USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Mega-Scale Fabrication by Contour Crafting Mega-Scale Fabrication by Contour Crafting Behrokh Khoshnevis University.

Viterbi School of Engineering .

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Mega-Scale FabricationMega-Scale Fabrication byby Contour CraftingContour Crafting

Behrokh KhoshnevisUniversity of Southern California


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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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Commercialized RP Technologies


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Limitations of current SFF methods

• Slow speed• Not scalable• Limited choice of materials• Impossible to embed other objects


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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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A CC machine for thermoplastics


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Nozzle Assemblies


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Plastic Parts


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Movable Side Trowel

Cylinder

Connector

Bevel gear

Nozzle

Side trowel

mechanism of movable side trowel


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Building Various Surface Slopes


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Slant Wall Fabrication


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Creating hollow depositions


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Embedding Reinforcement


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Application in Construction


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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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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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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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Edison’s concrete houses

$175,000 for molds

More than 2000 pieces

500,000 pounds


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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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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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Form work cost structure

Ties

Wales

Studs

Sheathing

Concrete footing

Brace

Reinforcement

53%30%

10% 7% Formwork Labor

Concrete Materials

Formwork Materials

Concrete Labor


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A straight wall builder


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Full scale wall sections


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Adobe structures – Ageless comfort and beauty

House of Brojerdi Kashan


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Interior of an Adobe house CalEarth Design


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House made with vaults and domes

Interior of an Adobe house CalEarth Design


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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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Free-standing Objects / Industrial parts


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Adobe house Construction


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Extraterrestrial Construction


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Deployable CC


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Lunar Construction


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Machine at NASA


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Next Machine


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Research specimens (concrete)


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Please visit www.ContourCrafting.org


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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

USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Mega-Scale Fabrication by Contour Crafting Mega-Scale Fabrication by Contour Crafting Behrokh Khoshnevis University.

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