Robot-Assisted Manufacturing Technology for 3D Non-Metallic Reinforcement Structures in the Construction Applications

Of all industrial sectors, the construction industry accounts for about 37% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This encompasses the complete life cycle of buildings, from the construction phase to service life to component disposal. The main source of emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases such as CO2, with a share of 9% of global emissions, is the production of ordinary cement as the main binder of concrete. The use of innovative approaches such as impregnated carbon yarns as non-corrosive reinforcement embedded in concrete has the potential to dramatically reduce the amount of concrete required in construction, since no excessive concrete cover is needed to protect against corrosion, as is the case with steel reinforcement. At the same time, architectural design options are expanded via this approach. This is achieved above all using novel robotic manufacturing technologies to enable no-cut direct fiber placement. This innovative technological approach to fabricating 2D and 3D biologically inspired textiles, including non-metallic structures for textile-reinforced concrete (TRC) components, will promote an automatable construction method that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the impregnated yarn which is fabricated enables the production of load-adapted and gradual non-metallic reinforcement components. Novel and improved design strategies with innovative reinforcement patterns allow the full mechanical potential of TRC to be realized. The development of a robotic fabrication technology has gone beyond the state of the art to implement spatially branched, biologically inspired 3D non-metallic reinforcement structures. A combined robotic fabrication technology, based on the developed flexible 3D yarn-guiding and impregnation module and a 3D yarn fixation module, is required to implement this sophisticated approach to fabricate freely formed 3D non-metallic reinforcement structures. This paper presents an overview of the development process of the innovative technological concept.