Double-curved precast concrete elements: Research into technical viability of the flexible mould method

The production of precast, concrete elements with complex, double-curved geometry is expensive due to the high costcosts of the necessary moulds and the limited possibilities for mould reuse. Currently, CNC-milled foam moulds are the solution applied mostly in projects, offering good aesthetic performance, but also resulting in waste of material...

Lightweight bonded acrylic facing at the Vitra VSL Factory

Acrylic glass is omnipresent in the industrialised world; but as a building material most architects, facade planners and engineers are still unfamiliar with this material. In most cases it is applied as a substitute for glass which leads to inappropriate joints and fixtures. During the years of the path toward the digital era, the authors were...

The use of SCC and textile reinforcement

In an earlier article (CPI issue of August 2011 [1]) a method was presented for producing precast curved panels with a thickness of a few centimeters using the 'flexible mould method'. This method is the central theme in the PhD study of the first author on the realization of freeform architecture in concrete. The concrete panels manufactured...

Frei geformte Betonbauteile: Finden einer Fertigungsmethode

Due to the complexity of the freeform shapes it is often not possible to distinguish any repetitive elements in freeform buildings at all. Most freeform building designs consist of many single or double curved surfaces which require complex shapes for the mould and element edges. Since the costs of the moulds (formwork) for precast concrete make...

A flexible mold for double curved precast concrete elements

The manufacturing of double curved precast concrete elements is still expensive, due to the high costs and limited possibilities for repetitive use of the molds or formwork. The goal of a PhD project recently initiated at TU Delft is to develop a production method that overcomes these difficulties by enabling the mold to be used many times and...

The significance of cladding for fatigue of aluminium alloys in aircraft structures

Flight-simulation tests were carried out on sheet specimens notched "by an open hole (Kt = 2.66). The material was 2024-T3 in three conditions; Alclad, bare and chemically milled. The crack initiation period and the crack propagation period were considerably shorter for the Alclad material. The significance of the cladding, both for constant...