New industrial technologies for tailor-made concrete structures at mass customised prices (TAILORCRETE)
Research Project, 2009 – 2014

TailorCrete will initiate a transition from the rectangular monotony of today’s industrialised concrete buildings that dominate the European landscape, to new industrialised unique concrete structures without the need for expensive and labour-intensive manual construction processes. This will be achieved by developing new industrialised processes for concrete, and thus play a significant role in transforming the construction sector from a resource-based to a knowledge-based industry. TailorCrete combines the knowledge resources of architects, designers, concrete technologists, civil and structural engineers, robot experts with the practical experiences of key players in the construction sector in a 4-year collaborative research. It will involve intensive testing and validation of results at laboratory scale and in full-scale demonstrations in experimental buildings. TailorCrete will also make a significant contribution toward reduction of the environmental impact from construction and reduce the costs by replacing low skilled labour with high-end technologies with significant export potential. Life cycle assessment of the new technologies will be carried out in terms of costs, environmental and aesthetic aspects and performance relevance to the user. The effects of building standards and codes will be assessed. TailorCrete will develop a core of new technologies including digital architecture, new formwork and reinforcement systems and materials as well as digital fabrication tools to radically change the way concrete is currently produced and used. These technologies will replace the use of traditional formwork and thus enable greater flexibility in producing singular concrete structures with different geometric designs. Through the development and use of self-compacting concrete with robots, a link will be created between digital design and the fabrication of materials and components and ultimately to the on-site construction processes.

Participants

Karin Lundgren (contact)

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Structural Engineering

Collaborations

Bekaert

Kortrijk, Belgium

Czech Technical University in Prague

Praha, Czech Republic

Danish Technological Institute

Taastrup, Denmark

Dragados

Madrid, Spain

El Caleyo Nuevas Tecnologias

San Claudio, Spain

Gibotech

Odense, Denmark

Grace Construction Products

Lügde, Germany

MT Højgaard

Søborg, Denmark

PASCHAL-Danmark A/S

Århus, Denmark

Superpool

Istanbul, Turkey

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH)

Zürich, Switzerland

Unicon

Copenhagen, Denmark

University of Southern Denmark

Odense, Denmark

designtoproduction

Zürich, Switzerland

Funding

European Commission (EC)

Project ID: EC/FP7/228663
Funding Chalmers participation during 2009–2014

Related Areas of Advance and Infrastructure

Sustainable development

Driving Forces

Building Futures (2010-2018)

Areas of Advance

More information

Project Web Page

http://www.tailorcrete.com/

Latest update

9/2/2020 1