EMBRACE THE FLOOD: Introducing a Symbiotic Lifestyle: Designing Resilient and Livable Landscapes in Winnipeg by Integrating Nature-Based Solutions into the Urban Water System

The city Winnipeg, built on the wet prairie, has been threatened by severe flooding for decades. The initial decision to build the city at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers led to the inevitable consequence of recurrent natural flooding. The floods prompted the provincial government to take a series of flood control structural...

EDS microanalysis of blast furnace slag grains in aged concrete

The chemistry of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) is one of the main factors affecting its reactivity. Knowing the composition of GGBFS used in aged concrete may help understand its past performance and estimate remaining service life. It is well known that GGBFS generally react slower than cement clinker. This thesis proposes that...

Topology Optimization of Masonry Structures

Designing structures that are more sustainable is a relevant topic within the construction industry. By choosing materials that have a low embodied energy value and optimizing the structures that can be constructed by these materials, one could potentially minimize the economical and environmental footprint of a structural design.<br/><br/>As...

Methodology for the prediction of the strength of naturally aged glass based on surface flaw characterization

Flat glass is a material which is used extensively in almost all the buildings, mainly as infill for windows or facade panels. However, neither glass production nor its recycling are sustainable processes, as both incorporate the use of gas furnaces, which produce high amounts of CO2 emissions. Thus, the re-use of glass seems the only way to...

Manufacturing Construction Materials on Mars: A feasibility study on the use of Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) for bulk manufacturing of a viable ISRU Mars construction material using regolith simulant

For economic, scientific and survival reasons, colonisation of other planets is proposed. Mars is the most suitable place to start. To start an early Martian colony, viable In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) methods of low energy consumption are required to manufacture strong bulk construction materials. Most other studies have used infeasible...

Houscaper: Developing a tool for easy access of architectural polygonization using the Boolean Marching Cubes Algorithm

The demand for lower construction costs comes at the price of duplicating architectural designs. As a result, the misperception that modular architecture is repetitive prevails. However, the developments in computational design and MMC (modern methods of construction) can suggest a standardized manufacturing approach to provide mass...

The Topology Optimised Glass Bridge

This research investigates how to design a glass pedestrian bridge that is structurally optimised for multiple load scenario’s and feasible in terms of fabrication and construction. Linear glass elements such as panes have limited freedom of shape. On the other hand, cast glass can be produced into any shape possible. When glass is used in large...

Opening the bottle: designing openable surfaces in a mono material construction of recycled PET

A proposal is made on how to design and create an openable surface in a mono material 3D printed tiny house that consists out of recycled PET.

The road to sustainable load bearing glass designs: possibilities and limitations of current glass design with focus on the connections

Despite the increased popularity of the application of load bearing glass in the built environment, its design does rarely address sustainable or circular aspects. This Master’s Thesis analyses what the influence of connections is on the sustainable performance of structural glass and informs about the limitations and possibilities of sustainable...

Bamboo Connected: Rethinking bamboo connections: designing a simplified system for connecting bamboo in order to develop housing units for a determinate target population in Ecuador

Bamboo has been used as a construction material since ancient times in tropical and subtropical parts of the world, because of the fastgrowing process, low cost and compressive, tensile and bending strength, that allow to create a lightweight and earthquake resistant structures. After 3 to 5 years bamboo is ready to harvest, and one clump of...

The modular post-earthquake shell: A multi-objective parametric structural design approach

In April 2018, a graduation project in the field of architecture was concluded. The project entailed the design of a temporary community centre in the earthquake-damaged historic town centre of L’Aquila, Italy. The underlying social concept was focused on participation of the local population in the construction of the community centre. The...

3D Printing: A study of the intralayer bonding strength of extrusion-based additively manufactured polymers and its relevance for the design of structural elements

The additively manufacturing industry is emerging rather quickly and has find its way within numerous fields of expertise. Slowly the building industry is adopting these fabrication methods as well, but there are still a lot of challenges. Especially the bonds within the layered structure are demand more research. Numerous researches have...

Plastic Bamboo Connections: Transform plastic waste into a useful tool for remote and low-income areas

This graduation project ''Plastic Bamboo Connections'' originates from a project called Bamboo Factory. A group of students, together with Bamboo Social and the Delft University of Technology, realized a Bamboo Factory in Esperanza, Nicaragua. In this factory bamboo can be treated and dried properly, making the bamboo last for 30-50 years,...

Optimisation methodology of large-scale 3D printing using recycled plastics

This graduation project is in cooperation with TU Delft, Tentech BV, Aectual and White Lioness technologies. It aims to investigate the feasibility of using recycled plastics as material for large-scale 3D printing with the 3D printer KamerMaker. In the meantime, a thickness distribution methodology is proposed for taking advantage of the...