Project Summary
The Kevin’s Corner project is situated in
Central Queensland, approximately 340km south-west of Mackay. It is recognised
as a high quality thermal coal deposit within the Galilee Basin in Queensland,
Australia.
With first coal production beginning as early as 2014, and
construction activities planned from late 2012, the project will allow for both
high production open-cut mining and underground long wall mining activities to
be undertaken simultaneously.
This project is anticipated to employ a
workforce of approximately 2500 during construction and 2000 over its expected
30-year operational life. Cost effective engineering solutions were sought to
enhance the delivery of the project.
The Challenge
One of the first challenges tackled by the
design team was the sheer size and scale of the project. With multiple designers
and engineers working on the project simultaneously in different locations to
help meet an aggressive schedule, the project relied on a more coordinated,
flexible and accurate design model.
For a large project with multiple
sub-consultants, specialised service providers and local groups resulting in a
sequence of the design iterations and changes were required, to be applied to an
entire area of the team without disrupting the tight delivery schedule.
The project owner hoped to achieve the complete design and documentation of the
bankable feasibility study by the end of 2012.
The Solution
By utilising the power of Chains, multiple
functions could be run in a matter of seconds to allow the team to react quickly
to design decisions and changes requested by the client.
The model could
be easily adjusted to reflect changes to hardstand heights, flood immunity
levels and pavement design criteria in minutes, significantly reducing design
effort and costly rework.
The visualisation capabilities of 12d Model
allowed the design team working on the MIA to visually assess the location of
light vehicle and haul roads being completed by another team and coordinate the
location of key mine infrastructure areas seamlessly.
The Result
12d Model allowed Robert Bird Group to develop a
variety of options, visualise how the various design team components integrated
and study more design alternatives, enabling them to deliver a higher quality
engineering design more efficiently to the client
Download this Case Study as a PDF
HERE