Publications / 2016 Proceedings of the 33rd ISARC, Auburn, USA

Interoperability with IFC in the Automated Rebar Fabrication

Alex R. Maciel and Fabiano R. Correa
Pages 872-880 (2016 Proceedings of the 33rd ISARC, Auburn, USA, ISBN 978-1-5108-2992-3, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

Some problems of efficiency in the cut and bent rebar supply chain is related to stakeholder's interaction and the flow of information between designers, constructors and rebar fabricator. In the actual process, distinctive standards are used for exchange of information between design and fabrication. The BVBS format represents a standard widely used for automated cut and bent rebar production while the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) aims to become the standard for exchange in the AEC industry with the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM). This study aims to explore the use of IFC schema to enable an effective integration of the rebar fabrication process with the BIM workflow, improving data exchange and reducing the need for manual intervention. Initially, the requirements for exchanging reinforcement data laid down in BVBS standard are reviewed. Key requirements to a digital interface are parsed across IFC schema specification in order to ascertain how this information are mapped on IFC. The current way for geometric representation of reinforcing bars, used by some structural BIM tools to export IFC files, is reviewed, in addition with new entities release in IFC4. Some recommendations are provided for improving the interoperability efficiency.

Keywords: BIM, IFC, Reinforcement bar, Automated bending machine,