Production Technology of Free-form Concrete Segments using Phase Change Material

Free-form buildings are beautiful, but production and installation of Free-form Concrete Segments (FCSs) are costly. Especially a form or a mold used to produce FCSs is unrecyclable, so that much more money and time are needed to make it than FCSs. Therefore it is necessary to develop a mold that can be semi-permanently recycled and mass produce FCSs. The objective of this paper is to suggest the production technology of free-form concrete segments using phase change material. Phase change material (PCM) is a substance that presents the change of phase according to temperature variation, which includes most substances as well as water and metal. The mold used to produce FCS is made of solid-state PCM and it should be liquefied to be recycled by adding thermal energy. If a metamorphic mold is developed by utilizing PCM's properties, it can be recycled semi-permanently and mass-produced quickly and easily. The results of this study will be used as basic data for optimizing the production and installation of FCSs. (Abstract)