Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Revit MEP for Water Treatment - Part 1

Now that I've had a few weeks to digest what we do and how we've been doing it, I've started to develop an approach to process jobs. Here's a few key things I've learned to get started:

1. Structure Leads! Since most water treatment plants are simple structures, getting the WWTP guys to produce the structure isn't that complicated, but it is essential. In this case, you can start with some prelims in Revit MEP (generic walls, levels, floor slabs and roofs, stairs and railing, openings and rooms) created at elevation - with the project base point at a specific corner of the building. I'm liking working at elevation but will be developing the model from the project origin - we'll worry about true NE points later.

2. Content - be prepared to develop your own! CADworks has got a nice little DI pipe library and is working on PVC, so I' recommend looking at their content

3. Don't expect the model to be a dead-on replica of the plant - the parts just aren't there yet. Expect to use a lot of generic solids and families, since most concrete structures are formed onsite. I've added an industrial equipment and WWTP family template to our library that contains the electrical/mechanical parameters someone might want when creating their connections.

I'm working on a new section for training that follows the WWTP process within a plant, and having the training material follow that process...should be interesting to see how it turns out.

Stay tuned....BIM for WWTP....

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