Lathams Road Bridge
Carrum Downs, Victoria, Australia
Supporting a Growing Industrial Estate
Established in 2002 in the southeast part of the Melbourne metropolitan area, Carrum Downs Industrial Estate sparked a flood of economic development. As a multitude of industrial designs and engineering firms filled the estate, job growth reached 13 times higher than the regional average. With more people traveling to the area, Major Roads Projects Victoria moved to duplicate and expand Rutherford Road and Lathams Road, which would involve the construction of a new bridge. Hatch, a global management, engineering, and development consultancy, was contracted to design the bridge, though they had to work in close communication with the client’s civil team.
Continuous Data Updates Require Flexibility
Hatch quickly realized that the bridge needed a complex design. It would be built in parallel to an existing bridge, with just seven meters between them. The north side of the new bridge would incorporate a foot path with an edge kerb. To conceal the deck edges, the footpath kerb would have a down stand, and the barriers on the south edge would have tails. Additionally, the client’s civil team continually provided major updates and redesigns, which would have required many hours to remodel using older design techniques. Hatch needed a way to incorporate flexible digital design for both the road and bridge elements.
Combining Applications for Unified Design
After weighing their options, the design team determined that they could easily meet all the design requirements with Bentley applications. They first established a connected data environment with ProjectWise to streamline and speed their continual communications with the client and ensure that all material was up to date. They combined the capabilities of OpenRoads, which they had deployed on previous projects, with the capabilities of OpenBridge Modeler to design all aspects of the bridge, from the supports to the road, in a single environment. The work environment enabled them to take data captured by the client’s civil team and use it to update and optimize the design.
Preventing Expensive Design Mistakes
By using OpenBridge for the first time, the design team fulfilled all client requirements and delivered a well-designed digital model. They quickly incorporated all updates and changes provided by the client’s civil team, including major changes to the friction slab configuration, without the need for data conversion. By greatly reducing the risk of accidentally using out-of-date data, they prevented costly design mistakes. Digital design saved them significant time and money, and established a new benchmark for future Hatch infrastructure projects in the region.
Outcome/Facts
- Hatch needed to design a complex bridge in Carrum Downs while incorporating frequent engineering updates from the client’s civil team.
- By establishing a connected data environment with ProjectWise, the team kept data up to date and prevented costly design errors.
- Combining OpenBridge and OpenRoads allowed the team to design all aspects of the bridge in a single environment, eliminating the need for data conversion.
"By using OpenBridge Modeler, and investing in the training required, we have returned that investment many times over due to the automated updates based on civil design changes, and parametric updates from component level modification"
