Expertise · Chung-Ang University
Korea had almost no track record of building bridge piers from prefabricated modules when Changsoo Shim's research team got the chance to put one on a real expressway. Changsoo Shim, a professor at Chung-Ang University, describes how the team found the problems of an unfamiliar site before the site found them.
In Changsoo Shim's own words.
"I think an engineer's discipline is to keep posing new problems,
try many different solutions and build a balanced body of experience along the way."
I'm a researcher who keeps digging until I'm convinced.
Seeing an unfamiliar site digitally first
My path started in 2006 with the Virtual Construction System research group, the project that first brought BIM to Korea. Since then, my research has focused on linking bridge design, fabrication and construction through digital tools. From 2020, I led the work on digital off-site construction for prefabricated bridges, bringing DfMA to road bridges.
Korean expressway bridges had almost no history of rapid construction with modular substructures. Then we got the chance to use the prefabricated pier we'd developed on a real site.
The project team was new to it as well, and problems kept surfacing in design and fabrication quality control. We didn't have field data to lean on, so we used every 3D digital tool we could to spot problems early and design them out. In the fabrication yard, we worked closely with the site engineers to solve the hardest geometry control issues. What we learned about handling a site we'd never seen before stretched the whole team's thinking.
One component, found just before construction
Then we caught a near miss. A key detail component, included in the design to protect the durability of the prestressed structure, still hadn't arrived just before construction. We secured it right away and finished the pier to the quality we'd intended.
I saw the whole thing through, from the first research concept to the finished structure. That gave me real technical confidence and a deep sense of reward as a researcher.
Q. You've used MIDAS since its early days. Is there a moment that stays with you?
I always enjoyed spotting a MIDAS booth in the exhibition hall at an international conference. I'd been using it since the early days of its development and watched it grow into general-purpose software.
We worked together on R&D when we were developing BIM technology for cable bridges, and on overseas BIM support projects I've introduced MIDAS technology and had its help. The Korean software market is small, so it's remarkable that MIDAS opened up the analysis and BIM markets far enough to compete globally. Data is now an asset, and data governance is becoming national strategy. I hope MIDAS can become the platform for digital twins and maintenance data across Korea's infrastructure.
Checking one last component right before construction meant the pier reached the site exactly as the research intended. He made this possible beacause he kept digging until he was convinced. As much as he hopes MIDAS become a digital twin platform for infrastructure, MIDAS also intends to keep working in that direction.