Functionally Graded Structures through Building Manufacturing

The construction industry is facing an increasing pressure to optimize its performance reducing costs and minimizing its impact on the environment. The built environment is a very demanding human and dynamic environment facing rising challenges to develop more innovative and efficient solutions. New technologies, growing client expectations and a shift in design thinking are motivating radical improvements in the construction sector towards more integrated systems through computational fabrication processes. A RapidConstruction System was developed based on extrusion-based technologies to enable the construction of eco-efficient buildings with complex forms and geometries. The optimization of this new system will enable to integrate the concept of material space, material composition information of building heterogeneous components with geometry information, assigning different spatial features according to requirements. This new 3D digital processing system was used to fabricate functional graded structural components with different material compositions, so its functional requirements can vary with location. The development of this multi-material deposition system is ongoing to enable the fabrication of more efficient structures regarding thermal, acoustic and structural conditions.