Skanska use virtual construction rehearsal on UK bridge project

National Highways chose Skanska to install two bridges as part of an improvement project on the UK’s s busy M42 motorway. To ensure that the operation was carried out efficiently, safely, and with minimum disruption to road users the Sweden-based company used Bentley Systems’ virtual construction rehearsal.

Traffic congestion and poor journey reliability are said to have limited investment and economic growth around the M42 at junction 6. Having almost reached capacity, the junction has become a bottleneck, causing delays across the network. 

To ensure that the operation ran smoothly, engineers at Skanska performed digital rehearsals of the operation, utilising Bentley’s Synchro 4D Pro. This is said to have enabled the project team to digitally rehearse the construction sequence multiple times before building the asset.

The digital model not only included the permanent works that were being installed, but also logistics information, existing environmental conditions, and temporary works. The team collected the different 3D models of the existing environment along with the proposed environment, which was then modelled into Synchro 4D.

By creating an hour-by-hour sequence of visual and realistic events, Bentley Systems says that Skanska could better communicate what would be happening in an informative, straightforward way.

The development of the 4D model was a structured team effort, bringing together expertise within the project to survey existing infrastructure, develop 3D models, and build a comprehensive program that represented the work accurately.