2016 North American BIM Awards - Des Allemands Bay

OCCI, Inc.is an engineering and construction company located in Callaway County, Missouri. Tekla Structures was used in a project to replace a BNSF 90’-0” movable railroad swing span over the Bayou Des Allemands in the state of Louisiana. The replaced bridge was over one hundred years old. The new span was fabricated by Missouri Fabricators, Inc.

The 90’-0” through plate girder (TPG) span and miscellaneous steel was modeled using Tekla Structures. The complex moving mechanical and machinery components were modeled using Autodesk Inventor. The challenge was how to model the structural and the mechanical bridge components independently in different software and insure that the two work together in the final product.

Two Tekla tools were used to convert the Tekla model to file that would import into to Autodesk Inventor. Once the two models were combined the moving mechanical items were animated to evaluate and confirm there were no interferences. The mechanical model could then be inserted into the Tekla model for reference use in drawings.