AceCad Software

Largest Steel Framed Building in Denmark Completed on StruCad by CSK Stålindustri A/S

27th September 2006

CSK is a multidiscipline Structural Steelwork Fabricator, with its head office in Thisted, Denmark and with offices in Aarhus and Copenhagen in Denmark as well as office and production facilities both in Denmark and Tukums, Latvia. CSK has just been responsible for the fabrication and erection of a significant steel framed building on a 60 acre site close to Hillerød, 25 miles north of Copenhagen. To date this building is the largest structural steel project completed in Denmark at approximately 2,500 tonnes and presented some particular challenges to the project team at CSK. The project took almost one year and was notable for both the scale of the construction and logistics associated with the fabrication and erection process.

With the steel detailing required for the project completed in the CSK office in Aarhus, Denmark, the fabrication carried out in Latvia at CSK’s new production site, project management based in Thisted and erection in Hillerød, the project could have posed some logistical issues. With only one man responsible for the detailing of the project and then approximately 32 revisions and 37 issues during construction, how was this project completed on time and to budget by the steelwork fabricator? The answer at least in part was the software used to model and detail the project, which enabled one draughtsman to take responsibility for modelling the project, instead of the five man detailing team originally calculated by the main contractor. StruCad, the 3D detailing system developed by UK based AceCad Software Ltd enabled the complex modelling of the steelwork required and provided automatically generated material lists and fabrication data for the production of all steelwork. An automated revision system handled the drawing and report updates and the powerful software supplied accurate CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) output data and enabled electronic transfer of fabrication drawings to the CSK fabrication site in Latvia. Collaboration across both the CSK project team and third party contractors and engineers was aided during the entire construction period by the free drawing and model viewing software associated with StruCad (view and download the software) enabling details and revisions to be checked and communicated easily. This functionality is of particular interest to engineers and enables full scale interaction across teams facilitating interrogation and understanding of the model. With project phasing also handled by the StruCad system the steelwork was batched, trucked and shipped from Latvia to Denmark and erected in sequence in Hillerød.

Reproduced with kind permission from CSK Stålindustri A/S

CSK Senior Draughtsman Jacob Willumsen started using StruCad software in 1999 and finds it the most productive solution to overcome many complex structural detailing issues and a powerful means of management of the many steel construction projects completed by the company. ’StruCad facilitated the scale of this large project - enabling us to detail the structure incredibly quickly and produce accurate fabrication drawings and output electronically’. ’By adding our own personalised section catalogue to the StruCad library we were able to further speed the detailing process and improve our productivity’. Jacob continues, ‘This means we can handle larger projects in shorter times with less man hours’. ’Our production team in Latvia are also able to accept CAM output data from the system in association with accurate material lists and fabrication drawings and thus a seamless fabrication process can occur’.

CSK have been involved in many landmark projects in Denmark, including the recent Copenhagen Airport Transfer Centre and attribute some of their success in the recent completion of the largest steel framed building in Denmark to the power of StruCad from AceCad Software Ltd.

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