Finalist

To accommodate an increase in passengers along the Gelnhausen-Fulda railroad line in the Rhine-Main area of Hessen, a new high-speed traffic line will eliminate bottlenecks and shorten journey times. Prof. Quick und Kollegen were commissioned to perform the geotechnical investigation to determine an optimal route option and explore the geotechnical feasibility of tunnels while protecting the local environment and the community. Faced with complex subsoil and voluminous data capture and coordination issues when developing the required 3D models, they realized that they needed to establish BIM workflows in a common data environment.

Leveraging PLAXIS and Leapfrog Works, they established a connected data environment and single source of truth for all geotechnical information, building a 3D ground model that covers 200 meters used to perform accurate geotechnical calculations. The solution helped explore 100 boreholes, define excavated material quantities, and pursue digital risk management. As a pioneer project in Germany for geotechnical BIM application, the team is promoting Leapfrog Works and the benefits that digitization can bring to other geotechnical engineering firms and the environment.