Student: Laura C. Vrenken
Supervisors: Arjan Habraken, Faas Moonen, Matthew Ferguson
25-01-2024
The construction industry nowadays is facing many challenges to reduce its environmental
impact and to become more efficient, sustainable and safe. One way to help tackle these
challenges is to use more automation. This thesis focuses specifically on timber construction.
The goal of this project is to design, engineer and robotically assemble a parametric timber
structure. This goal can be subdivided in two parts: the parametric design and the robotic
assembly.
First of all, a design concept is made. The structure is a column that consists of beams
stacked two by two on top of each other. By changing the angle at which these beams
are stacked, the column form can be changed. Subsequently, an optimization is done on a
asymmetric pavilion structure with three of these columns. The column forms in the pavilion
are optimized by minimizing the most critical force: tension in the joints. The optimization
process reduces the tension by approximately 43%, by balancing wind surface area in every
direction and by dividing tension more equally over the joints. The optimization results in a
pavilion structure with organic columns that meet the structural requirements, in contrary
to a non-optimized structure with straight columns that uses the same amount of material.
Then, the robotic assembly process is worked out to build the optimized timber column.
The robotic set up consists of two robots that work together. One robot picks and places
timber beams in the correct position with a pneumatic gripper. The other robot connects
the timber beams with screws. To do this, a robotic screwing end effector is developed with
a pneumatic screw machine, a magnetic screw holder and a capacitive proximity sensor. The
robots can work safely together by using multi move, careful path planning and collision
checks. The full assembly process is tested and fine tuned and the optimized column is
constructed.
The end result of the project is a full size, robotically constructed, structurally optimized,
parametric timber column. Furthermore, a robotic set up is
Keywords: parametric design, optimization, structural engineering, robotic assembly,
timber construction, automation, screwing, end effector
Cite this
The parametric design and robotic assembly of a timber column
Vrenken, L. C. (Author). 27 Jun 2023
RESED 