Automation of the Digital Information Workflow in the Geotechnical Design Process

The geological and geotechnical data are currently extensively digitized on a wide scale. One of the reasons for this is the facilitation of data exchange using a digital version of geoengineering documentation as well as the lack of sufficient information on soil and ground water conditions of the given structure in the BIM models being developed. The article describes various possibilities of using digital information about the ground obtained from the field investigation in macro and micro scale and laboratory tests, recorded in one of the digital formats – AGS. The statistical analysis of research results and its interpretation, geological cross--sections, generation of soil model described by mathematical relations (Mohr-Coulomb model, hardening soil) to be included in a FEM 3D numerical model are just a few possibilities which are made available to us thanks to the geotechnical platforms that are currently created by the design offices. The second part of the work describes an example showing the use of tools in the automation of the geotechnical design of the interaction between a structure and the ground using the parametric modelling technology. The paper presents an example of the application of the ready-made BIM models in geotechnical tools using the Rhino-Grass-hopper environment. Block diagrams presenting the information flow between the BIM modelling programs (Revit, ArchiCAD), construction calculations (ARSA), and geotechnical analyses (Plaxis, ZSoil) show wide possibilities of applying these tools in accordance with the concept of OpenBIM.