Customer Showcase

"We are experiencing a 30 percent schedule reduction by using BIM workflows on our infrastructure projects…and those savings jump to almost 45 percent on our race track projects. Numbers like these speak for themselves."
—Jack Lashenik, P.E., Vice President, American Structurepoint, Inc.

The Firm

American Structurepoint, Inc., is a multidisciplinary consulting and design firm headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Founded in 1966, the firm offers expertise in transportation, civil engineering, architecture, planning, forensics/investigative, construction inspection, structural engineering, environmental, land surveying, and information technology services.

American Structurepoint uses Autodesk solutions to help design, analyze, visualize, and document its infrastructure and building projects. The firm recently used Autodesk solutions on 2 very different roadway projects, albeit both circular in nature: a series of traffic roundabouts for the Keystone Parkway in Carmel, Indiana, and the Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa.

The Keystone Parkway Project

Built in the late 1960s, the Keystone Parkway (formerly known as Keystone Avenue/SR 431) was a 4-lane, divided state roadway that had 7 at-grade signalized intersections. Over the years, growth in the area caused the road to become increasingly sluggish and dangerous. In 2007, the City of Carmel assumed ownership of the roadway and began its redevelopment.

Seeking a minimally disruptive, long-term solution, city officials proposed a 4-lane parkway with grade-separated, full-access interchanges. The city collaborated with American Structurepoint to refine and implement its vision for Keystone Parkway.

The Solution

American Structurepoint used AutoCAD® Civil 3D® software—and its predecessor, AutoCAD® Land Desktop software—to create intelligent 3D models of the roundabouts. The firm also used Land Desktop to create 2D side-by-side displays of other interchange alternatives, such as tight diamond and single-point urban interchanges, giving the public greater insight into the impact of each alternative on the environment and the surrounding properties.

The Result

Construction of the Keystone Parkway project began in 2008 and was finished at the end of 2010. The overall project cost was $112 million—significantly less than the City’s original budget. “One of the project’s main goals was improving safety and access for pedestrians and bicyclists,” says Canfield. “The new roundabouts have added substantial capacity, connectivity, and safety for all modes of transportation. In fact, within a few months of the roadway’s reopening, city officials reported a 78 percent reduction in personal injury accidents at these intersections.”

The project created a sustainable transportation system that will benefit the city for years to come. North-south traffic flows freely without any signals, and 6 new teardrop roundabouts capably manage east-west traffic over the Parkway. “Overall, the design proved so effective that the Indiana Department of Transportation 9the original owner of the roadway0 is considering the teardrop configuration for some of its other projects,” reports Canfield.

From American Structurepoint’s perspective, model-based design processes were essential for the success of the project. “The ability to visualize our design and then communicate that vision to the project stakeholders was the true value of these tools on the Keystone Parkway project,” says Canfield. “Without that vision, this project would not have become a reality.”

The Challenge

“Racetrack projects can be very challenging due to the large amount of changes and tweaking that happens late in the process,” says Lashenik. “There are multiple alignments and profiles required to create a competitive racing surface. Even a minor change, such as the transition between the pit area and the main racetrack, impacts the banking degrees, the profiles, the super-elevated curves, and the grading—changing the project’s overall earthwork estimates and storm infrastructure documentation.”

In the past, in order to accommodate the design changes, American Structurepoint manually performed all the earthwork calculations and updated the drawings by hand. “But we knew from experience on other project types that we could help avoid that manual updating by using Civil 3D. If one aspect of the model is changed, the software dynamically updates the related parts of the model automatically, as well as the affected storm structure tables and earthwork calculations,” says Lashenik. “There was no question it would help streamline our design workflow for racetracks—but by how much?"

Embrace Change

“When we made a change on the track design, Civil 3D would dynamically adjust the track’s grading throughout the model and update all the profiles,” says Lashenik. “We were also able to better coordinate the design of the safety wall barrier system—since we included this as a 3D object within the track cross section.” In addition, using Civil 3D helped the firm keep all the affected earthwork calculations and documentation coordinated with little extra effort.

Summary

Based on its successful pilot of AutoCAD Civil 3D software on the Iowa Speedway, American Structurepoint now embraces Autodesk BIM for infrastructure solutions and the benefits they provide. “We are experiencing a 30 percent schedule reduction by using BIM workflows on our infrastructure projects,” says Lashenik. “And those savings jump to 45 percent on our racetrack projects. Numbers like these speak for themselves.”

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American Structurepoint Customer Story (pdf - 2346Kb)