An innovative approach to manufacture thin-walled glass fibre reinforced concrete for tomorrow's architectural buildings envelopes with complex geometries

Glass fibre reinforced concrete (GFRC) elements have become a sought after cladding material since their introduction as rain screen cladding for buildings. To advance GFRC for a range of complex geometry building envelopes this also requires advances in existing moulding techniques for thin-walled GFRC elements. To do so it is necessary to define the current state of thin-walled GFRC elements and the constraints and limits placed on them by existing production techniques. This paper identifies the current architectural and aesthetic requirements of thin-walled GFRC elements and maps their range of complexity, from 1-D to 3-D, to the limits of the most appropriate production method. This will inform guidelines for the future design development of thin-walled GFRC and enable an innovative approach to further advance the moulding techniques for thin walled GFRC elements for a variety of complex geometry building envelopes. The paper concludes on which further steps need to be taken to advance thin-walled glass fibre reinforced concrete for tomorrow's architectural buildings envelopes with complex geometries

The impact of a new mould system as part of a novel manufacturing process for complex geometry thin-walled GFRC

Resolving the challenges of advancing thin-walled glass fibre-reinforced concrete (GFRC) requires a novel, more automated digital design and manufacturing process that meets the requirements of present demands for thin-walled GFRC panels. The design, optimisation and manufacture of moulds using existing approaches are subject to many limitations and constraints that result in feedback loops between each stage of the design and manufacturing processes. This precludes the efficient and fully automated digital design and manufacture of complex geometry thin-walled GFRC panels. The proposed mould system described in this article overcomes many of these constraints and, when combined with new software plug-ins, will be capable of digitally resolving the limitations or constraints that interrupt each key stage of the design and manufacturing processes. These plug-ins have been characterised to provide a seamless interface between software and hardware with minimal delays caused by design feedback loops to allow a fully automated digital design process to be realised. The impact of the new mould on this novel process is analysed and further research necessary to advance the process is identified