Structural Optimization through Biomimetic-Inspired Material-Specific Application of Plant-Based Natural Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites (NFRP) for Future Sustainable Lightweight Architecture

• Main Authors: Timo Sippach, Hanaa Dahy, Kai Uhlig, Benjamin Grisin, Stefan Carosella, Peter Middendorf
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-12-01
• Series: Polymers
• Subjects: architectural lightweight structure; high-performance structure; biomimetics; topology optimization; material-appropriate design; tailored fiber placement
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/12/12/3048

Under normal conditions, the cross-sections of reinforced concrete in classic skeleton construction systems are often only partially loaded. This contributes to non-sustainable construction solutions due to an excess of material use. Novel cross-disciplinary workflows linking architects, engineers, material scientists and manufacturers could offer alternative means for more sustainable architectural applications with extra lightweight solutions. Through material-specific use of plant-based Natural Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites (NFRP), also named <i>Biocomposites</i>, a high-performance lightweight structure with topology optimized cross-sections has been here developed. The closed life cycle of NFRPs promotes sustainability in construction through energy recovery of the quickly generative biomass-based materials. The cooperative design resulted in a development that were verified through a 1:10 demonstrator, whose fibrous morphology was defined by biomimetically-inspired orthotropic tectonics, generated with by the fiber path optimization software tools, namely <i>EdoStructure</i> and <i>EdoPath</i> in combination with the appliance of the digital additive manufacturing technique: Tailored Fiber Placement (TFP).