Now that you have a good idea of where the bridge will be laid out, you can start to do a more detailed design. The tools you will use depend upon which part of the design you are responsible for.
For the bridge design, you will continue to work in InfraWorks to modify the pier locations, girder spacing, lane widths, clearance height, and add shoulders and barriers. In addition, you can manipulate bridge components using a spreadsheet.
Most bridge components are pre-fabricated offsite, then assembled together onsite to build the bridge. Inventor makes creating custom bridge components more efficient for both design and manufacturing purposes. The fabrication expert will use Inventor to create parametric girders, foundations, and piers.
Being able to see the custom parts in context with the rest of the design makes it much easier for all stakholders to understand the design. So, the next step is to take the custom parts into InfraWorks. Here, their dimensions can be modified as needed to meet the design requirements.
Learn how to use the InfraWorks model in Civil 3D and modify the cross-section that came in from InfraWorks to add details to the corridor model. Finally, you update the Civil 3D model with changes that were made in InfraWorks.
To ensure the road design stays within the project budget, take the design into Civil 3D. Here you create a surface from the corridor model so that you can then run quantities takeoffs along the road and add tables showing the results.
Revit is used to complete the details for the rebar placement and scheduling. In order to take the bridge into Revit without losing anything you already modeled in InfraWorks, you must install the Civil Structures add-in.
Adding rebar to a bridge design is most efficiently done in Revit. Learn how to reinforce bridge piers and configure your visibility graphics to clearly see the rebar that was placed.
To ensure the bridge design stays within the project budget, you can create rebar schedules inside Revit. Here you can calculate the total rebar length for each rebar size and export the schedules to Excel.
