A New Approach for Automated Design and Robot-Assisted Production of Structurally Optimised Reusable Concrete Building Elements (2024-09)¶

Concrete, the most used construction material worldwide, currently lacks realistic alternatives in terms of performance and availability. Industrialisation resulted in the reduction of price, especially in developed countries, with 1m³ of concrete equivalent to only approximately 1.25 hours of skilled labour in Europe. As a result, the relevance of optimizing the material use diminished, leading to an underutilization of the mechanical properties and consequently, a high environmental impact. Moreover, the current inefficient production approaches hinder its potential for efficient use of the material itself. This contribution presents a new automated design and production approach with focus on increasing the resource efficiency within concrete prefabrication. The design concept represents an automated topology optimisation with a strut-and-tie model running in the background. The production approach is based on a modular assembly concept realised by robot production islands, which can be used individually or in groups either in a prefabrication plant or for on-site production. The backbone is a new automated shuttering concept which is open for different concrete mixtures and therefore also for further developments on material side. This, combined with the development of a modular component kit, allowing for a reuse of the elements, offers the industry the possibility of a higher value circular economy. Within the presentation the concept is introduced alongside first preliminary experiments and an outlook on further planned research demand.