Expansion of IFC model with structural sensors

Abstract

The instrumentation and structural healthmonitoring, SHM, of buildings is a growingfield in the construction industry. Thegoal of this research work is to exploreways of modeling SHM systems, and theresulting data collected from buildings, instandard information management systemsuch as Building Information Models, BIM.These models need to be stored in digitaldatabases with structures suitable for thespecific building related information. Inthis work the Industry Foundation Classes,IFC, data model was used.A case study is presented to assess theapplicability of the present IFC standard asa tool to build a three-dimensional digitalmodel of a real instrumented building, aswell as some of the structural sensors andtheir results. The interoperability of thedigital model was verified by using differentmodeling, viewing and analysis softwaretools. Limitations of the current IFCmodel were explored and extensions tothe sensor classes are proposed.