AbstractsEngineering

Additive manufacturing is a production technique that builds up successive layers of material to create a 3D object from a digital model. With additive manufacturing design freedom is offered, which enables new opportunities for structural engineers and designers. This new opportunity is applied to design and produce structural joints for gridshells in an innovative way. Topology optimization is used to minimize the weight of the joints. This resulted in a weight reduction of almost 70 % for the Złoty Tarasy gridshell. Moreover, improved solutions for the detailing of the joints are found. This reduces the labour intensity and it speeds up the erection process. Although the use of additive manufacturing for structural joints for gridshells is not cost efficient yet, it can be in the near future when printing speed goes up and material costs go down. With increased knowledge of the applied design and production method, it might become economically and technically feasible to produce structural joints in gridshells by additive manufacturing.