Mobile Micro Factory: Digital Fabrication Systems for Easy to Deploy Material Efficient Construction.
Date
2024-01
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Abstract
The planet's living conditions are rapidly degrading, requiring immediate actions to secure the future. Global initiatives like the United Nations 2030 agenda underscore the urgency of saving the planet from deteriorating by encouraging initiatives like sustainable consumption and production, sustainable natural resource management and urgent action towards climate change (Desa, 2016). Amid these challenges, the construction industry stands out as a significant contributor to environmental problems, demanding a re-evaluation of its current practices (Lima et al., 2021). One of the many critical steps for mitigating this challenge is promoting efficient material consumption and logistics. The study proposes a transformative solution for such concrete dominant countries by integrating robot-equipped digital fabrication tools within a portable shipping container, promoting near-site concrete construction as opposed to the current trend of off-site prefabrication. This shift promises a significant reduction in the transportation requirements of prefabricated parts, thereby lowering the carbon footprint associated with logistical processes. Furthermore, the precise fabrication capabilities of the setup enable resource-saving material efficient construction techniques like topology optimization and trust network analysis, contributing to sustainable material consumption. The research conducts layout designing exercises of such flexible micro factories housing various digital fabrication techniques based on comprehensive market surveys of the commercially available fabrication systems and robots. This layout matrix would not only serve as a guide for assembling micro-factories but also function as a tool that informs designers of fabrication parameters and constraints at the initial stages of the design process.
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Keywords
Mobile Micro Factories, Digital Fabrication Systems, Material Efficient Construction
Citation
Charaniya, R. (2024). Mobile micro factory: digital fabrication systems for easy to deploy material efficient construction (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.