Methods
Methodically successful
Reaching ambitious goals – yes, efficiently and digitally, using suitable cross-disciplinary methods. To successfully connect people, safely pave ways and create Baukultur that can be experienced, we use digital methods in design, checking, supervision and maintenance and actively develop new solutions for our digital work processes.
Building information modeling with digital objects ideally represented in five dimensions, visualisations, real-time models, virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, laser scanning, drones, 3D cameras, 3D printing and expertise in structural monitoring – we put all our efforts into continuously improving our work processes and optimising results.
Well-connected thanks to digital methods
Building information modeling (BIM), embedded in our digital work processes and networks, opens new paths that we prepare and create together. For many decades we have been offering our wide portfolio of services for the entire civil engineering life cycle. Due to our background, we live the digital interconnection far beyond building information management – consistently over the entire life cycle of our constructions, whether it be buildings or engineering structures and always including the surroundings. Together with our clients we choose suitable use cases and methods to achieve their environmental and economic goals. Digital interconnection and the associated digital work processes facilitate interface coordination and digital collaboration with the participating parties within the virtual project space.
Long before a structure is completed, GRASSL experts visualise it in a digital environment or photo-realistically, or they model it using 3D printing. This is a definite advantage in project implementation and in obtaining an in-depth understanding of the structure. Our engineers and clients also gain new perspectives from environmental models created by drones. Thanks to photogrammetry, immersive experiences with VR glasses can be created which allow entry into the virtual real-time model and complete the three-dimensional experience in design, implementation, maintenance and operation.
Our cross-office network fosters a collaborative and holistic working culture by carrying out joint projects, workshops and internal and external training.
Structural health monitoring – intensely focussed on constructions
The advancing digitalisation in civil engineering generates ever more extensive use cases in the area of structural health monitoring (SHM). For existing structures, we use individualised measuring methods and continuous monitoring of their structural and deformation behaviour to detect ageing and deterioration processes early on so remaining reserves can be used with confidence and service life can be extended significantly. SHM is used, for example, in prestressed concrete bridges with tension cables that are at risk of stress corrosion cracking and do not exhibit any visible signs or exhibit visible signs in regions that are impossible to inspect visually. We also carry out SHM on older steel bridges with orthotropic deck slabs and delicate transverse structural systems, as their highly stressed areas need to be monitored precisely to be able to determine their true remaining service life. Structures with tension members prone to wind-induced vibration also benefit from SHM.
There are also an increasing number of use cases for new constructions. SHM makes it possible for us to observe the structural and deformation behaviour of constructions and the change in structural properties over the entire life cycle of a structure. External loads and actions, effects due to heavy-vehicle traffic, the dynamic behaviour of vibration-prone structural members, corrosion progression and the anchorage elements in the soil are often monitored in new constructions.
SHM thus improves the sustainability of existing and new constructions. The structural properties can be monitored by measuring the temperature, strain, deformation, inclination, level, acceleration and sound with acoustic, fibre-optic or electrical methods.
We offer the following services in the area of structural health monitoring: investigation and assessment of the state of the structure, analysis of damage scenarios, design of the measurement instrumentation, data collection, evaluation, visualisation, determination of threshold values, alerting concepts and installation, as well as maintenance and operation. The obtained measurement data can subsequently be integrated in digital process chains and visualised in real time in a digital twin, for example.
