Application of the BIM method in the management of the maintenance in port infrastructures

Abstract

This work represents a paradigm shift in the approach to manage port infrastructure maintenance where the use of the building information modeling (BIM) method is very scarce, and it is now beginning. The new infrastructure conservation management method proposed in this manuscript combines traditional methods with new technology, covering the gap of the implementation of BIM in port maintenance. This new technology is the BIM method, and its use is already mandatory in public infrastructure projects in some countries. In this work, the BIM method is applied to the management of the conservation of port infrastructures to show the benefits that can be obtained using it. After the analysis of the state of the art in the conservation of port infrastructures, two of the main maritime works of the Outer Port of A Coruña were modeled in Revit. This as-built model serves as an inventory model and forms a large database of all the information regarding the conservation of the structures. In this way, all the data on the conservation of the port’s infrastructures are concentrated in a single source of information in which, in addition, there is a three-dimensional and georeferenced representation of the port in question. The main finding of this work is the development of a step by step method to implement BIM philosophy in port maintenance, highlighting the positive and negative points detected during the validation of the method in a real case, detecting future improvement research lines. Although BIM has a lot of advantages and possibilities just now, some improvements are still necessary.