ASSESSMENT OF IFCS FOR STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS DOMAIN Author : Caiyun Wan,Po-Han Chen,Robert L. K. Tiong

This paper presents the findings from the collaborative research project between Nanyang
Technological University and Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology which aims to explore the
integration and interoperability between structural design and architectural design applications based on IFC
standards and product model. Industry Foundation classes (IFC) have made substantial progress in recent
years, and many design software companies now provide export capabilities of IFC based product models. But
to date, there has been virtually no assessment and validation of how well the IFCs can support structural
analysis. So in this paper after a brief introduction of this project, the information requirements of SAP2000
from software point of view are analyzed. Based on the comparison between the information requirements and
current IFC models, the capabilities of IFC product models to support structural analysis at multiple levels of
detail are assessed. It is found that IFCs still do not captured explicitly and provide a representation for some
information, such as prestress load and types of load combination etc., which means that some improvements to
current IFCs may be necessary. Thereby, at last some suggestions on IFC extensions model development for
these information gaps are proposed in the paper.