Rapid Composite Formwork (2020-07)¶

This paper presents a series of case studies that incorporate industrial robotics and rapid prototyping tools in the fabrication of custom molds for pre-cast concrete construction. The research documents the fabrication of molds for customizable pre-cast concrete panels in non-standard shapes with unique surface textures. Materials including sand, expanded polystyrene (EPS) and polylactic acid (PLA) are employed to produce robust, reusable, and multiple component molds and inscribe custom surface textures through concrete casting. The fabrication workflows incorporate the limits and constraints of digital processes such as fused deposition modeling (FDM) and robotic hot wire cutting (RHWC). The application of FDM and RHWC to concrete formwork fabrication presents unparalleled opportunities to produce performance embedded prefabricated concrete. In the production of jointing conditions, reinforcing and support structures, and the embedding of conduits and insulating cavities, FDM of concrete formwork in PLA offers an integrated process for an interdisciplinary design and production of smart concrete forms. By combining the flexibility, precision, and speed of RHWC and FDM, this research demonstrates the capacity of this process to efficiently produce high-fidelity, intricate, complex and performance embedded geometries in concrete.