Valentin Wagner

Abstract

The BUGA Fibre Pavilion was built in 2019 in the Bundesgartenschau (National Gardening exhibition) at Heilbronn, Germany. The pavilion consists of modular fibre-polymer composite components made out of glass and carbon fibres with an epoxy resin matrix. The fabrication technique employed, called coreless filament winding (CFW), is a variant from conventional filament winding where the core is reduced to minimum frame support. The fibres are wound between these frames, freely spanning and creating the resulting geometry through fibre interaction. For the structural design of these components, conventional modelling and engineering methods were not sufficient as the system cannot be adequately characterized in the early stage. Therefore, a more experimental design approach is proposed for the BUGA Fibre Pavilion, where different levels of detailing and abstraction in the FE simulations are combined with prototyping and structural testing. This paper shows the procedure followed for the design and validation of the structural fibre components. In this process, the simulations are used as a design tool rather than a way to predict failure, while mechanical testing served for the verification and validation of the structural capacity.

Abstract

The BUGA fibre pavilion built in April 2019 at the Bundesgartenschau in Heilbronn, Germany, is the most recent coreless fibre winding research pavilion developed from the collaboration between ICD/ITKE at the University of Stuttgart. The research goal is to create lightweight and high-performance lattice composite structures through robotic fabrication. The pavilion is composed of 60 carbon and glass fibre components, and is covered by a prestressed ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) membrane. Each of the components is hollow in section and bone-like in shape. They are joined through steel connectors at the intersecting nodes where the membrane is also supported through steel poles. The components are fabricated by coreless filament winding (CFW), a technique where fibre filaments impregnated with resin are wound freely between two rotating scaffolds by a robotic arm. This novel structural system constitutes a challenge for the designer when proving and documenting the load-carrying capacity of the design. This paper outlines and elaborates on the core methods and workflows followed for the structural design, optimization and detailing of the BUGA fibre pavilion.

Abstract

Faserverbundwerkstoffe, auch als faserverstärkte Kunststoffe bezeichnet, haben wegen ihrer hervorragenden Werkstoffeigenschaften schon seit Langem einen festen Platz in der Luft‐ und Raumfahrttechnik, der Sportgeräte‐ und Automobilindustrie etc. Im Bauwesen sind sie noch selten, finden aber zunehmend Anwendung in Brücken, Fassaden, Windrädern oder als Verstärkung von Betonbauteilen. Der Beitrag gibt planenden Ingenieurinnen und Ingenieuren eine Zusammenstellung der Ausgangswerkstoffe, der Herstellungs‐ und Verarbeitungsverfahren, der bauaufsichtlich eingeführten technischen Regeln und zugelassenen Bauprodukte sowie der Bemessungskonzepte. Außerdem werden gebaute Beispiele gezeigt. Ziel ist es, den Vorteilen dieser Bauart, wie z. B. geringes Eigengewicht bei hoher mechanischer Festigkeit und Steifigkeit, Frost‐Tausalzbeständigkeit, niedrige thermische Leitfähigkeit, freie Formbarkeit etc. ein breiteres Anwendungsspektrum zu ermöglichen.

Abstract

Process‐based biomimetics focuses on the transfer of biological principles to architectural construction. To realise the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014 ‐15, presented here by Moritz Doerstelmann, Jan Knippers, Valentin Koslowski, Achim Menges, Marshall Prado, Gundula Schieber and Lauren Vasey of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) research team at the University of Stuttgart, sensor‐driven robotic fabrication was combined with advanced design computation and simulation. This enabled the construction of an architectural fibre structure on a pneumatic mould, drawing on the complex design of the web of a water spider.

Abstract

This paper presents the production and development of an adaptive robotically fabricated fiber composite compression shell with pneumatic formwork as a case study for investigating a generative behavioral design model and an adaptive, online mode of production. The project builds off of previous research at the University of Stuttgart on lightweight fiber composite structures which attempts to reduce the necessary formwork for fabrication while simultaneously incorporating structural, material and fabrication logics into an integrative computational design tool. This paper discusses the design development and fabrication workflow of the project, as well a set of strategies which were developed for online robotic programming in response to live sensor data.