Bridge the Gap: Create Bridge Models Optimized for Manufacturing by Automation

Can you manage without drawings? Can you design long-span bridges in Revit software? Of course! Through creative use of Revit, the Revit API, and Dynamo we have designed a 520-meter cantilever bridge—the Trysfjord Bridge—completely drawing-free, as a part of a 19-kilometer highway project in the southern part of Norway. We will use the model of this bridge as the use case for the presentation, and it is the sole delivery to the contractor. Governmental demands of drawing-free design are not solved by any out-of-the-box software, yet our approach yields the possibility to harvest high-quality data for construction and manufacturing directly from the model. We’ll investigate how to identify the contractor’s need for information, exemplified by solutions for formworks, tendons, and tabulation for slip forming, with model objects aligned with the requirements for the specifications given in the tender documents. Satisfying these demands requires a sound review of the model, and we’ll describe how to automate this.