Bentley Systems is playing a major role in the current expansion of the Domestic Terminal at Johannesburg International Airport. L.C. Consulting, part of the engineering team on the expansion project, is utilising Bentley software in order to meet the stringent requirements of the project, which involves the wholesale re-structuring and expansion of the Domestic Terminal.

Johannesburg International is Africa's busiest airport, and the team had to negotiate the task of managing the expansion of the Domestic Terminal while maintaining regular traffic flow through the airport. As a requirement of the expansion contract, The Airports Company of South Africa stipulated that the project must have zero impact on service levels at the airport.

In order to complete the project effectively, L.C. Consulting has made full use of the leading edge technologies offered by Bentley Systems. The entire structure of the airport has been modelled in detail using MicroStation TriForma, and, in a process that will eventually become an industry standard, drawings have been derived from vertical and horizontal sections taken through the structural model - as opposed to the conventional method of preparing drawings from scratch in 2D.

Project documentation is controlled internally at L.C. Consulting using ProjectWise - allowing all team members cross-platform access to project documents, hosted at a single source.

Denis Mullane, L.C. Consulting Managing Director, explains the company's decision to work with the Bentley range of products for the terminal expansion. "We use Bentley products extensively at L.C. Consulting on a wide variety of projects. The reason for this is that we utilise technology to do things differently, and Bentley products are the market leaders - they allow us to harness the potential technology has to offer as effectively as possible.

"Essentially, we build a model of the project and then we use that model as a core information point," Mullane continues. "We can then extract the construction documentation and drawings from the model. We then use ProjectWise to put a structure in place to manage the documentation, which is an essential part of a process like the Domestic Terminal expansion," Mullane says.

A major advantage gained by using MicroStation is the dramatically increased speed at which drawings can be generated from the model, allowing the project to move at a pace comfortably ahead of schedule. ProjectWise, with its advanced document control and dissemination capabilities allows for a small team of highly competent people to work on the project, minimising the margin of error often seen with larger work groups.

The new terminal at Johannesburg International will have five physical levels of operation, and will substantially alter 'the airport experience' when complete. Among the features of the new terminal are: a state-of-the-art baggage handling system, meet and greet facilities which will occupy the full building footprint, an extensive retail facility, a new departures level and an office level.

Although the requirements of the project have been stringent, the challenges have been met, says Mullane. "The project was planned from the beginning to take into account the fact that traffic flow could not under any circumstances be disrupted - this was a priority factor and was dealt with conceptually from the start. Every project we do has different challenges like this. The real challenge for us is always to make available technology work in our favour."

Bentley Systems Africa

(011) 462 3546

tex.vandeventer@bentley.nl