Case Study: Roche Ltd. Consulting Group

Roche Ltd. Wins Quebec’s Route 73/175 Design Project using StormNET

Background Information

Marc Labelle, Specialist Engineer for Roche Ltd. Consulting Group, has long been a fan of StormNET software from BOSS International. But it was his stormwater model of a complex detention pond that turned the Transportation Ministry of Quebec and other engineers into StormNET fans as well.

Quebec-based Roche Ltd. Consulting Group, an engineering and construction company, designs and manages projects throughout Canada and in more than 50 countries. Roche is one of the engineering firms working on plans for the widening of a major highway running through Quebec, with construction starting in the summer of 2009.

In Quebec, Canada, Route 73/175 is a major north/south highway on both sides of the St. Lawrence River. The Transportation Ministry of Quebec is currently widening Highway 73/175 to improve safety for travelers, and enhance the flow of traffic and goods between Quebec City and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean to the north.

The highway project called for a detention pond to protect the Rivière Noire, part of the dendritic network flowing in to the St. Charles Lake. The lake serves as the water intake for the City of Québec (population 500,000). The plans called for a pond to capture and detain stormwater so that debris or spilled fuel from any potential vehicle accidents could be filtered out and not pollute the river or lake.

Modeling Projects Faster and With More Detail

In his career, Labelle has used several stormwater modeling applications, and found most unstable, difficult to use, and limited in their capabilities. The applications could not model complex detention pond outlet structures nor accommodate the number of computational nodes necessary on larger projects.

In 2004, Labelle tried out StormNET, a fully-dynamic hydrology and hydraulic model that analyzes both simple and complex stormwater systems using a variety of methods and models, including water quality.

“StormNET was more stable, easier to use, and we had great support from BOSS throughout the trial,” Labelle said.

StormNET also delivered where the firm’s previous software fell short: the ability to model
low-impact development; simulate dual drainage systems (stormwater sewer network and city streets as dual conveyance pathways) and inlet capacity, as well as unlimited computational nodes. With a limit of 500 nodes in the firm’s previous SWMM-based high-end stormwater modeling software, Roche engineers at times had break the model into separate sections to complete a project.

Labelle truly saw the efficiency increase possible with StormNET when he had to remodel — in StormNET — a project where the data was lost when their previous stormwater software had become unstable and crashed. StormNET ran the model 25 percent faster than their previous stormwater software, saving at least a week on the project.

When Labelle began modeling other projects faster and with more detail, other engineers in the office took note. Now all engineers in the Roche office use StormNET for their stormwater projects.

Winning the Design Project

In 2004, Roche was one of five firms that presented plans to the Transportation Ministry of Quebec for the complex detention pond Route 73/175 highway project. The Ministry planned to choose one firm’s design for the actual detention pond. The government office itself used another software solution, and asked that all firms use that same application.

Using StormNET instead, Roche was able to model a more complex design than in the software the Ministry requested. When Labelle presented the model, “everyone was impressed by the quality of the engineering drawings and model design,” Labelle said. “They were able to understand clearly what we were talking about.”

As a result, Roche’s design was chosen as the winner.

“StormNET put us in front of the other firms because we were able to model faster and better,” Labelle said. “We demonstrated that we could not have modeled such a complex detention pond with the other software.”

“Moving forward, the Ministry requested that Roche provide the concept guide for the other firms working on the project and asked Labelle to present the model at a convention.”

The detention pond was built to take into consideration traffic accidents and a variety of storms that could impact the highway and the Rivière Noire. The project featured a multi-function gate and pump to capture spilled fuel and debris, with the ability to filter this material out of the discharged stormwater.

The designed detention pond is massive, being 270 meters long, 75 meters wide, and 9,000 cubic meters in volume, along with a separate 3,000 cubic meter water quality treatment pond. A wall separates two parts of the main detention pond: one for highway runoff and one for runoff from a neighboring drainage area — each being handled separately. Per the request of the Ministry, Roche modeled the detention pond for the 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 year storm frequencies.

The detention pond outlet structure was also massive, being a 7 meter square riser and nearly 7 meters tall. Multiple discharge orifices and moveable gates were designed into the riser, to handle different storm and water quality conditions.

“Designing this outlet structure was the most complex thing to do,” Labelle said. “We had to rework it several times, and with StormNET it was so easy to change things and recalibrate. We saved a lot of time.”

Parts of the outlet structure design were such a new concept that engineers on the project doubted whether the stormwater model was accurate. In response, Labelle built a physical model to scale test the outlet structure.

He resized the stormwater numerical model to match that of the physical model. The StormNET numerical model correctly matched the discharge from the physical model, thereby showing that the complex detention pond and outlet structure design would work correctly.

“This is the only software I know that has this kind of precision in its results,” he said. “This is a big advantage and one of the reasons why the Ministry of Transportation was very impressed.”

Stable and User Friendly

Labelle also notes that both StormNET and BOSS are easy to work with. The software is extremely stable and user friendly. “StormNET is much more user friendly to enter data,” he said. “And, it’s 20 to 25 percent faster than our previous software.”

BOSS responds quickly with product updates and technical support. “The software always works, and there’s support right there when we need anything,” he said.