1. Mega-Scale Fabrication by Contour Crafting Behrokh Khoshnevis University of Southern California
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2. Fabrication Processes
Subtractive (milling, turning, chiseling, sawing,..)
Formative (pressing, forging, bending,..)
Additive
Casting (requiring mold)
Traditional Layered Fabrication in manual construction
Modern Layered Fabrication (SFF or RP) Technologies
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3. Commercialized RP Technologies
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4. Limitations of current SFF methods
Slow speed
Not scalable
Limited choice of materials
Impossible to embed other objects
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5. What is Contour Crafting?
Material feed barrel
Nozzle
Side trowel
Side trowel control mechanism
Top trowel
CC is a layered fabrication method which combines ancient surface forming concepts with modern robotics technology
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6. A CC machine for thermoplastics
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7. Nozzle Assemblies
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8. Plastic Parts
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9. Movable Side Trowel Cylinder Connector Bevel gear Nozzle Side trowel
mechanism of movable side trowel
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10. Building Various Surface Slopes
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11. Slant Wall Fabrication
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12. Creating hollow depositions
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13. Embedding Reinforcement
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14. Application in Construction
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15. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Self Actualization Needs (full potential)
Ego Needs (self respect, personal worth, autonomy)
Social Needs (love, friendship, comradeship)
Security Needs (protection from danger)
Physiological Needs (food, shelter)
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16. Why automate construction?
Labor efficiency is alarmingly low
Skilled workforce is vanishing
Work quality is low
Control of the construction site is insufficient and difficult
Accident rate at construction sites is high (> 400,000 / year in US)
Waste and trims are high (3 To 7 tons per average home; 40% of all materials used worldwide are for construction)
Low income housing and emergency shelters are critical
Construction is the largest sector of almost all economies
All other products are fabricated automatically – construction is still largely a manual task
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17. Construction productivity decline
Labor productivity comparison for non-farm industries and construction industry developed by Paul Teicholz
Construction Productivity index
Non-farm productivity index
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18. Edison’s concrete houses
$175,000 for molds
More than 2000 pieces
500,000 pounds
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19. Automated construction in Japan
89 single task construction robots
11 different automated construction systems
Concrete Surface Treatment Robot
This robot absorbs the water which remains after concrete has been set.
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20. Big-Canopy high-rise pre-cast concrete construction system.
Used to construct the 26 storey pre-cast concrete 30,726m2
Yachiyodai Condominium building in Japan.
The system realized a 60% reduction in labor requirements for the frame erection.
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21. Form work cost structure
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22. A straight wall builder
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23. Full scale wall sections
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26. Adobe structures – Ageless comfort and beauty
House of Brojerdi Kashan
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27. Interior of an Adobe house CalEarth Design
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28. House made with vaults and domes
Interior of an Adobe house CalEarth Design
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29. A vault structure made of clay bricks (Source: Khalili, 2000)
Ingenious methods
Manual construction of adobe form structures using clay bricks (Source: Khalili, 2000)
A vault structure made of clay bricks (Source: Khalili, 2000)
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30. Free-standing Objects / Industrial parts
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31. Adobe house Construction
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32. Extraterrestrial Construction
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33. Deployable CC
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34. Lunar Construction
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35. Machine at NASA
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39. Next Machine
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41. Research specimens (concrete)
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42. Please visit www.ContourCrafting.org
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43. What constitutes construction cost?
Portion
Due to
If Automated by CC
20%-25%
Financing
Short project length and control of time to market will dramatically reduce this cost
25%-30%
Materials
Will be a wasteless (lean) process
45%-55%
Labor
Will be significantly reduced
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