Clark Construction employs 3D modeling, laser scanning to solve healthcare project challenges

When it opens in 2023, a new healthcare facility for MedStar Georgetown University Clinic in Washington, D.C., will characteristic the latest medical and technological advances.

The new 477,213-sq.-foot medical and surgical making will aspect 156 individual rooms, 32 test rooms and a rooftop helipad with direct entry to 31 running rooms. An intraoperative MRI method with a ceiling-mounted rail system connecting the diagnostic room and adjacent working rooms will carry the MRI magnet straight to the client. In addition, the job includes a 600-motor vehicle, beneath-quality parking garage, 18 elevators and 6 acres of new green house.

The web-site is on the land of the former Kober-Cogan Developing, which was shut down in May well 2010 immediately after the discovery of mould in the building and earlier had housed the hospital’s psychiatry division. 

That introduced one of a kind challenges for the venture workforce, led by Bethesda, Maryland-centered Clark Design. Miles of water utility lines, numerous of which were not documented, were being jogging right less than the locale of the new pavilion to feed both of those MedStar Georgetown University Healthcare facility and the Georgetown University campus properties. The project team experienced to relocate these utilities outdoors of the making footprint to make it possible for the challenge to start off.

“The Clark team intended and engineered a 250-foot-extensive utility bridge to help chilled water and electrical products and services from the central utility plant to the existing MedStar Georgetown Healthcare facility,” said Bradley Hunter, job govt at Clark Building Team. “The bridge set up expected near coordination with mechanical and electrical contractors who mounted the utilities on prefabricated racks which had been then hung from steel beams measuring 60 toes, enabling excavation to start out down below.”

Clark Building, alongside with architects HKS and Shalom Baranes Associates, assembled a BIM design of the existing utilities. As design and style progressed and the primary composition and caisson spots were being established, “we executed extra borings at all caisson spots and further more knowledgeable the BIM excavation design,” explained Hunter.

This initial step permitted the Clark team to improved tell the price product with respect to deep foundations and to get started revising the excavation plan. With practically 1,000 piles to put in for guidance all through excavation, Clark recorded the real soil and utility situations encountered in real-time with each individual pile and input the details into the BIM product. This significantly improved Clark’s knowing of the web-site and allowed to proceed to revise and resequence the excavation program in progress of the subject crews, stated Hunter. 

“At the completion of pile installation, we have been able to have a hugely complete profile of the envisioned excavation properly in advance of the final section of excavation,” said Hunter. “With this data, we have been equipped to produce mitigation approaches in an energy to decrease impacts to the crucial path of the task.”

Workforce turns to technologies on site

Clark executed a preliminary study with common study instruments, these as the Leica MS50, which brings together total station performance, GNSS connectivity, electronic imaging and 3D laser scanning in a single instrument. The 3D technological know-how executed checks of slab edges, precast concrete, joints and flooring flatness. The technology also coordinates existing buildings to carry out tie-ins with the façade.

Following completing and environment survey manage points about the web site, the staff started the scanning and format method, said Kathleen Lavelle, undertaking supervisor at Clark Development Group.

“For 3D laser scanning, we use our Leica MS50 all over again which has total scanning abilities. We use our study management factors to tie the scanning info into web site coordinates. After scanning is finish, Leica’s Infinity software is employed to cleanse up the scan,” claimed Lavelle. “This can be exported to diverse file formats relying on the application remaining used to do the job with the details.”

The study workforce employed Leica MultiWorx, an include-on app to Autocad Civil 3D. This scan facts can be employed to deliver existing situations and as-developed drawings as desired.

Running an influx of persons

Because of to its location adjacent to a university and healthcare centre, the Clark crew had to believe of answers to take care of the movement of college students, patients and site visitors, particularly early in the COVID-19 pandemic to account for social distancing pointers.

To do this, the building team constructed a temporary pedestrian bridge to keep access together the east facet of the jobsite. Additionally, an on-website batch plant, developing much more than 35,000 cubic yards of concrete, served with site visitors congestion by minimizing the range of deliveries to the venture website. The plant eliminated an approximated 3,500 vehicles off the street as effectively as ensuring concrete top quality on web-site, according to Lavelle.

Getting rid of trucks from the highway also helped cut down sound level, an additional obstacle as the construction site is in close proximity to a number of residential neighborhoods, said Andree Yaap, challenge govt at Clark Construction Group.

Clark also labored intently with the HKS and operator to evaluate which task features could be manufactured offsite. Making use of a formal scoring and analysis system, the staff selected components to prefabricate primarily based on what would present the most benefit to the job, mentioned Yaap.

The task involves a lot more than 700 prefabricated resources, together with 156 lavatory pods, operating space ceilings, client headwalls, electrical rooms, medical rooms, MEP skids and racks, and inside partitioning, mentioned Yaap.

Developing features have been created across the state, with toilet pods becoming constructed in Texas, working space ceilings currently being crafted in Oregon, headwalls getting created in Oklahoma and wall panels currently being designed in Virginia, reported Yaap.

“Clark’s initiatives have aided to expedite schedules and lessen expenses,” said Yaap. “Other added benefits include enhanced top quality ensuing from assembly in a managed setting, the reduction of building action on website and a reduction in sound levels, community website traffic and congestion.”