Expert: Roads need to be ‘smart.’ Here’s why.
DSI Columns® Feature A New System to Provide Maximum Wind Resistance for Homes in Coastal and SPA
DSI’s Westbury Aluminum Railing is a Superior Choice for Decks and Porches
Avvir Announces Enhanced Product Capabilities to Improve Construction Project Management and Analysis
Avvir Launches Onsite, Turn-Key Reality Capture Services for the Construction Industry
EarthCam 4D Brings Construction Digital Twins to Life
IDTechEx Talk Smart Buildings: Another Frontier for the Digital Revolution
Avvir Launches Avvir Accelerate to Support AI-Backed Planning in the Construction Industry
Smart Cities: Paradise or Punishment?
New Passive Cooling for Buildings, Discussed by IDTechEx
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Digital Twin urban planning technology can yield $280bn global windfall for cities
Digital Twin technology is expected to lead the way in transforming our cities, savings billions in running costs, and assisting towards net-zero targets. A new report by global tech market advisory firm ABI Research, says the cost benefits alone could be worth $280 billion by 2030 through using Digital Twins for more efficient urban planning. "Digital Twins will become the ultimate tool for city governments to design, plan and manage their connected infrastructure and assets in an efficient and cost-effective way,” said Dominique Bonte, Vice President End Markets at ABI Research. “Cost savings can be obtained in key areas, such as energy and utilities, transportation, safety and security, and infrastructure (roads/buildings). However, urban digital twins also offer many other advantages in terms of supporting and improving sustainability, circularity, decarbonization, and the overall quality of urban living.” The report details potential efficiencies across a wide range of asset categories and use cases: • First-time suitable designs of buildings and other physical infrastructure avoiding expensive modifications after completion • Energy-efficient building designs maximizing solar capacity and yielding lifetime energy savings • Resilient and safe infrastructure designs reducing policing and emergency response costs • Optimized designs of utilities, streetlight, and surveillance networks to achieve the same coverage target with less CAPEX • Design of COVID-19 proof buildings to deliver healthcare savings • Digital Twins enable efficient eGovernment through seamless exchange of data with citizens for mediation purposes. One of the leading suppliers of urban Digital Twin technology is Chicago and London-based Cityzenith, which featured in this research alongside Siemens, Microsoft, and Engie, and recently joined the World Economic Forum's Top 100 Global Innovators community. Cityzenith founder and CEO Michael Jansen commented after reading the report: "As an architect by trade, I know how inefficient and over budget the built environment has been over the last 30 years or more, often causing delays in completion and inefficient use of materials due to the industry's lack of data and technology. “It's a huge global problem as we seek a more efficient and sustainable model for our urban planning, and construction must catch up with the pace of emissions reduction in other industries such as manufacturing. Fortunately, Digital Twin technology is accelerating to provide much-needed solutions to these issues; modelling by software like our SmartWorldOSTM can manipulate huge amounts of data to enable smooth and accurate 'right first time and on time' construction on new projects and help retrofit older construction to cut emissions now and in the future. "During the next 12 months, we will partner with at least ten international cities, to integrate our SmartWorldOSTM Digital Twin platform. We have also signed a major international contract to use SmartWorldOSTM to manage carbon emissions in other cities as part of the Race to Zero and movement towards a more sustainable and cost-effective energy transition." Digital Twin technology has been named one of five top tech growth sectors, including nanotechnology, genomics, biotechnology, and AI. According to the World Nano Foundation, these five sectors will enjoy a combined growth of more than 400% over the next five years. The Digital Twin market alone is predicted to grow from $3.1bn to $48.2bn by 2026, according to MarketsandMarkets. Cityzenith’s pioneering work has been recognized by an international World Smart City Award from the Open Business Council and status as a Top 10 Digital Twin provider by Manufacturing Technology Insights in the last year. Bonte at ABI Research concluded: "While the cost-saving advantages of Digital Twins allow cities to achieve fast ROIs, the increasingly complex nature of connected and smart urban infrastructure, especially in view of future smart urban concepts, will simply mandate the deployment of Digital Twins as critical, holistic management tools, similar to the role they play in other industries like manufacturing.” To hear more from Cityzenith CEO Michael Jansen on how Digital Twins can save our cities billions in running costs, please join an upcoming FREE webinar, ‘Investing in an AI Technology Platform for Sustainable Cities' taking place virtually on Tuesday the 24th August at 13:00 CT, please sign up https://event.webinarjam.com/register/61/xqokkfl4
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New launch in construction reinforcement technologies from Kordsa: Kratos Structural Reinforcement
Kordsa’s Kratos Macro and Micro synthetic fiber reinforcements stand out as the first Turkish product in the over 500 million-dollar sized international fiber reinforcement market. As the company expanded its Kratos product range in 2020, with the addition of Kratos Rebound Minimizer, a shotcrete additive that reduces rebound in tunneling and mining applications, and Kratos Pool Fiber used in pool plaster applications, became a preferred solution partner of many prestigious projects with its cost effective, durable and efficient product range. In parallel to its "Inspired, we reinforce life” vision Kordsa has recently added to its Kratos product portfolio 4 Structural Reinforcement products after a comprehensive R&D period. Structural Reinforcement is critical both for Turkey, and in terms of overall sustainability. Reinforcing with Kratos Structural Reinforcement products saves both time and cost compared to demolishing and rebuilding. In this respect, it stands out as an environmentally friendly and sustainable solution. If technically compatible, compared to steel or reinforced concrete jacketing, fabric reinforcement applications provide a more advantageous solution minimizing the loss of field. Kordsa held a digital launch for the new Kratos Structural Reinforcement Products on May 31st. The meeting, started with the opening speech of Kordsa CEO Ali Çalışkan, and continued with the illuminating presentation of Kordsa’s Strategy and Business Development Director and Construction Business Unit Leader Fezal Okur Eskil about Kordsa and the Construction Business Unit. Following her presentation, Prof. Dr. Alper İlki, from Istanbul Technical University, Civil Engineering Faculty Structural and Earthquake Engineering Department, shed light on Structural Reinforcement Technologies in Turkey and in the world and explained their significance. Following Kordsa’s Global Technology Director Devrim Özaydın's speech titled Global Technology and Construction Reinforcement, in which he also touched on Kordsa’s technology-focused innovation perspective, Sales and Marketing Manager M. Yasa Kılınç, Technology Manager Uğur Alparslan, Account Manager Sebla Demir and Project Leader Tuluhan Ergin from Kordsa Construction Reinforcement business line, gave a detailed presentation including key technical specifications, usage areas and market position of Kratos Structural Reinforcement Technology. The digital launch meeting ended with the speech of the Chairman of the Earthquake Strengthening Association (DEGÜDER) and Chairman of the Board of Artyol Mühendislik Sinan Türkkan on Turkish structural reinforcement market and DEGÜDER's activities.
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Toray Launches Torayvino Branch as Japan’s First Water Purification System Usable with Your Choice of Faucet
Toray Industries, Inc., will start selling the Torayvino® Branch household water purifier exclusively in Japan today. The company debuted the Torayvino brand in 1986 when it brought out a countertop water purifier employing hollow fiber membrane filters. The Torayvino Branch is Japan’s first water purification system to allow switching between tap and purified water by simply lifting a faucet lever. To date, consumers have faced limitations in choosing faucets for under-sink water purifiers or faucets with built-in purifiers. They can install the Torayvino Branch under sinks to work with innumerable faucet designs, features, and brands. They can use their existing faucets or foreign-branded ones. Since the Torayvino Branch is installed under the sink, it does not spoil the design of the entire kitchen. This product adopts the SKC88.X cartridge, whose water purification capacity, cost, and size match most contemporary lifestyle needs. While compact, this cartridge is an industry leader. It can remove 17 impurities of JIS, has a fast flow rate, and can purify 4,000 liters of water. It is priced at ¥9,130, including tax. It is designed for annual replacement, for a monthly running cost of about ¥700.
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My Electrical Expert Offers a Range of Electrical Services Backed By Years of Industry Expertise
My Electrical Expert, the electricians with an impeccable reputation for delivering high-quality electrical solutions, is committed to its core vision. The electrical expert makes sure they offer the best possible solutions through their team of well-trained and highly skilled electricians, technicians, and engineers. “We have a reputation for having the best expertise in the industry and enjoy a high level of trust and confidence of our clients across the United States,” says the spokesperson for the company. “We carry our industry expertise as a badge of honor. We also pride ourselves on our honesty, efficiency, reliability, safety, and transparency whenever we do business with residential as well as commercial clients.” As the best-known residential electrician in the country, My Electrical Expert has been serving the needs of homeowners for decades. They are co-ops and condominium experts and equipped to handle projects of any size, from townhomes to multi-family apartment buildings. My Electrical Expert employs a team that is OSHA certified and has passed the testing and training standards as set by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. All their projects are handled with safety-first culture and within a completely safe working environment. The commercial electrician services by My Electrical Expert are handled by the most experienced electricians in the team. They make sure that apart from the functional aspects, the aesthetics side of every project is also considered while executing the work. The team provides clients detailed information about the specialized electrical needs for their business and collaborates with them at every stage of the project. My Electrical Expert also specializes in industrial-grade services. The leading industrial electrician employs licensed engineers, certified electricians, and the latest technology to diagnose problems and provide the most appropriate solutions. They can handle even complex electrical issues with ease. Residents and commercial business owners can rely on this emergency electrician to attend to any emergency electrical needs and problems quickly. The company offers a 24/7 emergency response system precisely to deal with such unforeseen problems and situations. My Electrical Expert can mobilize entire divisions or deploy a specialist team, as the situation demands, to address electrical problems effectively and quickly. Customers can call their office for phone consultation and on-spot assessment and get a ballpark estimate for their electrical work. The company deploys only NATE-certified technicians and makes use of the latest equipment to ensure high-quality electrical solutions for all their clients. For more information, visit myelectricalexpert.com
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Waylay Provides Missing IoT Link for Smart Building Automation
Waylay today announced its low-code automation platform for smart buildings, in response to increasing market demand for new intelligent building automation applications that rely on sensor data and data from building management systems. According to ABI Research (*), the automated building market has traditionally focused on four conventional sectors: HVAC, lighting, access control and fire & life safety. Today, new emerging applications in space management, environmental monitoring, asset management and cleanliness & hygiene management are being offered. Together, these new solutions will grow at 32% CAGR over the next 8 years to create US$2 billion in software and services revenues by 2026. Waylay delivers its IoT automation platform to manufacturers of building equipment, building management service providers and software companies to deploy these new intelligent building applications and realize a swift response to changing circumstances, legislation and customer needs. Next-gen smart building applications Waylay’s automation platform complements ongoing IoT initiatives and processes real-time sensor data, from both legacy systems as well as new sensors, to add a new layer of business intelligence to smart buildings. Waylay’s data analytics fuels new solutions for optimized facility management, preventive & predictive maintenance of HVAC systems, failure detection, occupant safety, asset and energy optimization, alarm response and optimized field service teams to streamline business processes and create new, high-margin revenue streams. Automation platform kickstarts new smart building scenarios The Waylay smart building automation platform no longer requires the typically complex mix of IT development skill sets to create, productize and maintain new use cases. The low-code development environment with drag & drop rules engine visual programming interface allows cross-organization collaboration. Data scientists can efficiently put their algorithms in production, while maintenance managers can develop and validate their own information, decision & control flows and tweak and maintain them as needed. None of this requires lengthy IT development cycles. The automation platform for smart buildings hosts a set of use-case rule templates that kickstart the creation of new scenarios and that can be adapted for every specific building, structure or environment. This results in a quick go-to-market of new smart building applications and minimal in-house resources and skills to maintain the solutions platform. “Waylay has consistently proven to offer the best in class IoT automation and analytics platform,” said Piet Vandaele, CEO of Waylay. “Our drag & drop low-code approach increases innovation velocity and data scientists or domain experts no longer have to wait for traditional R&D cycles to finish. This becomes critical when legislation changes or circumstances like COVID-19 require quick responses from smart building solution providers. The Waylay platform brings democratization of analytics to smart buildings and therefore higher ROI to IoT data in smart buildings.”
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Sumitomo Electric Completes the Construction of Japan's Largest Wind Farm "Wind Farm Tsugaru"
Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. is pleased to announce that it has completed the construction of the largest wind farm in Japan, "Wind Farm Tsugaru," which was ordered by Kajima Corporation. Wind Farm Tsugaru, with a total output of 121,600 kW, is the largest onshore wind farm in Japan (as of April 2020), established in Tsugaru City, Aomori Prefecture by Green Power Tsugaru GK, a group company of Green Power Investment Corporation. After about two and a half years of construction, it went into commercial operation on April 1, 2020. Sumitomo Electric was in charge of the design, manufacturing and installation of electrical equipment, such as underground power transmission and distribution lines and substation equipment, jointly with its group companies, Nissin Electric Co., Ltd. and Sumitomo Densetsu Co., Ltd. The Sumitomo Electric Group contributed to the optimization of equipment design by selecting the most efficient transmission voltage, determining appropriate equipment specifications through system analysis for addressing high harmonics and overvoltage issues, and conducting in-depth surveys for selecting appropriate routes for underground pipes. In addition, the Group installed a 34-km-long power transmission line, which is unparalleled for an ultra-high voltage (154 kV) transmission line, successfully within the scheduled period by utilizing its extensive technical expertise and construction skills, consequently completing construction in March 2020. The Sumitomo Electric Group aims to provide total solutions for all electric power processes that link power plants and users, such as power transmission, distribution, reception, transformation and storage, thereby contributing to the introduction of renewable energies and the creation of a smart energy society, both of which are anticipated to accelerate in the future.
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Bentley Systems Announces Availability of OpenSite Designer
Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading global provider of comprehensive software and digital twins services for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure, today announced the availability of OpenSite Designer, its integrated application for civil site and land development workflows across conceptual, preliminary, and detailed design phases. OpenSite Designer advances BIM through comprehensive 3D site design, spanning reality modeling of site conditions from drone imagery and scans, geotechnical analysis, terrain modeling, site layout and grading optimization, stormwater drainage modeling and analysis, underground utilities modeling, detailed drawing production, and enlivened visualizations. OpenSite Designer enables rapid and iterative conceptual design, leveraging contextual information obtained through point clouds, reality meshes, GIS, and other sources to enhance understanding of existing site conditions. Interoperating with PLAXIS and SoilVision, Bentley’s geotechnical engineering solutions, site plans can be enhanced with new information about the active properties of soil including bearing capacity, stresses, and displacement. With OpenSite Designer, users can create intelligent 3D models containing site information, terrain data, parking lots, building pads, driveways, sidewalks, parcel layout, and related site features. During preliminary design, the site engineer can complete and subjectively improve the layout while relying on further automated optimizations, which respond to the engineering changes. To complete the project’s digital workflows, OpenSite Designer fully supports the site engineer’s detailed design including the production of all required project deliverables. For many site engineers, OpenSite Designer will advance civil site design from traditional 2D plans and profiles to a 3D modeling environment, assuring more efficient analysis of hydraulics, geotechnical, geospatial, and earthworks. Incorporating the analytics optimization of Bentley’s SITEOPS technology, OpenSite Designer is the successor to the site design capabilities of Bentley’s PowerCivil, topoGraph, GEOPAK Site, InRoads Site, and MXSite. Dustin Parkman, vice president, civil infrastructure design integration for Bentley Systems, said, “The collaborative nature of digital workflows converging analysis and simulation with design and modeling is exemplified in our new OpenSite Designer. We’re excited that for the first time there is a complete solution for site design and land development to accelerate site engineers going digital!” Michael Semeraro, Jr., PE, PP, managing principal, EVP, Langan International, said, “Langan is always looking for opportunities to differentiate ourselves from competitors with technical excellence and expertise. We have depended on SITEOPS for site optimization, earthwork analysis, and cost identification in our planning phase. We now look forward to using OpenSite Designer to also produce our detailed designs and documentation.” Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems, said, “Interestingly, after three decades of leadership in civil engineering software scope advancement, the culmination is OpenSite Designer – a very accessible and widely-needed application which combines complete fitness for purpose with unprecedented ease of use and adoption. In effect, it brings to bear what we consider to be the indispensable characteristics of infrastructure digital twins – reality from imagery, veracity from simulation and optimization, and fidelity to design intent across revisions. Both site engineers’ work satisfaction, and their site designs, will be vastly enhanced by the breakthroughs in OpenSite Designer. Try it!”
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Bentley Systems Announces the Availability of OpenBuildings Station Designer
Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading global provider of comprehensive software and digital twins services for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure, today announced the general availability of OpenBuildings Station Designer, a new multidisciplinary application for the design, analysis, visualization, and simulation of new or operating rail, metro or other transit stations. Advancing beyond generic BIM applications, OpenBuildings Station Designer was developed specifically for rail and transit station modeling, with asset-specific content and workflows. OpenBuildings Station Designer streamlines and automates design collaboration design between architectural, mechanical, electrical, and structural disciplines sharing modeling, clash resolution, and documentation capabilities. OpenBuildings Station Designer incorporates LEGION, the industry-leading simulation software, acquired by Bentley late in 2018, for fully modeling pedestrian traffic to optimize footfall, wayfinding, crowd management, safety, and security. With the integrated capability to model and simulate pedestrian scenarios, OpenBuildings Station Designer helps designers to improve the functional use of space, passenger throughput, and the pedestrian experience. By virtue of Bentley’s open modeling environment, OpenBuildings Station Designer enables iterative digital workflows spanning OpenRail and OpenRoads to assure comprehensive and coordinated engineering modeling of transportation assets and modes. Within Bentley’s OpenRail Connected Data Environment (CDE), the Components Center cloud service contributes to station project quality and integrity through pre-populated digital components which include signaling equipment, escalators, turnstiles, public address systems, signage, kiosks, and more. OpenBuildings Station Designer breaks down barriers among stakeholders and increases the value and fitness-for-purpose of design deliverables through its: included LEGION pedestrian simulation; integration with OpenRail for rail design; integration with OpenRoads for roads design; clash resolution; multi-discipline documentation; ready-to-use catalogs for functional spaces and equipment; and enlivened visualizations. Santanu Das, SVP for Bentley’s design integration business unit, said, “OpenBuildings Station Designer reflects our goal of advancing BIM through digital twins, by including within its multi-discipline design scope the integral simulation of pedestrian traffic outcomes. With such insight, the designer can anticipate pedestrian bottlenecks and modify the layout to improve the station efficiency and safety, ultimately improving the passenger experience. Accordingly, we expect OpenBuildings Station Designer to also benefit existing rail and transit stations for renovations and upgrades, increasing their capacity and throughput.” Mike Nicholson, associate for Steer Group, said, "For over a decade Steer has successfully been delivering a wide range of pedestrian modeling studies around the world utilizing LEGION. We are now looking forward to using the full BIM capabilities of OpenBuildings Station Designer."
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IDTechEx Research: Smart Cities Without Infrastructure
A large proportion of the cost, disruption, pollution and exposure to natural disasters in a city would be eliminated if there were no infrastructure. Imagine no sewage or gas pipes, electricity poles or even sidewalks from which people leap into the face of approaching traffic. Poor sanitation such as leaking pipes kills half a million children under the age of five annually and costs $200 billion a year in healthcare costs and lost income worldwide. We have seen a beginning of independence with houses ceasing to require telephone wires because mobile phones are used. However, a city where buildings are fully independent seems like a pipedream. Until now. The smart materials and robotics approach to smart cities is far more powerful than the initial IT and sensor centric approach and it is cracking the problem. Passivedom Corporation sells a residence that grabs its own water from the atmosphere and treats its own sewage, its electric power being from its own solar panels. Separately, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates unveiled a futuristic toilet in November 2018 that does not need water or sewers and uses chemicals to turn human waste into fertilizer. His foundation has committed $200 million and expects to spend the same amount again before the toilets are viable for widespread distribution. "The current toilet simply sends the waste away in the water, whereas these toilets don't have the sewer," Gates said. "They take both the liquids and solids and do chemical work on it, including burning it in most cases.” During a speech he held up a jar of human faeces to illustrate the importance of improving sanitation. "It's a good reminder that in there could be 200 trillion rotavirus cells, 20 billion Shigella bacteria, and 100,000 parasitic worm eggs," he said. He expects the market for the toilets to be over $6 billion by 2030. There is big money in smart cities based on smart materials. Solar roads that self-deice and charge vehicles at speed are being installed in China in 2022. They cost millions of dollars per kilometre so this will become another multi-billion dollar zero-emission business with good payback. The IDTechEx report, “Smart City Opportunities: Infrastructure, Systems, Materials 2019-2029” covers independence of food, power and water for cities and even the buildings within them. It gives many ways a city can produce hundreds of megawatts itself. Megawatts from the new solar windows and cladding on a high rise gives affordable, secure, clean, electric cooking, HVAC, lighting and services not hostage to utility price rises. Since most cities are on a large river or the sea, boost that with the new plug-and-play wave, tidal and tethered-drone wind power with minimal intermittency and therefore minimal energy storage. Combinations will be tuned to demand profile through the day – far more efficient than energy storage. Little or no poisonous, flammable, large, heavy, short-lived battery is needed. Fit-and-forget clean supercapacitors often suffice. Indeed, there are now two routes to supercapacitors hitting the energy density of successful lithium-ion batteries in 2012 as explained in the IDTechEx report, “Supercapacitor Materials and Technology Roadmap 2019-2039”. The Facebook-funded smart city by Toronto will not have sidewalks because only gentle robot shuttles and people will pass. Most new smart cities target zero-emission energy independence, ban private cars (a dangerous waste of space) and provide free public transport. Transport is pure electric with energy independence thanks to solar bodywork and wind turbines erecting when stationary. An interim stage is intermittent rails, overhead catenary and solar bodywork doing top up charging. Buses and trucks need one fifth of the battery then and they can take more passengers and cargo. Does installing a hydrogen grid for fuel cells at buildings and in vehicles fit in the trend to little or no infrastructure? Well, no but monster Class 8 trucks and light rail have a window of opportunity for fuel cells charged only at end of route, provided we start making the hydrogen without emissions, such as “free” manufacture when wind turbines and solar are over-producing. One may even wonder if independent clean buildings can reverse the move to cities if country living becomes more viable, luxurious and easily connected to city life by low-cost, maintenance-free, energy-independent aircraft and road transport. In the meantime, the electric vehicle business is changing rapidly. In ten years from now the largest output will no longer be electric bikes but robot weeders, mostly powered by on-board solar: no infrastructure again. See the IDTechEx report, “Electric Vehicles for Construction, Agriculture and Mining 2019-2029”. The IDTechEx Show! in Berlin on 10-11 April 2019 combines 8 co-located conferences and 1 exhibition covering Internet of Things, Electric Vehicles, Energy Storage, Sensors, Printed Electronics, 3D Printing, Graphene & 2D Materials, 3D Printing and Wearable. The conferences feature sessions on Smart City and Smart Buildings, Supercapacitors, Progress to Off Grid Energy Independent Vehicles and Charging Infrastructure, and much more. Find out more and register with the latest attendee discount at www.IDTechEx.com/europe Learn more about further IDTechEx research at www.IDTechEx.com/research or contact the IDTechEx Research team at research@IDTechEx.com
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