Felix Amtsberg (2016), Sensory Parametrics, Institute of Structural Design; 1st reviewer: Stefan Peters, 2nd reviewer: Martin Bechthold; 308 pages, German.
During the last few years, digital fabrication has established itself as a fast growing field of research in architecture and the building industry. Industrial robots have become a main instrument for the direct materialization of architectural concepts. Especially its versatility, the repeat accuracy and the programmable automated execution of selfsimilar production strategies, give industrial robots the appearance to be an ideal tool for the realization of individual construction elements. Combined with the progress in building material technology, especially in the field concrete constructions, the research field of adaptive moulding strategies has redeveloped and led to the following research question: Does the industrial robot enable the resource efficient and cost effective production of concrete shells and freeform structures if they are subdivided into elements which can be prefabricated? To answer this question, the FFG-Bridge Project Shell Structures made of Ultra High Performance Concrete (Thin-Walled Double Curved Construction Elements made of High-Performance Concrete for innovative Shell Fabrication was initialized. This thesis covers two connected parts of the project: The digital fabrication, that means the translation of a digital geometry into a machine code, and the collection, analysis and evaluation of the deviation emerging as a result of the process. Therefor a programme for the parametrical adjustment is developed and scripted. It is customized for the installed robot system to enable the direct materialization of a desired geometry. Additionally every work step is measured, documented analysed and evaluated, starting with the adjustment of the adaptive formwork, and followed by the casted moulds, to the fabricated and formatted concrete elements. This allows a description and quantification of cause and effect of any deviation between the different work steps and that way a statement of the effectively realizable accuracy of these digitally generated and highly precisely manufactured UHPC-elements. Based on this evaluation, suggestions for an optimization of the fabrication process using sensory technology during the manufacturing process, are proposed, developed and tested in first experiments. The presented work contributes a feasible concept for the fabrication of double-curved concrete elements with a batch size of 1, but delivers a contribution to the discussion of feedback based process development and actuation for the manufacturing process of construction elements for architectural purposes.