Abstract

Coreless filament winding (CFW) is an advancement of industrial filamentwinding for architectural applications. In this process, the formwork is reduced to anabsolute minimum, allowing the fibers to span freely in space between anchor points.Using carbon and glass fibers with a resin matrix, it exhibits high potential for light-weight, material efficient building elements. While previous research demonstrated itsapplicability in shell, roof and long-span structures, the potential in using this methodfor multi-story wall and slab systems has not been thoroughly investigated. This paperelaborates on methods to develop structural wall components built entirely of carbonand glass fiber composite, which are specifically tailored to meet the requirementsof multi-story construction in architecture. A computational design method basedon tangent-based approximation was developed to generate bespoke fiber patternsand openings, allowing the wall components to act as load-bearing elements. Thisfacilitates the generation of a multitude of pattern variations which can be adaptedto axisymmetric and asymmetric boundary conditions. Structural performance of thebuilding elements is evaluated throughout the design process by means of finite ele-ment analysis establishing a feedback loop between design, robotic fabrication andstructural evaluation and informing the optimisation of the wall geometry and fiberlayup. The developed methods were successfully applied in the design and fabricationof a multistory fiber installation exhibited at the 17th Architectural Biennale in Venice.It demonstrates the potential of coreless wound load-adapted fibrous walls as archi-tectural building components leveraging integrative computational design, structuralengineering and robotic prefabrication.

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