ACDC: The Admixture Controlled Digital Casting and Its Application to Thin Folded Concrete Structures

Abstract

Digital concrete technologies aim to minimize or eliminate the need for formwork, produce less waste, and build material efficient designs at increased productivity. This paper discusses how Admixture Controlled Digital Casting (ACDC) could address these aims by producing thin folded structures. For the process, a set on demand concrete composition was used to achieve minimal deformations when robotically filling weakly supported formworks. The formworks were constructed from bendable materials such as foil, geotextile or paper tensed between a frame on top and bottom and could be reconfigured for different geometries. The prototypes were assembled and post-tensioned to achieve a one-to-one scale fully functional architectural roof element. With the demonstrator presented, ACDC challenges the way we think about casting and formworks in the construction industry at the age of the 4th industrial revolution.