Helena Bártolo

Functionally Graded Structures through Building Manufacturing

The construction industry is facing an increasing pressure to optimize its performance reducing costs and minimizing its impact on the environment. The built environment is a very demanding human and dynamic environment facing rising challenges to develop more innovative and efficient solutions. New technologies, growing client expectations and a shift in design thinking are motivating radical improvements in the construction sector towards more integrated systems through computational fabrication processes. A RapidConstruction System was developed based on extrusion-based technologies to enable the construction of eco-efficient buildings with complex forms and geometries. The optimization of this new system will enable to integrate the concept of material space, material composition information of building heterogeneous components with geometry information, assigning different spatial features according to requirements. This new 3D digital processing system was used to fabricate functional graded structural components with different material compositions, so its functional requirements can vary with location. The development of this multi-material deposition system is ongoing to enable the fabrication of more efficient structures regarding thermal, acoustic and structural conditions.

A Decision Tool for Green Manufacturing While Utilizing Additive Process

The increasing growth of human population together with the material consumption of most industrialised nations taking place at an unsustainable rate have been causing the degradation of the planet. The implementation of sustainable methodologies can contribute to the implementation of more ecological practices. A computational tool integrating ecodesign principles was developed to support sustainable decisions. This tool allows designers and clients to investigate and compare different solutions for each product, taking into account the whole product life cycle, as well to incorporate the product’s physical data with the CAD model. In this work a decision computational tool was used combined with the additive manufacturing study case. This system can contribute to a more sustainable manufacturing product development, facilitating the evaluation of the environmental impact analysis, optimization and comparison of the product life cycle.Copyright

An Innovation System for Building Manufacturing

Traditionally the construction sector is very conservative, risk averse and reluctant to adopt new technologies and ideas. The construction industry faces great challenges to develop more innovative and efficient solutions. In recent years, significant advances in technology and more sustainable urban environments has been creating numerous opportunities for innovation in automation. This paper proposes a new system based on extrusion-based technologies aiming at solving some limitations of current technologies to allow a more efficient building construction with organic forms and geometries, based on sustainable eco principles. This novel approach is described through a control deposition software.Current modeling techniques focus only on capturing the geometric information and cannot satisfy the requirements from modeling the components made of multi-heterogeneous materials. There is a great deal of interest in tailoring structures so the functional requirements can vary with location.The proposed functionally graded material deposition (FGM) system will allow a smooth variation of material properties to build up more efficient buildings regarding thermal, acoustic and structural conditions.Copyright

Customizing insulation material properties for building retrofitting : from infrared thermography to additive manufacturing

The European Commission proposed a recast to the Energy Efficiency Directive with a target of 30% energy efficiency for 2030. Buildings are the largest energy consumers sector in EU. To reduce the energy consumption of existing buildings and promote energy efficiency retrofit, it is important to improve the thermal performance of the building envelope, acting on thermal bridges to enhance the optimal thermal comfort for building occupants. In this work, a customized solution is proposed combining IR thermography and a generative computer tool to design a functionally graded insulation layer tailored to specific conditions, resulting in a material efficient design reducing weight and material usage. AM technologies were then used to produce a scaled prototype.