TEACHING STAFF

Nguyen Thanh Kha

A transport infrastructure engineer who entered the trade building CIM models for a Japanese contractor, now a design engineer and BIM coordinator at Deo Ca Group, modelling ring roads and expressways in southern Vietnam.

2018modelling infrastructure since
05consultancies and contractors
Grade IIroad design practice licence
Ring Road 4current BIM coordination project
Nguyen Thanh Kha, Civil 3D instructor at the Institute
Nguyen Thanh Kha, Civil 3D instructor at the Institute

ROLE AT THE INSTITUTE

Teaching Civil 3D from expressways under construction

A corridor model built for practice and a corridor model submitted on an expressway project are two different things. He teaches with the second kind.

  • Teaches the Civil 3D — BIM for Infrastructure course at the Institute: survey data, surfaces, road corridors, drainage, earthwork volumes and model coordination.
  • Started in CIM — the Japanese term for BIM in civil infrastructure: modelling tunnels, roads, bridges and dams for contractor Hazama Ando from his very first job.
  • A designer, not only a modeller — years as a design engineer for roads, drainage and site grading, holding a Grade II road design practice licence, so he understands the engineering behind every surface and corridor.
  • Now BIM coordinator at Deo Ca Group — coordinating and managing models for the Ho Chi Minh City – Trung Luong – My Thuan expressway widening and Ho Chi Minh City Ring Road 4.

CAREER

From CIM modeller to BIM coordinator

Three stages: building models for a Japanese contractor, designing infrastructure himself, then coordinating models on expressway projects.

Starting in CIM — Hazama Ando Vietnam

CIM modeller on Japanese infrastructure projects: tunnels and roads in Civil 3D, design surfaces and earthwork volumes, traffic schemes in InfraWorks, steel detail models in Revit and clash detection in Navisworks.

Infrastructure design engineer — B.R, then NAGECCO

Designing roads, stormwater and wastewater drainage and site grading; preparing basic and construction design dossiers; defending infrastructure planning schemes before city authorities. Projects from the Tran Dai Nghia and Tan Ky Tan Quy road upgrades to Merry Land Hai Giang and the Can Gio planning scheme.

BIM for expressways — IDECO, then Deo Ca Group

Design engineer and BIM modeller on Ring Road 3 and the An Phu interchange; now BIM coordinator at Deo Ca Group on the Ho Chi Minh City – Trung Luong – My Thuan expressway widening and Ho Chi Minh City Ring Road 4.

WHAT HE TEACHES

The parts he goes deepest on

  • Surfaces from survey data — the foundation of every corridor model: importing survey points and building existing and design surfaces properly.
  • Alignments and corridors — a complete road model from alignment, profile and cross sections to the corridor.
  • Earthwork volumes — computed between existing and design surfaces, work he has done since his first project with the Japanese contractor.
  • Drainage and grading — fields he designed directly for years at consultancies, not merely rebuilt from someone else’s dossier.
  • Coordinating infrastructure models — linking Civil 3D with Revit, Navisworks and a common data environment the way a working BIM coordinator runs an expressway project.

TOOLS

Software he works in

  • Civil 3D — his core tool: surfaces, alignments, corridors, drainage, earthwork volumes.
  • InfraWorks — basic design schemes for transport works.
  • Revit and Navisworks — detail models and clash detection within the infrastructure BIM set.
  • AutoCAD 2D/3D and Autodesk Construction Cloud — drawings and the project’s common data environment.

EDUCATION

Education and expertise

A formally trained bridge and road engineer, working with infrastructure models from his first job onward.

  • Engineering degree in Bridges, Highways and Airfields — University of Transport and Communications, Campus 2 in Ho Chi Minh City
  • Grade II practice licence in transport works design (roads)
  • Prior Civil 3D teaching experience — training and mentoring engineers in the field before lecturing at the Institute

Learn Civil 3D from someone modelling Ring Road 4

Surfaces, corridors, volumes — taught with the workflow running on a live expressway project.

Civil 3D — BIM for Infrastructure course

See the full teaching staff