Utilisation du BIM pour l’étude de conformité de maquettes numériques dans l’industrie de la construction en bois massif

Abstract

For the last ten years, new wood constructions are multiplying in Quebec, especially mass timber ones. The CLT panels and glulam columns that make up the mass timber structures are prefabricated off-site at the factory. This particularity makes the Building Information Modeling (BIM) approach particularly suitable to conduct mass timber constructions projects. Using BIM makes for greater efficiency, particularly at the model verification stage, which involves studying its compliance with various requirements. In the case of off-site construction, the manufacturing capacity of the prefabrication plant must be taken into account. Generally speaking, the BIM-based model verification stage has only been studied in fairly specific terms: code compliance study, degree of verification automation. Today, there is a lack of a general method that synthesizes the possibilities offered by BIM-based model checking in general and we deplore also a lack of research concerning the conformity study of mass timber models in particular. Our research objective is to provide a general step-by-step method summarizing the process of model compliance study with dedicated tools. To conduct this research work, we first made sure we understood the problem by consulting the literature and by interviewing professionals from the mass timber construction industry. Then, we developed by iteration the method supported by tools and validated it with three model-checking case studies. The method consists of five steps: first, specify the checking need; two, ensure to have a consistent digital environment; three, decipher the content of the requirement; four, carry out the calculation to study the conformity or the non-conformity of the model; and the last step, analyze of the compliance results. The case studies conducted consisted of studying three different scenarios of model checking through the application of the suggested method. Through this research paper, we have addressed several aspects of model checking. We note in particular that the software dedicated to model-checking are numerous and promising. They allow a lot and have a great potential to make the model checking step profitable due to the BIM approach. However, the obstacles encountered show that BIM, in order to be efficient, must be conducted on high-quality models which is not often enough the case.

Date	30 May 2023
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Conrad Boton (Supervisor) & Pierre Blanchet (Co-supervisor)