A Collaborative Workflow to Automate the Design, Analysis, and Construction of Integrally-Attached Timber Plate Structures

Aryan Rezaei Rad

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Nicolas Rogeau

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Petras Vestartas

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Yves Weinand

This paper presents an integrated design tool for structures composed of engineered timber panels that are connected by traditional wood joints. Recent advances in computational architecture have permitted to automate the fabrication and assembly of such structures using Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines and industrial robotic arms. While several large-scale demonstrators have been realized, most developed algorithms are closed-source or project-oriented. The lack of a general framework makes it difficult for architects, engineers and designers to effectively manipulate this innovative construction system. Therefore, this research aims at developing a holistic design tool targeting a wide range of architectural applications. Main achievements include: (1) a new data structure to deal with modular assemblies, (2) an analytical parametrization of the geometry of five timber joints, (3) a method to generate CNC toolpath while integrating fabrication constraints, and (4) a method to automatically compute robot trajectories for a given stack of timber plates.

Files
Paper in Open Access (PDF)
LINKS
Team
Unit:
IBOIS
Teachers:
Yves Weinand
Infos
Year:
2022
Period:
Spring
Category:
Research Project
Topic:  
Architecture, Construction, Structure, Technology
Copyright:
All rights reserved
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