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Using FORUM8 Products Such as UC-win/FRAME(3D) for Analyzing RC Structures and Ground A year has passed since the occurrence of the Great East Japan Earthquake that brought about compound damage on an unexpected scale. Although the road to restoration and revival is still long, tenacious efforts in different forms are underway by a wide range of concerned parties. In parallel with such movement, a rise in disaster prevention awareness and the environmental awareness can be seen not only in social infrastructure development but also in private business. This issue picks up Applied Technology Co., Ltd, featuring "Disaster Prevention and Environmental Analyses Department" offering engineering services in numerical analyses and simulation mainly in the fields of disaster prevention and environment within Engineering Division of the Company. Originally Disaster Prevention and Environmental Analyses Dept. started from an environmental system analysis work using the software developed in-house. Later they extended service fields to RC structures and ground for disaster prevention, accumulating ample experiences in analyses and simulation. Then following development of "Guideline for verification of the seismic performance of river structures (draft) and its instructions" by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT) (March, 2007), they introduced "UC-win/FRAME(3D)", a 3D analysis program for space frame structures. Since then, they have been expanding the number of FORUM8 products including "Multiframe" for 3D structural analysis software and "Engineer's Studio(R)" for 3D plate dynamic nonlinear analysis.
Founded in 1984, Applied Technology Co., Ltd. is currently based in the Headquarters (Kita Ward, City of Osaka) and Tokyo Office (Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo), employing 176 people. The Company's services include the following two:
The function of the Engineering Division having 68 staff members can be largely divided into two parts: Urban and Regional Planning Dept., and Disaster Prevention and Environmental Analyses Dept. (including Disaster Prevention Information Dept.). As for the former, 28 members are mainly in charge of a consulting service. In contrast, the latter, to which 40 people belong to, consists of Hydrosphere Environment Section (Osaka / Tokyo), Disaster Mitigation Information Section (Osaka), Information Systems Section (Osaka / Tokyo), and Environmental Information Section (Tokyo), performing a wide range of analysis duties. Originally Disaster Prevention and Environmental Analyses Dept. specialized in environmental analysis, then gradually expanded its targets of analyses to the fields of civil engineering, architecture, and disaster prevention since about 10 years ago. In recent years it tends to place more emphasis on the analyses and simulation of disaster prevention. Masahiko Maeno, Director of Engineering Division of the Company, positions "environment", "disaster prevention", and "(maintenance of) assets" as big 3 themes to be coped with Disaster Prevention and Environmental Analyses Dept. As the key approach to them, he mentioned utilization of elemental technologies such as numerical analysis, simulation, and GIS. Based on them, it is support for customers in decision making (of design) that they finally provide by using such tools, as he says. The Dept. has been engaged mainly in social infrastructure development so far. Recently, however, reflecting the rise in disaster prevention awareness and environmental awareness on a private basis, the proportion related with the latter is increasing steadily. On the other hand, they cooperated with Urban and Regional Planning Dept. in particular this year. They are willing to plan provision of the system for performing maintenance (asset management) from downstream to upstream, including calculation of diverse loads, construction of database and an inspection management system.
The engineering services provided by Disaster Prevention and Environment Analyses Dept. are as follows:
Among these, the subjects of environmental analyses in which the Dept. has the most ample experiences since the establishment of the Dept. are the water-related fields such as rivers, lakes, and oceans. Formerly, the mainstream was an analysis such as what kind of impact that construction of a structure on the sea-bottom would have on the surrounding waters. These days, in contrast, expansion to natural disaster forecast including tsunami waves and river flooding, applying a common analysis technology. As examples of such fields, Mr. Toru Yamazaki, Director of the Dept, mentioned forecasting change in flow regime along with installation of piers, forecasting the impact on the ground water at the time of hazardous material leakage, study of water quality improvement measures, and analysis of tsunami waves. He explained that while basically using the in-house-developed software for performing analysis and model constructing, they are utilizing general-purpose software for displaying their results. In contrast, for disaster-prevention analyses, they perform seismic diagnosis and earthquake performance verification over RC structures such as river structures as well as water and sewage facilities, or ground. FORUM8 products are used in particular in almost all analyses of RC structures and the ground-related plural analytic works. In addition, since there is a tendency to put emphasis on maintenance from the viewpoint of extension of service life of the social infrastructure, the company paid attention to the update and use of data ranging from that of research and planning of the work to its design, construction, and maintenance. In addition to expanding conventional services of disaster-prevention analyses related with civil engineering, they also provide solutions including construction of inspection management systems and asset management systems, modeling equipments in 2D / 3D, and BIM (building information modeling) consulting. With regard to this Mr. Yoshitaka Furukawa, Chief of Marketing Group of the Dept. introduced the latest approaches as follows:
As mentioned above, the Company has been dealing with a lot of diverse ground-related analysis duties such as ground deformation analyses, seepage flow analysis, and study of the impact of neighboring construction. In march 2007, MLIT developed "Guideline for verification of the seismic performance of river structures (draft) and its instructions". It was decided that the guideline would be applied to verification of the earthquake performance of water gates, sluices, and other river structures. Ahead of this, the Company examined introducing reliable package software on the basis of the constraint of the method using only the in-house-developed software so far. Partly because the validity and reliability of the result of its three-dimensional analysis attracted their attention, they came to adopt UC-win/FRAME(3D). Mr. Makoto Kanai, Manager in Charge of Environmental Information Section of the Dept., looks back the process. Since then, as the number of the cases using UC-win/FRAME(3D) gradually increases, the Tokyo office increased the purchasing number of its licenses, as well as the number of staff members in charge. On the other hand, the staff who became familiar with the new expertise of a structure analysis through working in the Tokyo office purchased its license because he wished to continue using UC-win/FRAME(3D) after returning to the headquarters in Osaka. At present, Environmental Information Section (Tokyo) operates six licenses, while Disaster Mitigation Information Section (Osaka) operates two. In addition, while the use of UC-win/FRAME(3D) in analyses spreads out, aiming to apply it to diagnosis of foundation at the same time, they adopted our "Design calculation of foundation" in Tokyo and Osaka offices respectively. Furthermore, for the seismic diagnosis of waterworks facilities etc., requests like "it must be analyzed with plates, not frames" have begun gradually surfacing. Necessity of software for structures that cannot be supported fully by UC-win/FRAME(3D) for frame analysis was recognized. Consequently, in the autumn of 2010, they introduced Multiframe, which allows an analysis using plate elements from the new version in addition to the frame analysis using beam elements. Subsequently since the end of 2010 or so, though being in the peak season of the end of the fiscal year, they presented various requests to the FORUM8 staff with work in the next fiscal year end in mind. Later in the autumn of 2011, taking the opportunity of being required to perform a non-linear analysis with plates for waterworks facilities, they came to introduce Engineer's Studio(R). Through use of UC-win/FRAME(3D), they not only evaluated the software in itself but also developed a feeling of trust in our staff, including their response to inquiries. Moreover, Mr. Makoto Kanai reveals that because of the needs for utilizing legacy data accumulated by that time, there was an idea from the beginning that they would want to use FORUM8 software as far as possible among other package software products of a similar type.
"UC-win/FRAME(3D) is very easy to use, so even a member unfamiliar with a structural analysis will be able to get used to work smoothly if taught by the experienced in person", "In general, you tend to forget how to use the tool after not using it for a while, though you remember it when you are concentrating on using it. However, it is relatively easy to remember how to use the FORUM8 software." - These are what Mr. Makoto Kanai expressed as an advantage of the FORUM8 products. However, since there is an extreme difference between the peak season and the off-season due to the characteristics of the work, consideration is required for a price system that conforms to the actual situation, as he says. With regard to this, he mentioned the case that existing two licenses were not enough in this term in the headquarters office (Osaka), and that they rented an additional license of UC-win/FRAME(3D). He insists that such a way of using it is possible in the future in consideration of cost-effectiveness. In addition, he also pays attention to the effect produced by having two software tools of the same kind, allowing persons in charge in the organization to exchange information and to improve their skills each other drastically. On the other hand, Mr. Toru Yamazaki expects emerging potentiality of cooperating with our VR technology based on the in-house technical accumulation such as GIS and analyses of tsunami waves. Though the Company emphasizes IT such as analyses and GIS with its themes of environment, disaster prevention, and maintenance of assets, they experienced a sense of powerlessness after the Great East Japan Earthquake, as Mr. Masahiko Maeno says. "New fields open up wider as we learn about disaster prevention". He positioned FORUM8 products as indispensable in order to follow them and secure the fields where they can play an active part on their own. With that in mind, he says that they want to positively expand their own expertise about environment and disaster prevention as disaster prevention awareness rises more and more.
（Interviewed and written by Takashi Ikeno） |
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User Introduction/Vol.96
