System integration and database management for computer aided design of tall building structures
by Jun Liang
THESIS
1997
Ph.D. Civil and Structural Engineering
xv, 214 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm
Abstract
The design of tall building structures is both time consuming and labour intensive. Even with the availability of various engineering software, computer utilization in the present practice of design work is mostly carried out in a piecemeal manner and not coordinated with structural analysis, detailing and drafting. In engineering practice, an integrated system which can address the sharing of data communication will result in coordination among design activities. It will also improve design reliability and increase the productivity and efficiency in terms of time and cost....[ Read more ]
The design of tall building structures is both time consuming and labour intensive. Even with the availability of various engineering software, computer utilization in the present practice of design work is mostly carried out in a piecemeal manner and not coordinated with structural analysis, detailing and drafting. In engineering practice, an integrated system which can address the sharing of data communication will result in coordination among design activities. It will also improve design reliability and increase the productivity and efficiency in terms of time and cost.
To obtain these benefits, two major issues must be addressed (a) approaches for information exchange and (b) controlling of information exchange in a truly integrated system. This study utilizes a centralized database method and a Level Manager based problem solving architecture to create a theoretical as well as practical system integration model for computer aided design of tall building structures. In this integration model, the central database, which consists of a component-subsystem model and a hierarchical index based object-oriented database management system, provides an efficient way to integrate the design information. In addition, five fundamental Level Managers are identified to model the structural design of tall buildings, and they in turn provide a design environment for various design activities and their software tools. A special Level Manager named Database Server Level Manager is introduced to connect the fundamental Level Managers to the central database, thereby realizing an efficient information exchange method and an intelligent way of coordinating design activities and their corresponding software tools. The high modularity of this system architecture makes it suitable for incremental development of a practical integrated system.
A prototype system named TBCAD is developed to illustrate the implementation of the proposed integration model. The nature of TBCAD provides an open design platform for utilizing the existing design software tools in an efficient and intelligent way. Two examples are presented to demonstrate the system's functional capability in assisting of the structural design of tall buildings.
Post a Comment