PSI - Issue 62

Adalgisa Zirpoli et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 62 (2024) 217–224 Author name / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

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1. General considerations On May 6th, 2020, the Superior Council of Public Works approved the guidelines for risk assessment, safety analysis, and monitoring of existing bridges. These guidelines were subsequently adopted by the Ministerial Decree on December 17th, 2020. The guidelines offer a valuable tool for all stakeholders in the construction industry. They go beyond the mere documentation of existing bridges and provide a method for determining an "Attention Category" related to infrastructure safety. This is achieved through a comprehensive, multi-level, multi-criteria, and multi-objective approach. The objective of the research presented in this paper is to establish the prerequisites, knowledge base, and initial parameters required to support designers in the implementation of the Building Information Modeling (BIM) method. A methodology has been developed to gather the information necessary to apply the BIM "philosophy" within the context of inspections, verifications, controls, and maintenance procedures for infrastructure assets. The digital Building Information Modeling (BIM) procedure encompasses several phases: data collection, determination of the Attention Category, modeling, georeferencing, data integration and sharing, document management, classification, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) generation and organization, structural and geotechnical analysis, revamp design. With specific reference to open interoperability, one of the objectives of this study is to achieve comprehensive digital data exchange, preferably in an automated machine-to-machine manner, among the following work environments: structural BIM Authoring platforms, infrastructural BIM Authoring platforms, collaborative structural and infrastructural software systems, structural analysis (Finite Element Method - FEM) software, document management tools, WBS generation and management tools. The conceptual cornerstone of the process outlined above is information sharing, a critical aspect throughout the entire life cycle of a construction project. Moreover, involving a variety of stakeholders from different disciplines and activities makes this operation particularly delicate. Therefore, data exchange must, where possible, be conducted in an open format. In the BIM context, this methodological approach is commonly referred to as openBIM. Thanks to the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) format, an open and interoperable process is guaranteed. In general, IFC serves as a standardized and digital description of the built environment, encompassing both buildings and civil infrastructure. It adheres to an open international standard (UNI EN ISO 16739-1: 2020) designed to be vendor-independent and usable on a wide range of hardware devices, software platforms, and interfaces for various use cases. Specifically, the IFC schema represents a standardized data model that logically encodes: identity and semantics (names, unique machine-readable identifiers, and object or function types), characteristics or attributes (such as material, colour, and thermal properties), relationships (covering positioning, connections, and properties), objects (such as columns or beams), abstract concepts (related to performance and costs), processes (including installation and operation), people (encompassing owners, designers, contractors, suppliers, etc.). BIM platforms, along with any other compatible applications, can export, import, and transmit data in the IFC format. It is left to the users to decide what to share. This standard is an international one and comprehensively describes the spatial structure, hierarchies, classes, attributes, relations, and functions typical of the AECO world (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operation). It serves as one of the cornerstones for the implementation of the OpenBIM methodology. The most popular versions of IFC in the market today are IFC2x3 TC1 (v. 2.3.0.1) and IFC4.2 (4.2.0.0). The primary purpose of IFC4.2 is to extend the IFC schema by including entities and relationships for describing bridges. The spatial structure of IFC has been expanded to describe the spatial decomposition of infrastructure works, including bridge elements and more precise positioning along the alignment. The IFC format serves as the central core of the interoperable flow described in this paper. Another crucial aspect, which will be discussed later, is structural classification. Classification systems play a central role in building construction as they enable the unique identification of objects within a model. Over the past few decades, various countries around the world have developed their first standards and classification systems. For example, UNI 8290: 1981 in Italy, UniClass 1 in 1997 in the United Kingdom, UNIFORMAT II in 1992, and MasterFormat in 1995 in America. UNI-EN-ISO 12006 parts 2 and 3 were established in 2001 to create a single international regulatory reference. Subsequently, revised versions were published in 2007 for part 3 and in 2015 for