The seawater desalination project of Wanhua Chemical aims to support an environmentally friendly, low- carbon chemical park and alleviate freshwater resource constraints, providing Pengali with 90 million tons per year of freshwater resources. Located on the seashore, the project presented poor geological conditions, compounded by complex desalination processes and equipment, along with data integration and exchange challenges. Therefore, the project team wanted to pilot BIM workflows to deliver the seawater desalination plant.  

Leveraging ProjectWise, OpenPlant, and OpenFlows, they established a collaborative BIM environment, modeled the plant and equipment, and simulated and analyzed water hammer and pipeline stress to ensure the safety and reliability of the system. Bentley’s integrated digital solution streamlined workflows to improve design efficiency by 70% and shorten the design cycle by more than 50%. Working in a connected digital platform, they identified and resolved 247 design conflicts, saving 10% of materials to reduce engineering waste and shorten the construction period. The 3D models provide the foundation for intelligent digital seawater desalination operations.