A BIM Approach for the Design of Industrial Warehouses

All around the world, the Building Information Modeling (BIM) is transforming the architecture of engineering design and of construction industry. While it is in an early implementation stage in African Sub-saharan Countries, many construction regulators and project owners are beginning to enforce the BIM application from the project design stage to its commissioning. The aim of this research work is to provide an approach for designing industrial warehouses using BIM as it was done in the industrial zone of the Kribi Deep Sea port in Cameroon. The proposed methodology is presented in six steps: definition of BIM general requirements, design of the 3D BIM architectural model, sizing of wall and roof for specific requirements, design of the 3D BIM structural model, coordination of 3D BIM models and interference detection and creation of 4D BIM model. Results obtained from the application of BIM on the design of a warehouse, dedicated to preserve the natural and biological essence of cocoa and coffee products in a hostile marine environment, show that this methodology is easily appropriated and implemented by local design and construction engineers through available engineering software in the local market.