"Without the new Turn module for Civil Designer it would have been impossible to have completed the initial part of the project on deadline," says Gert Laubscher of SNA in Pretoria. He was faced with doing the detail design for 10 new load centres within one month.

The project involved designing 20 load control centres in three months for the Maputo Corridor. Sixteen of the load centres are in South Africa and four in Mocambique. The main client is SANRA and SNA were tasked with doing the detail design for the SBR joint venture as a design and construct contract.

This powerful new addition to the integrated Civil Designer suite was also instrumental in SBR being awarded the tender. "Effective use of the software in optimising the surfacing areas in a very limited time greatly contributed to SBR success," says Gert.

Although some of the sites look similar, each one is unique. Because entrances and exits are not always on the same side, the routes needed to be checked by running the design vehicle along each route. "Checking each individual site on a trial and error basis would have taken far longer. Using the software we were able to run the vehicle along the design path and then determine the width of the road," says Nelson Galé, the senior engineer who did most of the work.

The main design vehicle was specified to be a WB20 truck. Knowledge Base assisted SNA to determine the vehicle characteristics, especially the turn angle. The flexibility of being able to change the design vehicle is a valuable function of the software. This was greatly beneficial where certain areas needed to be designed for delivery vehicles and not the WB20.

Civil Designer is a unique and robust software package developed and supported by Knowledge Base in South Africa. All the design modules, which include Survey and Terrain, Road, Water, Sewer, Storm and Turn, are mounted on a common Digital Terrain Model sharing the same data structure and interface. AllyCAD, a powerful 2D CAD tool is integrated as well. The power of this unparalleled integration means that developers, engineers and designers are limited only by their own imaginations. The software lets the designer get on with designing.

Knowledge Base

(021) 701 1850

sales@knowbase.co.za

www.knowbase.co.za