NCCR Digital Fabrication Phase 2

The Chair of Structural Engineering – Concrete Structures and Bridge Design is working on the following projects:

Structural Integrity

Novel digital fabrication technologies typically encounter difficulties in satisfying the demands of structural integrity requirements prescribed by building codes and expected by society for large-scale applications. This is highly detrimental for novel technologies competing with established conventional building processes. This project analyses structural integrity requirements in other dfab projects with the objective of opening the way for large-scale, mass-market applications. The key challenge for this project consists in leveraging the impact of dfab projects by ensuring a seamless integration of structural integrity requirements during their development. This Cross-topic project will follow a bottom-up approach, in which we will i) identify and prioritise Grand Challenge projects based on their need for input on structural mechanics, and ii) make focused contributions on these aspects to the selected projects within a defined time frame.
In addition, thanks to his wider perspective and experience gained in Phase 1 of the NCCR, Dr. Mata Falcón will identify synergistic opportunities and play an important role in guiding the doctoral students involved in the three following projects where our chair is involved: Rethinking Structural Concrete for DFAB, Concrete Structures with Integrated Flexible Formworks, and Mesh Mould.  

Concrete Structures with Integrated Flexible Formworks

The conventional construction of curved shell structures is a time-, labour- and cost-intensive process. Although flexible formworks already exist, the procedure remains highly complex because of the need for additional reinforcement to guarantee structural safety and serviceability. This project develops a novel reinforced, integrated textile formwork system for concrete shells with structural, load-bearing behaviour, thereby reducing the amount of conventional reinforcement and increasing construction speed. The key scientific challenge lies in the structural activation and proper mechanical description of the knitted reinforcement in its use and combination with concrete to form a newly developed composite building material.
Within this project, we are investigating the structural aspects of using a knitted membrane as reinforcement and its interaction with concrete as a composite building material. The optimisation of form and reinforcement based on the structural behaviour of this new composite material are the core research focus. The outcomes of this research have far-reaching consequences for the construction industry, as it can enable the use of a new type of composite cross section in real projects.

Mesh Mould

Robotic fabrication and placement of reinforcement addresses the evident blind spot of prevailing 3D-printed concrete research. This project expands the range of structures for which Mesh Mould is economically viable and structurally performant by broadening the capabilities of robotic assemblies of reinforcement meshes and using fibre-reinforced concrete. The key scientific challenge lies in the multi-factor optimisation of the Mesh Mould design to ensure the mechanical performance required for structural integrity, code compliance and increased production speed. Mesh Mould will combine in situ concrete casting with mesh prefabrication, as an extension of the current in situ mesh production. This higher specialisation will increase i) the fabrication speed, ii) the geometric versatility and iii) the reinforcement content, offering a new dimension of load-bearing and economically viable structures.
Within this project, we are investigating strategies to increase the structural efficiency, such as crack “pre-localisation” and fibre reinforcement, i.e. hybrid (fibres and meshes) solutions. Since these strategies are also relevant to other mouldless technologies, we will explore their implementation in other projects as well.

Rethinking Structural Concrete for Digital Fabrication

Reinforced concrete is by far the most used building material today. As such, it has been optimised for more than a century hand-in-hand with traditional construction methods. Consequently, conventional concrete construction processes are highly efficient, and improving digital fabrication processes to build conventional reinforced concrete structures is not sufficient to enter mass-market applications. Aiming to surpass traditional construction processes for reinforced concrete structures, this project will identify the intrinsic advantages of digital fabrication in structural concrete and develop ways to fully exploit their potential. The key scientific challenge is to identify methods for digitally planning and fabricating reinforced concrete structures much more efficiently than with conventional methods. This high-risk top-down research project will identify the intrinsic advantages and thereby the proper "languages" of digitally fabricated structural concrete in terms of structural design, dimensioning, detailing and construction, focusing – in contrast to other projects within the NCCR Digital Fabrication – on conventional building geometries.
Inspired by other projects within the NCCR Digital Fabrication, we will develop the aspects with the highest potential for minimising material use and implement the most promising ones in the concrete-related projects of Phase 2.