Stock defined gridshells: About the computational optimization of gridshell structures from a finite stock

The building industry is responsible for a large amount of CO2 emissions. With an estimated 11.7 GT in 2020, the building industry emitted 36% of the worldwide CO2 emissions (Bertin et al., 2022). This results in the need to efficiently use the current material supply. A way to achieve this is by transitioning from a linear economy to a circular...

Repurposing the port: Transforming a former oil-related port area to a mixed-use neighborhood

Since the Industrial Revolution, fossil fuels have played, and continue to play, a dominant role in global energy systems, and thereby in the social, economic and technological developments worldwide. Unfortunately, these energy sources have their negative side-effects: local air pollution and global CO2-emission. The latter has never been this...

Two-scale modelling of composite 'steel-reinforced resin' interaction (INTERMOD): Towards reusable and demountable structures & infrastructure

Steel-concrete composite beams are widely used in practice because of the simple construction sequence and the economic cross-section design. The application of welded headed studs in composite beams prevents the non-destructive separation of the composite beam, which leads to a very low scoring in the sustainability assessment in terms of the...

Computational Modelling tools for the promotion of Design for Deconstruction

This Master’s thesis is focused on the ambiguous topic concept of Designing for Deconstruction and its application within the construction industry. The aim of the research is to investigate the feasibility of the concept by pointing out the main topics of interest that could influence its overall performance and propose a strategy that will...

A knowledge-based framework for structural optimization - An object-oriented approach for reuse of explicit knowledge in computational optimisation of steel structures.

During the design process, structural engineers are required to create more efficient designs while achieving maximum integration with other disciplines, satisfying design requirements and ensuring sufficient safety. Even though many algorithms, tools and case studies of computational optimisations for structural design are available in both...