Wet-Mold Concrete Casting with Biodegradable Materials
摘要
Recent trends in the construction industry are asking for greater flexibility and control of free-form concrete geometries, either for an environmentally conscious material reduction or for aesthetic purposes. Complex concrete components must be economically fabricated to a high degree of precision, where especially the cost of the formwork can become prohibitively expensive. We therefore propose the formwork for individually shaped concrete components to be made of recyclable wood materials by means of 3D printing and wet-mold casting. The developed method uses fully biodegradable formwork and has been tested for the design of unique building facade units. Shrinkage has been identified as a common problem in the large-scale 3D printing of fully biodegradable materials such as wood or cellulose. To sidestep this limitation of organic material 3D printing, we propose a wet-mold casting whereby the concrete cures prior to the drying of the mold material. A secondary rectangular exterior mold withstands the hydrostatic pressure. The design of the desired geometry is sliced into contours. Upon deposition of each layer of wood material into the exterior mold by a robotic arm, further wood material is used to fill the outside of the mold, while concrete is fed into the space inside. The concrete is left to cure, with the wet-mold wood material removed while it is still malleable. The wood material can be reused or left to biodegrade. The possibilities of this process were explored in the design of a building with individual structural units. The developed method, which utilizes reclaimable mold material, may offer a pathway toward mass-customization of concrete components at an architectural scale, potentially allowing each unit in a structure to be unique with minimal added cost.