Modulare Brückenbauwerke aus carbon-faserbewehrtem Ultrahochleistungsbeton – Graph-basierter Entwurf und trajektoriensensitive Fertigung

Modular bridge structures made of carbon fibre reinforced ultra-high performance concrete. Graph-based design and trajectory-sensitive manufacturing. In order to enable the prefabrication of bridge structures in a continuous production line, extensive changes in design and execution are necessary. Therefore, this paper explains a holistic and end-to-end digital design process for a modular construction system that composes planar, additively manufactured modules. The system is computationally represented with a graph-based data model, laying the foundation for design automation employing graph rewriting rules. Sets of rules are employed to generate modular structures according to two approaches: Either existing component geometries are segmented, or rules formalize the aggregation of structures. At this process state, predominantly geometric information is available. This information is developed into a semantically rich representation of the decomposition until a highly detailed production model for each module can be instantiated parametrically. Because of the flexible definition based on NURBS, the production model can depict a variety of possible joining situations and connections. Beyond this, the model is the basis of the printing path generation for the additive manufacturing process. The path is determined according to the principal stress directions, numerically interpolating the results of a non-linear FE analysis. Along this printing path, the alignment of carbon fibre reinforcement is steered by custom nozzle technology, enabling outstanding material properties of the manufactured components.