Grants & Awards

Promoting early academic independence

  

Successful early career researchers typically show high intrinsic motivation and identification with their academic work. In order to encourage and honor these attributes, the Cluster of Excellence IntCDC has established several early career grants.

 

IntCDC BEST PUBLICATION AWARD

 

The IntCDC Best Publication Award recognizes up to two excellent publications per year to honor and strengthen early academic independence and dedication to academic work. It is endowed with 1.500 € each.


All publications authored or co-authored by IntCDC early career researchers, published or formally accepted to be published, are eligible for the award.

 

IntCDC Best Publication Award | Call for applications will be published in March each year

For more information about the award, application requirements, and selection process, please see the Confluence information page or contact Karolin Tampe-Mai.

 

Computational co-design framework for coreless wound fibre–polymer composite structures.

IntCDC Best Publication Award Perez and Zechmeister

Gil PérezC. Zechmeister, F. Kannenberg, P. Mindermann, L. Balangé, Y. Guo, S. Hügle, A. Gienger, D. Forster, M. Bischoff, C. Tarín, P. Middendorf, V. Schwieger, G. T. Gresser, A. Menges, J. Knippers

Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, Volume 9, Issue 2, April 2022, Pages 310–329, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcde/qwab081

In coreless filament winding, resin-impregnated fibre filaments are wound around anchor points without an additional mould. The final geometry of the produced part results from the interaction of fibres in space and is initially undetermined. Therefore, the success of large-scale coreless wound fibre composite structures for architectural applications relies on the reciprocal collaboration of simulation, fabrication, quality evaluation, and data integration domains. The correlation of data from those domains enables the optimization of the design towards ideal performance and material efficiency. This paper elaborates on a computational co-design framework to enable new modes of collaboration for coreless wound fibre–polymer composite structures. It introduces the use of a shared object model acting as a central data repository that facilitates interdisciplinary data exchange and the investigation of correlations between domains. The application of the developed computational co-design framework is demonstrated in a case study in which the data are successfully mapped, linked, and analysed across the different fields of expertise. The results showcase the framework’s potential to gain a deeper understanding of large-scale coreless wound filament structures and their fabrication and geometrical implications for design optimization.

 

A finger-joint based edge connection for the weak direction of CLT plate

IntCDC_Status-Seminar_2022_105

Tapia, Cristóbal; Claus, Marian; Aicher, Simon.
Construction and Building Materials, 2022, 340. Jg., S. 127645. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2022.127645

A new connection concept for joining cross-laminated timber (CLT) plates in their secondary direction is presented. The connection consists of two laminated veneer lumber (LVL) gusset plates with finger-joint-like profiles milled on one side which are glued onto the outermost layers of the CLT. It is demonstrated that the joint represents a stiff moment resistant connection, enabling the activation of the normally underutilized biaxiality of CLT plates and expanding the design freedom of architects and engineers. The concept was analyzed by means of analytical and finite element (FE) models for two geometry alternatives, differing in either a 2D or 3D tapered finger profile. The 3D tapered finger profile produced a stress reduction of around 5% in the region of stress concentration and a more even shear stress distribution on the bonded surface. Thereafter, four specimens were manufactured – two of each geometry alternative – and then tested in four- and three-point bending setups in order to assess the behavior at pure bending as well as at combined moment and shear loading, respectively. At pure bending, the studied connection delivered bending capacities of 100% of the characteristic value of the unjointed CLT material. For the case of moment and shear loading, the global capacity was determined by a bending failure in the CLT region subjected to maximum moment, while the joints remained unbroken. Measured deformations and strains during the tests validated the FE model, which can be used to further develop the connection concept, which allows for a full activation of the biaxial behavior of large-span CLT floors.

Integrative data processing for cyber-physical off-site and on-site construction promoting co-design

Carsten EllweinAlexander Reichle, Melanie Herschel and Alexander Verl.

Procedia CIRP,  Volume 100, 2021, Pages 451-456; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2021.05.103

The term co-design describes a collaborative design process, usually across the boundaries of individual areas. A major aspect, and often an obstacle in the implementation of the co-design approach, is the establishment of a centralized data management system. In the past, the data management concept has been approached from different perspectives. Current approaches usually are oriented along the process chain and thus reflect a unidirectional flow of information. Neither the information feedback nor the reaction to adjustments in upstream model steps is supported, which makes continuous collaboration more difficult and at best reduces the co-design approach for continuous data usage. This paper addresses these weaknesses while outlining an integrative data processing concept enabling co-design between the domains of construction and industrial prefabrication.

Geometrical information generated during architectural design and construction planning is reused for the production of components, manufacturing-related design adjustments are transferred back into the domain of construction. Changes throughout the entire process are centrally recorded. To ensure independence from the software tools used and to consider their great diversity, data exchange is largely based on standards, namely industry foundation classes and the standard for the exchange of product model data. In order to counteract the sequential processing according to a waterfall model and to support the co-design approach, the industrial prefabrication toolchain, consisting of computer-aided manufacturing software and downstream postprocessors, is largely automated, so that reprocessing of a workpiece for minor geometric adjustments no longer requires any interaction of the production planner

 

Holistic Quality Model and Assessment: Quality as Driver for Sustainable Construction

Li Zhang, Laura Balangé, Kathrin Braun, Roberta Di Bari, Rafael Horn, Deniz Hos, Cordula Kropp, Philip Leistner and Volker Schwieger

Sustainability 2020, 12(19), 7847; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12197847

Facing rising building demands due to a fast-growing world population and significant environmental challenges at the same time, the building sector urgently requires innovation. The Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture at the University of Stuttgart tackles these challenges through a Co-Design approach for integrating computational design and engineering and robotic construction. Within this research framework, a Holistic Quality Model is developed to ensure the technical, environmental, and social quality of Co-Design processes and products. Up to now, quality models that consider and integrate all these three aspects throughout the life cycle of buildings are still missing. The article outlines the concept of holistic quality assessment based on a Holistic Quality Model for sustainable construction. A key mechanism for sustainable quality assessment in the Holistic Quality Model is the definition of control and decision points in the construction process where critical decisions are made that will affect the quality of the building throughout its entire life-cycle. Firstly, subject-specific quality concepts are defined and their interrelations are conceptualized. Subsequently, these interrelations and their effects on the overall Co-Design construction processes and products are explained using the example of the semi-robotic production of concrete slabs. Examples for control and decision points are given as well. The outline presented here serves as a basis for further advancing and concretizing the Holistic Quality Model and its applications in Co-Design for a functioning, liveable, and sustainable high-quality construction and building culture.

 

The team of RP18 was able to finance an inspiring workshop with the prize money.

 
IntCDC “BLUE SKY” PROJECT GRANT

 

The IntCDC “Blue Sky” Project Grant is awarded annually in recognition of a research idea that stands out in terms of its originality, its quality and the readiness to assume risk. The grant is endowed with 10.000 € enabling the grant recipient to test the feasibility of their research idea in preparation for a full dissertation or postdoctoral project.

All IntCDC early career researchers as well as advanced master’s students of the institutes involved in IntCDC are eligible to apply.

IntCDC “BLUE SKY” PROJECT GRANT | Call for application will be published in May each year

For more information about the award, application requirements, and selection process, please see the Confluence information page or contact Karolin Tampe-Mai.

 

Planning for uncertainty: human teaching and machine learning for human-robot collaboration in architectural assembly

IntCDC_Status-Seminar_2022_109

Gili Ron

The project investigates possibilities of agile responses to uncertainties in construction, developing novel Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) methods, evaluated with a demonstrator. A team of a skilled human and an Artificial Intelligence (AI) trained UR10 Collaborative Robot (CoBot) assemble a wooden structure of an architectural scale, while responding to real-life scenarios: error, rework and skill shortage. To overcome the challenges of speedy and accurate assembly, deep reinforcement learning with novel reward functions (DL, RL) combined with physical feedback from the human agent are proposed. This small-scale demonstrator for HRC aims for Co-Design, reduced fabrication errors and material waste and foster human-robot kinship.

Supervisor: Jun.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Wortmann

Automated preforming of natural-fibre textiles for biocomposite profiles and lightweight structures

Piotr Baszynski

The project investigates possibilities of erecting structures from free-formed biocomposite profiles, fabricated in a fully additive process based on Automated Preforming (AP) of natural fibre textiles. AP allows for noticeable time and energy savings, at the same time offering profile customization possibilities such  curvature or transition of the profile section. Consequently, free-formed biocomposite profiles can be fabricated in a fully additive process, which makes them a potential alternative to timber elements in structures that use free-formed timber beams. As the technology has not been used in construction industry yet, developing a proposal of a structural system based on such profiles and fabricating profiles samples for a small demonstrator are the key interests of this proposal.

Learn more.

Supervisor: Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. M.Eng. Arch. Hanaa Dahy

 
IntCDC MASTER’S THESIS AWARDS
(up to 2022 Master’s Thesis Grants)

 

The IntCDC Master’s Thesis Awards are part of a bundle of measures designed to promote early career researchers within the Cluster of Excellence IntCDC. The Awards encourage excellent master’s students to realize a first step towards a prospective academic career by recognizing excellent master’s thesis research.

We award up to two Master’s Thesis Awards per year. Each award is endowed with 500€ price money, to be used at the winner’s discretion.

All master’s students, who completed their master’s thesis at one of the institutes participating in IntCDC since the last call was published, are eligible for the award. Candidates have to be nominated by their thesis advisors; self-nomination is not possible.

IntCDC Master’s Thesis Award 2023 | Call for application will be published in July each year

For more information about the award, application requirements, and selection process, please see the Confluence information page or contact Karolin Tampe-Mai.

IntCDC Master’s Thesis Award winners Hanna Sophie Mast, Pelin Asa, Christelle El Feghali and Christian Steixner (online from USA)
IntCDC Master’s Thesis Award winners Hanna Sophie Mast, Pelin Asa, Christelle El Feghali and Christian Steixner (online from USA)

Embraced Wood: Building with Unprocessed Reclaimed Timber         

Pelin Asa, Christian Steixner, and Christelle El Feghali
Supervisor:  Prof. Dipl. AA (Hons.) Achim Menges
Advisors: Hans-Jakob Wagner, and Yasaman Tahouni

With the growing demand for timber as a building material, Embraced Wood expands the availability of wood in construction by establishing a computational and robotic workflow to create beams from unprocessed reclaimed timber. In this workflow, reclaimed timber pieces of unknown quality are sourced from demolished buildings. Each sourced piece goes through non-destructive regrading and is digitally inventoried. A digital workflow optimally places the reclaimed pieces based on respective strength grade, geometry and the design scenario. Once a suitable combination is generated, the beam is materialized. Clay is used in the composite beam to overcome surface irregularities, add friction, provide fire proofing, offer toxic substance encapsulation, and protect against hazardous nails left in-place. Natural jute fiber wraps the lamella together using a custom wrapping end-effector using design specific reinforcing patterns. 1:1 prototypes and structural testing conducted on samples prove design specific span and loading performance. Combining digital and robotic fabrication tools with an outlook for connection to other building assemblies and industrial scale automation, this research presents solutions for simplifying and expanding the reuse practices while offering design freedom. Embraced Wood offers a lower energy carbon-conscious design and fabrication process that is competitive to that of other timber systems and is suitable for building extensions as well as new multi-story timber construction. Considering reuse from the onset of design, the beam can be unwrapped to retrieve all materials separately for continuous use.

IntCDC Master’s Thesis Award winners 
IntCDC Master’s Thesis Award winners 
IntCDC Master’s Thesis Award winners 

Photos: Julia Mederus. IntCDC Master’s Thesis Award winners Pelin Asa, Christelle El Feghali and Christian Steixner (online from USA)

Auf dem (Holz-) Weg in die gebaute Zukunft? Sozio-technische Zukunftsvisionen für das Bauen mit Holz im Deutsch-Französischen Vergleich

English title: On the (Wooden) Path into the Built Future? A German-French Comparative Analysis of Sociotechnical Imaginaries for the Future of Timber Construction

Hanna Sophie Mast
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Cordula Kropp
Advisor: Yana Boeva

The construction industry is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. In view of resource scarcity, climate change, and rapid global population growth, the industry faces the urgent challenge of a sustainable transition. The renaissance of timber as a renewable, carbon-neutral construction material could pave the way for more sustainable modes of building. Taking France and Germany as examples, and based on a sociological discourse analysis, this thesis reveals four different and conflicting sociotechnical imaginaries of the future built environment. The four imaginaries show specific characteristics depending on the respective national, political, and cultural contexts. Moreover, they include partially incompatible objectives and compete for discursive hegemony, and thus implementation. Scrutinizing the four competing visions and their approach to conflicts and scarcities raises profound questions about their political, technological, ecological, and social implications.

IntCDC Master’s Thesis Award winners 
IntCDC Master’s Thesis Award winners 

Photos: Julia Mederus. IntCDC Master’s Thesis Award winner Hanna Sophie Mast

Building Across Scales: A Heterogeneous Robotic System for In-Situ Timber Fabrication         

Daniel Locatelli and Nils Opgenorth
Supervisor: Achim Menges, Jan Knippers
Tutors: Hans Jakob Wagner, Samuel Leder

The research proposes a heterogeneous multi-scalar robotic construction system to further automate on-site timber construction. Specifically, it presents the next step in the automation of on-site gluing through the introduction of a custom robotic clamping device for the on-site pressuring of timber elements. Therefore, at the core of the research, lies the development of the custom device as part of a larger robotic construction team including an industrial robot and crane in co-design with the material and building system.

 

Distributed Fabrication for Fibrous Networks


August Lehrecke, Cody Tucker and Xiliu Yang
Supervisor: Achim Menges, Jan Knippers
Tutors: Rebeca Duque Estrada, Mathias Maierhofer

The research expands the design and fabrication space of fibre structures, through a multi-agent system inspired by bobbin lace making. It proposes a novel material system based on spatial fibre interactions, facilitating the creation of multiple topologies within a single structure. Through cyber-physical coordination, mobile robots and bobbins fabricate using a parallel, continuous logic while maintaining high material programmability. State of the art manufacturing for filament structures are constrained by machine size, rigid frames, and logic of discrete assembly, limiting the variety and adaptability of fibre systems in architecture. This research proposes a flexible process that can achieve hybrid fibre topologies, thereby creating novel architectural qualities. The interlocking fibre interactions allow the structure to retain its topology in a collapsed state, and therefore can be flat-packed for transport and post-tensioned on site. This open-ended system creates new design and fabrication possibilities for fibre systems in architecture, enabling greater scalability and complexity.

 

 

Joint Effort: Robot team enabled carbon fibre joining strategies for lightweight wood construction

Simon Lut, Lasath Siriwardena und Tim Stark

Supervisors: Achim Menges, Jan Knippers
Tutors: Hans Jakob Wagner, Simon Bechert, Mathias Maierhofer

Collective robotic construction is a contemporary research field in which multi-robot systems modify their shared environments to materialize structures. Current research is primarily focussed on the positioning of elements and tends to disregard connection strategies, limiting scalability and structural viability of autonomously built structures. This study demonstrates methods by which a heterogeneous team of robots connects discrete timber elements by winding carbon fibre through pre-routed grooves to establish a structurally performant joint. In contrast to current human-centric steel fasteners, CFRPs are flexible, compact and can be easily integrated into mobile robots, enabling the exploration of novel robot-orientated connection typologies. By regarding the timber as an integral part of the robotic system, assembly information is pre-programmed into the material, including instructions for navigation, localization and construction. This substantially reduces robot complexity, weight, size, cost and allows for decentralized control of the connection agents. Through cooperation between different robotic and material species, a fully autonomous assembly choreography can be performed, leveraging the task-specific capabilities of each agent in the team. This building framework demonstrates the utility of heterogeneous robot teams in facilitating novel construction methods that could eventually mount a challenge to the reliance on existing humancentric connection strategies in timber assemblies.

 

Working with Uncertainties: An adaptive fabrication system for bamboo structures utilizing computer vision

Yue Qi und Ruqing Zhong

Supervisors: Achim Menges, Alexander Verl
Tutors: Hans Jakob Wagner, Yasaman Tahouni, Benjamin Kaiser

The group investigates an adaptive fabrication system that is able to work with cumulative deviations. During fabrication, the deviation can be caused by material- and fabrication-related uncertainties. All these factors exist in the bamboo constructions significantly, which limits the application of this high performance and sustainable material. To address the challenge, the proposed method leverages vision-based feedback to update future fabrication instructions and provide guidance for manual assembly, thereby compensating for the error in every iteration of the building process. This workflow effectively improves the accuracy of manually fabricated structure with natural imperfect material, allowing it to predictably interface with prefabricated building components.

 

  

 

Contact

This image shows Karolin Tampe-Mai

Karolin Tampe-Mai

Dipl.-Ing.

Graduate School & Early Career

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