Publications / 2018 Proceedings of the 35th ISARC, Berlin, Germany

Automation of the Execution of Monolithic Reinforced Ceilings

Andrzej Wieckowski
Pages 1231-1237 (2018 Proceedings of the 35th ISARC, Berlin, Germany, ISBN 978-3-00-060855-1, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

The development in numerical control, 3D technology, as well as new materials, have a great potential in respect of automatic construction, while at the same time they contribute to freeing people from hard physical labour, improve quality of performance, and minimise the volume of waste. Vertical components are erected automatically, while possible horizontal structures are engineered using prefabricated materials. The presented stropotronic technology, using automatic formwork that moves together with the robot embedding materials, was applied to construct monolithic reinforced ceilings. Owing to its high early strength (over 20 MPa just after 1.5 h from reaction with water), concrete using rapid setting calcium sulphoaluminate (CSA) cement assures self-supporting strength in a very short time. The robot continuously places reinforcement and extrudes concrete while moving together with the formwork perpendicularly to the ceiling span. Automatic formwork moves very slowly under the ceiling constructed to assure continuous support for the setting concrete at the width of approx. 1.5 m, namely until the slab becomes self-supportive across the span between supports. The example of a section of the ceiling with composite inserts (main bars of steel, distribution bars of glass fibre) presents the results of preliminary analysis of the applied CSA cement-based concrete, progress of works related to material embedding, and the conclusions.

Keywords: automation in construction, production organization, JA-WA system, stropotronic, CSA cement