Teboding Peters Engineering was showcasing its experience in digital plant design at this year’s ACHEMA. This also includes laser scanning, which allows the precise measurement of three-dimensional objects as well as the D-software PDMS (Plant Design Management System), that helps designers create detailed computerized models of industrial facilities already during planning phase.

Tebodin Group, based in The Hague, the Netherlands, is a specialized global consulting and engineering firm with 50 offices in 23 countries. Tebodin Peters Engineering is based in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The company also has six additional sites in Germany as well as two in France and offers comprehensive engineering services. In addition to 3-D plant and pipeline design, process engineering, machinery and equipment design, technical building equipment planning in accordance with German regulations on architects and engineers fees (HOAI) as well as construction planning and design, Tebodin Peters Engineering also certifies and validates plants. While Tebodin focuses on central and eastern European countries, the Asia/Pacific region and the Middle East, Tebodin Peters Engineering provides services for Bilfinger customers in German-speaking countries and France.

Along with other 3-D tools, Tebodin Peters Engineering uses Plant Design Management System (PDMS) software for the planning, construction and maintenance of complex and technologically sophisticated industrial facilities.

– The software allows us to model all plant components, such as apparatus, pipelines, steel and concrete structures, down to measuring sites, drive units and the like with incredible precision, Bernd Bodeit, Managing Director of Tebodin Peters Engineering, explains.

– We also use other common software tools, such as AutoCAD 3D, PDS and Smart 3D, at our customers’ request.” Design tools such as PDMS make perfect planning, modeling and visualization of the planned facilities a reality. They also make it easy to identify and rectify potential conflicts across multiple interfaces. “This gives our customers a virtual insight into their construction projects at an early stage, allowing us to consider change requests throughout every phase of planning, Bodeit says.

One example of the use of 3-D software was the detailed planning of the piping for a new facility at the BASF plant in Schwarzheide, Germany. At more than €100 million, the facility was the chemical company’s largest single investment at the site to date. With the complex piping systems designed to transport several products as well as both cooling and heating agents, the experts from Tebodin Peters Engineering were involved right from the beginning, staring with the planning phase.

– Around 50 of our employees are working on this project, and even more were involved during peak phases, Bodeit explains.

– Using PDMS, we created an entire virtual facility, which allowed us to analyze and coordinate all the details with the BASF planning units and the operator. The project was successfully completed in fall 2014.

Laser scanning continues to gain importance in plant design because it makes the complete and precise documentation of three-dimensional information from surfaces a reality. The data gathered is then transferred to a 3-D model. The engineering specialists at Tebodin Peters Engineering have been using laser scanning technology in 3-D plant design since 2002. In combination with the use of 3-D planning software, this technology allows the company to provide all virtual plant design services from a single source.

– We are a founding member of the Laser Scanning and Virtual Reality in Plant Engineering Industry Working Group, which is organized by the Fraunhofer Institute in Magdeburg, Germany. As a result, we are always up to date when it comes to laser technology. Plus, we are working with our partners to advance this development, Bodeit continues.

Tebodin Peters Engineering’s own Neo3D program, developed in-house, also offers customers added value. This software allows the company to efficiently create an as-built model based on the 3-D planning model of an industrial plant that precisely documents its finished state.

– The model is an optimum starting point for the efficient renovation or expansion of a plant at a later time, says Klaus Bach, Director of Development at Tebodin Peters Engineering. Bach and his team developed the software. The program uses data from plant measurement based on laser scanning technology for the automatic comparison. Without this information, the engineers would have to record all changes by hand in a time-consuming process. In contrast, Neo3D uses color to mark deviations between the existing plant and the original planning in the three-dimensional computer model with the utmost precision.

– The program has been a hit with our customers, Bodeit says.

– We received a request for an as-built comparison from a power plant in Finland, for example. Thanks to laser scanning, all we needed to do was take measurements on location once. The rest of the planning and the comparison was all taken care of from an office far, far away.

Another advantage of Neo3D is that the software performs complex calculations and is capable of reducing the gigantic flood of data from a laser scan of an industrial plant to a size that a computer can handle.

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