Associated Engineering | Production Pulse Newsletter | Volume 1 - Issue 2

PRODUCTION PULSE

NEWSLETTER VOLUME 1: ISSUE 2 – DECEMBER 2020

B uilding I nformation M odeling

Project Highlight—City of Calgary Outfall Structure The Benefits of Visualization and BIM/3D

Sunnyside is an inner - city community in Calgary, Alberta located on the northside of the Bow River immediately adjacent to Calgary ’ s downtown. The Sunnyside community is at risk of flooding during a 1:100 year storm event. The City of Calgary engaged AE to identify mitigation solutions, one of which was to separate the stormwater runoff from the community stormwater system. To achieve this, a new outfall structure would be built hosting two simple process systems: a freeze protection recirculation system and a pump down system. Although the systems appear simple, when routed through the confines of the outfall structure, the design criteria brought about many challenges: • The stainless - steel pump down suction line had to be routed through a short carbon steel section of the 3.4 m diameter storm drain wall to tie into the submersible pump. Consideration needed to be made for the galvanic corrosion of dissimilar metals. • Space was found inside the outfall ’ s concrete foundations for the placement of the submersible pump well casings. The casings and discharge piping extended into a sealed pull box for future pump removal. • The 50 mm diameter pump down discharge had to empty back into the Bow River; however it had to run inside the concrete outfall walls avoiding rebar, rounding two 45 - degree corners and the pipe needed to be sloped. • The freeze - protection recirculation line also had to penetrate the short carbon steel section of the storm drain (below the water level) to deliver warmer water (drawn from 85m up the stormwater pipe) to the waters surface to prevent freezing. To avoid collecting debris, the 125 mm line had to be routed up against the inside wall of the concrete pipe.

To assist with this challenging design task, AE used Autodesk Plant 3D and Revit (Structure) software to model the process systems and the outfall structure in 3D. Robert Molzan (using Plant 3D) and Victor Yin (using Revit) accurately modeled the process systems and structure to “ Virtually Construct ” the layout of this solution.

The 3D visualizations from the 3D models provided the process design staff (JoeWhite and Tanner Hudson) the ability to understand the pipe routing and design the process systems in this complex configuration. The project is currently with the City of Calgary for final review (anticipated to be tendered in January).

If you have any questions pertaining to this project highlight, please contact: Robert Molzan, Process Engineering Technologist