Gantry robots and anthropomorphic arms of various sizes have already been studied and, while they are in use in some parts of the world for automated construction, a new kind of wide workspace machinery, cable-driven parallel robots (CDPR), has emerged. These robots are capable of automated movement in a very wide workspace, using cables reeled in and out by winches as actuation members, the other elements being easily stacked for easy relocation and reconfiguration, which is critical for on-site construction. The motivation of this paper is to showcase the potential of a CDPR operating solely on motor position sensors and showing limited collisions from the cables for large-scale applications in the building industry relevant for additive manufacturing, without risk of collisions between the cables and the building. The combination of the Cogiro CDPR (Tecnalia, LIRMM-CNRS 2010) with the extruder and material of the Pylos project (IAAC 2013) opens the opportunity to a 3D printing machine with a workspace of 13.6 9 9.4 9 3.3 m. The design patterns for printing on such a large scale are disclosed, as well as the modifications that were necessary for both the Cogiro robot and Pylos extruder and material. Two prints, with different patterns, have been achieved with the Pylos extruder mounted on Cogiro: the first spanning 3.5 m in length, the second, reaching a height of 0.86 m. Based on this initial experiment, plans for building larger parts and buildings are discussed, as well as other possible applications for CDPRs in construction, such as the manipulation of assembly processes (windows, lintels, beams, floor elements, curtain wall modules, etc.) or brick laying.
Additive manufacturing with mud has the potential to reintroduce traditional materials within our contemporary design culture, answering the current demands of sustainability, energy efficiency and cost in construction. Building upon previous research, this study proposes the design and test of real-scale wall elements that aim to take advantage of both the novel material fabrication process as well as the significant thermodynamic properties of the material to achieve a performative passive material system for bioclimatic architecture. Although this project is still at an early stage, the presented study demonstrates the potential of combining 3D printing of mud with performance analysis and simulation for the optimization of a wall prototype.
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