Structural Engineering

Engineering firm uses Autodesk BIM software to complete Scotland's largest whisky distillery and win sustainable design awards.

The Challenge
AECOM began work on the fast-track project in April 2007. "Our primary goal was to deliver the completed distillery in 22 months, from concept through detailed design to construction," says Buckingham. Diageo wanted the new distillery to be the largest in the United Kingdom, with a capacity of 10 million liters per year. "We were also charged with delivering a facility that blended centuries-old distilling knowledge with advanced technical and environmental practices." These practices included water reclamation, a removable roof, and an innovative waste and heat recovery system.

To help complete the complex project designs on time, AECOM used Autodesk® Revit® software products for Building Information Modeling (BIM), as well as Autodesk® Navisworks® Manage software for clash detection. "Autodesk BIM solutions helped us to create intelligent models at a very early stage in the design process," says Buckingham.

The Solution
These models helped Diageo representatives visualize and refine the building’s innovative systems long before beginning construction. "Autodesk BIM solutions were instrumental to designing the distillery’s complex processes and to achieving Diageo’s ambitious sustainable design goals," says Buckingham. The completed distillery included many design elements that BIM helped make possible.

Two of these features are the distillery’s removable roof and walls. "The client was concerned about the environmental impact of the eventual replacement of the fermentation units," says Buckingham. With help from Autodesk BIM solutions, AECOM created a unique, flexible structure that will allow Diageo to remove the walls and the roof when the time comes to replace the fermentation units. This involved creating a combined 3D model of the structure, architectural façade, building services, and processes to help see if the fermentation units could be removed in the future with minimal disruption.

To reduce the building’s carbon footprint, AECOM and Diageo designed the distillery to recover waste heat and water from the internal distillation process. "We also sited the building adjacent to a malting plant from the 1980s," says Buckingham. "That allowed us to capture additional waste heat from that facility."

One of the most innovative aspects of the new distillery is its conversion of process waste into energy. "We were able to reuse co-products from the distilling process to provide energy where, in the past, these residues would be removed and used as animal feed," says Buckingham. Using a process known as anaerobic digestion, the new distillery converts the carbohydrates present in the waste products into clean process water and methane for a biomass boiler.

The completed distillery also includes a water reclamation plant capable of treating liquid byproducts from the distillery, saving approximately 300,000 cubic meters per year—roughly the equivalent of the distillery’s annual water demand.