Automated large-scale additive manufacturing of structural formwork with rapid fibre-reinforced polymer tape lamination

Abstract

A fully automated additive lamination manufacturing (ALM) system was developed for producing large-scale fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) structural formworks. Automation is achieved through the integration of a UV-curable resin matrix with glass fibre tape and a robotic arm end-effector. This paper presents details of the hardware and material development for the UV-based ALM system, as well as performance benchmarks evaluated for two sets of prototypes. The first set compared the geometrical quality and fabrication efficiency of the automated ALM system to the existing semi-automated ALM system, demonstrating improved part quality and faster build speeds. The second set studied the impact of the layer height process parameter on fabrication performance. The design domain for the automatic ALM system was discussed and its fabrication productivity measures were compared with industrial standards and other FRP additive manufacturing approaches. Results highlight the ALM system’s potential for cost-effective, bespoke, and large-scale FRP component construction. • Automated ALM was proposed for mold-less FRP formwork using UV resin over epoxy. • Validation prototypes with improved geometrical quality and fabrication efficiency. • ALM system demonstrated potential for customization with design domain exploration. • Fabrication quality of ALM benchmarked against key industry standards.