Octrees for Cooperative Work in a Network-Based Environment

Assuring global consistency in a cooperative working environment is the main focus of many nowaday research projects in the field of civil engineering and others. In this paper, a new approach based on octrees will be discussed. It will be shown that by the usage of octrees not only the management and control of processes in a network-based working environment can be optimised but also an efficient integration platform for processes from various disciplines – such as architecture and civil engineering – can be provided. By means of an octree-based collision detection resp. consistency assurance a client-server-architecture will be described as well as sophisticated information services for a further support of cooperative work

Interactive High-Performance Computing: Coupling a Thermoregulation Model to a CFD Code

ABSTRACT Nowadays, computers tend to get faster and more powerful, and are able to solve problems deemed unsolvable a decade ago. Especially in the field of civil engineering, problems involving computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are requiring a huge computational effort. Unfortunately, even the most powerful supercomputers are not able to solve a thermal CFD simulation of a complete building or even a room on a whole year basis, which would be necessary for thermal comfort predictions or an estimation of energy consumption. Thus, different approaches have to be used in order to obtain results on a whole year basis, such as zonal models, based on a coarse space and time discretisation. These results can then be used to act as boundary conditions for a highly detailed CFD analysis computed at certain characteristic snapshots in time, in order to get a better understanding of the internal airflow patterns in rooms, for example. Furthermore, the thermal behaviour of occupants can be modelled in detail by a human thermoregulation model, such as the model described by Fiala et al We will present coupling procedures from a human thermoregulation model to a CFD code. As code, an in-house CFD code specifically designed with parallel systems in mind, and described in [2] will be applied. Example computations will be presented, highlighting the coupling effects, as well as first validation results. Furthermore, an advanced, interactive data exploration system will be presented, allowing an interactive visualisation to explore simulation results during runtime, providing already preliminary views during computation time to scientists and engineers. REFERENCE

Collaborative multi-scale 3D city and infrastructure modeling and simulation

Computer-aided collaborative and multi-scale 3D planning are challenges for complex railway and subway track infrastructure projects in the built environment. Many legal, economic, environmental, and structural requirements have to be taken into account. The stringent use of 3D models in the different phases of the planning process facilitates communication and collaboration between the stake holders such as civil engineers, geological engineers, and decision makers. This paper presents concepts, developments, and experiences gained by an interdisciplinary research group coming from civil engineering informatics and geo-informatics banding together skills of both, the Building Information Modeling and the 3D GIS world. New approaches including the development of a collaborative platform and 3D multi-scale modelling are proposed for collaborative planning and simulation to improve the digital 3D planning of subway tracks and other infrastructures. Experiences during this research and lessons learned are presented as well as an outlook on future research focusing on Building Information Modeling and 3D GIS applications for cities of the future