Chapter Consistency Verification Between Cost and Geometric Information Based on IFC: Application on Structural Elements

Cost estimation for tendering is one of the leading causes of legal disputes in the architecture, engineering, construction, and facilities management (AEC/FM) industry. The lack of a standardised support procedure to verify the association of cost data with the objects model causes waste of time and inaccuracy in the cost estimation. This research work, starting from a previous study where the research group integrated a cost domain in the IFC data schema, investigated the possible applications of this IFC based cost domain integrated with an IFC geometrical information model. The current paper investigates a specific case study focused on a structural model to verify current and future applications. Furthermore, rules for BIM information requirements will be defined through the Information Delivery Specification (IDS) to ensure an easy way for humans and computers to understand it. This will allow to specify which data must be present in the geometric model to subsequently ensure validation and verification of uniqueness of the cost data associated with geometric data. The results show the possibility to define a structured cost items in IFC associated through relationships to other entities and then verify their association to geometric data to guarantee its consistency and uniqueness