Digitally Fabricated Innovative Concrete Structures

This paper presents the general aim of the research at the Institute of Structural Design (ITE) at Braunschweig University of Technology to bring digital design and digital fabrication together to develop resource efficient construction elements, manufacturing processes and building systems. Basis of research at ITE is the so-called Digital Building Fabrication Laboratory (DBFL). The paper gives an overview of machine design, the technical parameters and its basic abilities of subtractive and additive processes e.g. milling, printing and scanning. Based on the combined use of these digital fabrication processes and in cooperation with high-performance materials such as ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC), different research projects are being performed at the ITE. To explain the possibilities of the DBFL, the paper will present the results of two different – additive and subtractive – research projects to develop fabrication techniques for the building industry. The first project is dealing with the development of "digitally fabricated high precision Non- Waste-Wax-Formwork for innovative UHPC structures" and the second project is investigating "Additive manufacturing of free-form concrete elements using Shotcrete 3D Printing (SC3DP) technology". Finally, the paper will highlight the possibilities of combining these technologies and transferring them to industry 4.0.