Part of my continuing research at UCL looks at how MicroKinetics can be applied at different scales. Composite's exist in all realms and in terms of architecture some of our most common building materials are forms of particulate or fibre composites. In particular I became interested in the idea of adapting the structural elements of steel reinforced concrete and how we maybe able to optimise the internal structure of complex architectural forms and hence reduce a huge material cost.
I started working with a fellow EngD over at UCL,
Gennaro Senatore also an architect over at
Expedition Engineering. We looked at a pavilion concept he had developed in previously in the Rhino modelling environment using a simplified dynamic relaxtion script to create an optimised curvature.
Clearly the extremes of form make this an exceptionally challenging form to actual create with a large range of compressive and tensile forces at work which would require the material to be heavily reinforced.
What we wanted to attempt was to develop a completely algorithmic solution that would intelligently control the reinforcement.
We started by taking the pavilion model and importing it into a finite element analysis (FEA) package. Modelling the pavilion as a concrete structure under gravity we were able to map displacement and stress intensity (above). Clearly the structure would be impossible to build with concrete alone unless the geometry was radically altered.
By exporting stress and strain values with relation to nodal points in the original FEM mesh (01_) I was able to use a combination of excel and Grasshopper to design the rebar structure. Working from a general reinforcing skeleton (02_), we were able to calculate volume fractions of rebar required per unit cell (03_) leaving us with structure now capable of supporting the material loading without compromise in form or wastage in material use.
Here are some more details of the internal rebar structure.
Though there is still a lot of work to do in terms of refining the algorithm, calculative methods and combining the software elements, it would be really interesting to see how well this kind of system would work in the real world. Something I'd like to find out.
