Process Dimensions

Building information modelling (BIM) is an integrated informational process and plays a key role in enabling efficient planning and control of a project in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) domain. Industry foundation classes- (IFC-) based BIM allows building information to be interoperable among different BIM applications. Different stakeholders take different responsibilities in a project and therefore keep different types of information to meet project requirements. In this paper, the authors proposed and adopted a six-step methodology to support BIM interoperability between architectural design and structural analysis at both AEC project level and information level, in which (1) the intrinsic and extrinsic information transferred between architectural models and structural models was analyzed and demonstrated by a business process model and notation (BPMN) model that the authors developed; (2) the proposed technical routes with different combinations and their applications to different project delivery methods provided new instruments to stakeholders in industry for efficient and accurate decision making; (3) a new material-centered invariant signature with portability can improve information exchange between different data formats and models to support interoperable BIM applications; and (4) a newly developed formal material information representation and checking method was tested on a case study where its efficiency was demonstrated to outperform (i) proprietary representations and information checking method based on a manual operation, and (ii) the model view definition (MVD)-based information checking method. The proposed invariant signature-based material information representation and checking method brings a better efficiency for information transfer between architectural design and structural analysis, which can have significant positive effects on a project delivery due to the frequent and iterative update of a project design. This improves the information transfer and coordination between architects and structural engineers and therefore the efficiency of the whole project. The proposed method can be extended and applied to other application phases and functions such as cost estimation, scheduling, and energy analysis.

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