Structural design of the unusual
As Macobo’s Structural Design team leader, ing. Liesbeth Torfs is closely involved in highly diverse projects. She’s more than happy to comment on some of the recent and current projects that her team has worked on. “A project which appeals to the imagination,” Liesbeth says "is the new test and business center for drones at the former air base of Brustem (Belgium). This so-called Droneport incubator building, which is the result of a collaboration between investment company LRM and the city of Sint-Truiden, will provide facilities to support start-ups and research initiatives related to the drone industry. dbv-architecten is in charge of the architectural design, while Macobo takes care of technical aspects.
Next to the Droneport office building, a steel structure will provide space for testing drones. The office building itself is designed as a concrete structure. Seen from the air, it has an unusual curved shape. Inside the building, open spaces can be rearranged to accommodate for changing office needs. On the roof of this appealing building, a terrace is planned to give a magnificent view of the surroundings.
The curved shape of this building and the type of loads that need to be accounted for in the structural design analysis make this project a great example of how Diamonds helps us easily realize even the most challenging building structures. "
Calculation times are a definite plus of Diamonds. Because Diamonds allows us to recalculate a structural design in just a matter of minutes, we firmly improve our agility as an engineering team. Also, Diamonds' great ease of use is essential to us in our day-to-day tasks as structural engineers. If a new colleague strengthens our team (and in a fast growing company like Macobo, that happens frequently), it only takes a few days at the most to get up to full speed with Diamonds. I don’t know of any other structural design analysis software that makes this possible" Liesbeth Torfs concludes.