Computational design exploration of a segmented concrete shell building floor system

Eduardo Costa, Robin Oval, Paul Shepherd, John Orr

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Citations (SciVal)
194 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The construction industry is responsible for nearly half of the UK's carbon dioxide emissions and the use of an extremely large volume of concrete – the world's most widely used man-made material – accounts for more than 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions. The scale of this problem spawned research to explore the potential for structurally efficient non-prismatic geometries to reduce the amount of concrete used in building elements substantially, thus also reducing their embodied carbon dioxide footprint. In particular, the research focused on segmented thin concrete shells as floor slabs, leveraging computational design and digital fabrication methodologies to automate their production off site. An important part of this research was the development of a computational framework for the design of thin concrete shells in order to make such a construction methodology accessible to building designers in practice. The framework combines solutions for parametric modelling, finite-element analysis, isogeometric analysis, form-finding and optimisation, along with embedded fabrication constraints specific to the project's automated manufacturing system. The application of the developed computational framework in the design of a 4.5 m × 4.5 m prototype is documented in this paper, illustrating how automating concrete construction can transform the industry towards net-zero.
Original languageEnglish
Article number2200156
Pages (from-to)1010-1021
Number of pages12
JournalProceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Structures and Buildings
Volume176
Issue number12
Early online date18 Apr 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 Dec 2023

Bibliographical note

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Funding

The Automating Concrete Construction (ACORN) research project was funded by UKRI through the ISCF Transforming Construction programme, grant number EP/S031316/1. The authors wish to thank the rest of the ACORN team for their support, as well as the industrial project partners and affiliates for their feedback.

FundersFunder number
UK Research and InnovationEP/S031316/1

    Keywords

    • UN SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production
    • UN SDG 13: Climate action
    • computational design
    • concrete structures
    • digital fabrication
    • finite-element modelling
    • shells

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Building and Construction
    • Civil and Structural Engineering

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