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StormNET® is the leading software for analyzing and designing urban drainage systems, stormwater sewers, and sanitary sewers. It includes a range of features and capabilities that make it faster, simplier to use, and more accurate. StormNET is used by over 3,000 companies worldwide such as URS, Jacobs, Tetra Tech, HNTB, ARCADIS, and Stantec.

StormNET Case Studies

Case Study: Belt Collins

Belt Collins Creates More Efficient, Cost-Effective Design for Hawaiian Memorial Park

About Belt Collins

In business since 1953, Honolulu-based Belt Collins has made a name for itself as one of the world’s leading multi-disciplinary planning, civil engineering and landscape architecture practices. Its portfolio of more than 16,000 projects in 70 countries ranges from Chinese gardens to Pacific Rim resort hotels to the Dole Pineapple Garden Maze.

In 2006, the company opened its first civil engineering office on the U.S. mainland in Seattle with an emphasis on sustainability. The office handles projects throughout the Pacific Northwest, as well as in Hawaii, the Pacific, Asia and the Middle East—all areas with vastly different storm scenarios and civil engineering requirements.

Challenge:
Civil engineers in the new Seattle office needed modeling software flexible enough to handle multiple geographies and municipal requirements.

Solution:
StormNET’s flexibility enables the firm to model across diverse locations, storm scenarios and requirements—and easily make changes as needed.

Results:
Precise modeling with StormNET ensures accurate, efficient designs, keeping project costs down.

Flexible, Complex Modeling with StormNET

Because civil engineers in the Seattle office work on projects in all those different regions, they needed a way to model diverse conditions across varying municipalities, from intense Hawaii storms to longer, lower-peak Pacific Northwest rains.

On a recommendation from other engineers, Belt Collins selected StormNET by BOSS International. The fully-dynamic hydrology and hydraulic model analyzes both simple and complex stormwater systems using a variety of hydrology methods and models, including water quality.

Paradise Memorial Park Project

Paradise Memorial Park is a 69-acre special use development in the East Oahu, Hawaii, community of Hawaii Kai. The site is located in the Kamilonui Valley and is part of the original master plan design of Henry Kaiser, who identified it as a future cemetery site for the neighborhood.

PMP II, LLC, is in a joint venture to develop Paradise Memorial Park—Phase I incorporating approximately 23 acres with roadways and landscaping, dramatic water features, botanical gardens and interment for approximately 47,000 souls. Plans include a signature chapel with mortuary and offices; and an indoor/outdoor catering facility.

Project Design Concerns

The project involves developing land on a site uphill from a subdivision and agricultural lots with large volumes of offsite runoff flowing through the Park. City and County of Honolulu Standards prohibit the concentration of runoff downstream of developments. Due to the challenging site conditions Belt Collins is designing a unique drainage system to convey a large flow through the site and disperse it, establishing sheet flow conditions before leaving the site so to not negatively affect properties downstream.

Using StormNET, Belt Collins modeled peak runoff for the 50-year design storm event; the system must handle over 300 cubic feet per second of flow. This will be conveyed through the site in a 12 foot wide trapezoidal channel and then enter an outfall dispersal system that conveys and disperses runoff across the site, promoting sheet flow. The aim is to distribute the flow over as much an area as possible within the site boundaries in order to eliminate negative impacts downstream and improve upon the existing drainage pattern.

Modeling Precision Equals Design Efficiency

This proposed system is comprised of a combination of pipes linking overflow structures modeled as detention ponds. The engineers used BOSS International’s StormNET software to create this complex hydraulic model for its ability to replicate the effects of interconnected detention ponds. The software greatly reduced the time taken for the lengthy calculations required for the model, allowing the team to create more complex, precise models and more iterations of the design. Less accurate modeling may have required the team to design the system more conservatively. Ultimately, that enables Belt Collins to keep project costs down.

The ability to import AutoCAD® drawings of the actual Paradise Memorial Park complex not only assisted with modeling, but also with presenting model results to colleagues and the client. Rather than seeing just icons on the screen, viewers can see how each of the stormwater components of the model fit into the actual site plan.

Likewise, reporting in StormNET allows the Belt Collins team to create graphics or export reports to Excel to share with other colleagues in Seattle and Honolulu. Those project reports enable Belt Collins to easily determine whether additional changes are needed.

Next, Belt Collins looks forward to taking advantage of additional capabilities of the software on future projects, such as modeling water quality for the design of treatment facilities. With StormNET, the Seattle office not only meets the demands of the many geographic areas where it designs, but also supports its sustainability goals through more efficient design.