Five new upper lanes of the CLT’s Elevated Roadway and Terminal Curb Front opened on April 3, allowing drivers a more expedient Airport entry.
Based on the success of their first experience with the instrument, it wasn’t long before Hudson tapped it to resolve another challenge at CLT. A good surprise In January 2019, one of the primary design-consultants on CLT needed survey support for CLT’s ambitious South-Crossfield Taxiway (SCT) project, a new 4,000-foot-long taxiway, along with a bridge, that will connect the central and east side of the airfield. CES worked with the consultant company on previous projects for the City of Charlotte, in which they produced cost effective, high quality deliverables on time. Based on that success, the company selected CES for the SCT project. CES’ field crews were tasked to create a topographic survey of the entire site, which consists of dense, wooded areas; low vegetation ar- eas; flat, open taxiways and runways; and elevated retaining walls and ramps. As part of that survey, they needed to locate and map critical utilities, taxiways, runways and ramps. Such a varied landscape re- quired multiple technologies and approaches. CES crew chief, with properly secured safety harness, completing as-built survey of elevated roadway girders, using Trimble S7 Robotic Total Station and TSC3 Data Collector.
scanning total station on a control point and scanned the first column 100 ft away. They performed that routine three more times and in less than three hours, they captured 3D, 360-degree views of each of the seven columns at an accuracy of 0.01 ft. They saved the data on their TSC7 controller using Trimble Access field software, which combines optical, scanning, and GNSS data plus images in the same job. “Scanning eliminated the need for setting traditional targets and pro- vided a safer working environment for our crew,” says Hudson. “And we captured substantially more data––millions of data points––in half the time it takes with the conventional methods.” Back in the office, Hudson input the SX10 point cloud into Trimble Business Center (TBC) software for processing and quality control. He then exported the 3D data intoAutoCAD to produce a final drawing showing the column centerline locations. Per the client’s request, they delivered the drawing as a PDF. CLT elevated roadway surface under construction, between the terminal building (left) and parking garage (right)
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csengineermag.com
july 2020
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