Sustainable Construction: Innovations in Design, Engineering, and the Circular Economy

Material selection is essential for advancing sustainability in construction. Biocomposites contribute significantly to raising the awareness of materials derived from biomass. This paper explores the design development and application of novel natural fibre pultruded biocomposite profiles in a deployable system. Development methods include geometrical studies to create a system that transforms from flat to three-dimensional. Physical and digital models were used to refine the geometry, while connection elements were designed to suit material properties and deployability requirements. The first case study, at a furniture scale, demonstrates the use of the profiles connected using threading methods to create a lightweight multifunctional deployable system enabling easy transport and storage. This system can be locked at various heights for different purposes. The realised structure weighs 4 kg, supporting weights up to 150 kg. The second case study applies the system architecturally in an adaptive kinetic facade, adjusting to the sun’s position for optimal shading, providing up to 70% daylight when open and as little as 20% when closed. These two structures validate the developed deployable system, showcasing the versatility of biocomposite profiles in such configurations. This approach enhances sustainability in architecture by enabling lightweight, adaptable, and eco-friendly building solutions. Full article

Container transport is one of the most promising modes of international freight transport. Railway container transport is mainly carried out using flat cars. Container cars can be damaged under the most unfavorable operating load conditions of a 1520 mm track gauge, i.e., shunting collisions. In this context, an improvement to the supporting structure of flat cars is proposed to ensure their strength, involving the installation of special superstructures in their cantilever parts to limit the movement of the containers. The choice of the superstructure profiles was made on the basis of the section modulus of their components. Mathematical modeling of the dynamic loading of a flat car with containers in the event of a shunting collision was carried out. The determined value of acceleration was taken into account in the calculation of the strength of the load-bearing structure of the flat car. It was found that the maximum stresses were 24% lower than the allowable stresses. Therefore, the strength condition of the flat car was met. The results of this study will contribute to reducing damage to container transport vehicles in service, to the formulation of recommendations for their construction and to an increase in their profitability, including in international transport. Full article

In construction, materials of various kinds such as steel, concrete, and timber have consistently been pertinent. Yet the ambition to provide a more sustainable, effective and cost-efficient solution, in a world where the environment is becoming a growing consideration, is at the forefront of many minds. With bamboo being the fastest-growing plant in the world and having many structurally desirable qualities, it may have the potential to become part of Australia’s primary construction materials due to its ability to thrive in Australia’s tropical and sub-tropical climates. With the growing popularity of bamboo in structural applications, this study aims to identify the primary indicator of compressive load capacity of Phyllostachys pubescens, which may facilitate the use of intact whole culms in the Australian construction industry. To investigate the potential of bamboo culms for construction, an indicator for the ultimate load capacity in compression (B_u) parallel with the grain of 5-year-old construction-ready Phyllostachys pubescens (Moso bamboo) culms was examined. This was achieved by testing the load capacity of culm representatives with consideration to the number and location of nodes, culm diameter, wall thickness, moisture content, and density of the bamboo culm. Bamboo representatives from the top and bottom of the culm were cut to an aspect ratio of 1:2 (diameter to length) and compressed in a Universal Testing Machine at a rate of 0.1 mm/min. Diameters of 60 mm, 80 mm, 100 mm, and 120 mm were tested. From the investigation results, the principal indicator for the compressive load capacity of a bamboo culm is deduced. As an anisotropic material, it is important to note any relevant trends in an attempt to categorise bamboo, for the development of guidelines for bamboo usage in construction. Key findings indicate a positive correlation with diameter and wall thickness to compression load capacity; however, wall thickness was a more accurate indicator with a higher coefficient of determination, while diameter exhibited more anomalies. The top of the culm representatives provided very high accuracy for determining compressive load capacity through wall thickness and were shown to provide lower load capacity relative to their bottom counterparts. This suggests that using the wall thickness at the top of the culm as an indicator for compressive load capacity to be the most accurate, and a safe and conservative approach. Density and moisture content as independent indicators had a negative correlation with load capacity; however, it was observed to be a poor indicator of load capacity providing very low accuracy. The number of nodes affected load capacity in relation to wall thickness, with two nodes showing slightly lower and 0 nodes slightly higher capacity; however, the effect was insignificant, as representatives with one node showed greater deviation. The location of nodes impacted perceived load capacity, with centrally located nodes observed to provide larger load capacities in comparison to representatives with top or bottom located nodes. All failures occurred in a controlled manner, exhibiting primarily ductile failure. Given the B_u for the tested segments is relatively high, Moso bamboo has the potential to be an applicable construction material provided appropriate guidelines are developed. Full article

Design and production technology of natural fibre reinforced polymers not only aims to offer products with a lower environmental impact than conventional glass fibre composites but also caters for designers’ needs for the fabrication of lightweight free-formed architectural components. To combine both characteristics, the forming process itself, once scaled up, needs to be based on efficient material moulding strategies. Based on case studies of adaptive forming techniques derived from the composite industry and concrete casting, two approaches for the mass production of customised NFRP profiles are proposed. Both processes are based on foam from recycled PET, which is used as either a removable mould or a stay-in-place (SIP) core. Once the textile reinforcement is placed on a mould, either by helical winding of natural fibre prepregs or in the form of mass-produced textile preforms, its elastic properties allow for the free-forming of the composite profile before the resin is fully cured. This paper investigates the range of deformations that it is possible to achieve by each method and describes the realisation of a small structural demonstrator, in the form of a stool, through the helical winding of a flax prepreg on a SIP core. Full article

In 1944, the architect Antonio Gómez Davó designed and built a new house for Mr. Ferrer at Rocafort in the suburbs of Valencia (Spain). In this same year, Europe, America, Russia and even Japan were still at war and Spain was recovering from its own intestine conflict. Therefore, architectural innovations and influences were scarce, as was the circulation of specialized journals on the matter. Still, many creations were occurring, like ceramic vaults and the brise-soleil; further, the architect Le Corbusier had stated his profound nostalgia for the Mediterranean, a sea that he had come to appreciate in his travels to the “East”. In the case of Gómez Davó, having been born and raised in a prominent family of Valencia, he could not remain indifferent to the design features that appeared in the vernacular architecture of the area, especially the type of inclined louvers of Arabic descent, that covered bow-windows and balconies and which have come to be known in Spain as the Majorcan louvers; these are currently even employed by prominent architects like Rafael Moneo at the extension of the Painter Miro Foundation. However, with so many difficult circumstances surrounding him, Gómez Davó could not get to the point of producing a ground-breaking design based on solar assumptions for the whole façade of the house he was building; instead, when providing an entrance porch apt for living life in the pure Mediterranean tradition, he ventured to construct a surprising perforated wall oriented to the south in order to control radiation in the winter and provide shade in the summer while affording excellent light and superb conditions of ventilation. By means of self-devised simulation tools, we have analyzed the conditions of the house and especially of his innovative brise-soleil, which are at times reminiscent of Alvar Aalto’s solutions for day-lit roofs, and which he intuitively adapted to the latitude of Valencia with the help of incipient notions of solar geometry. By outlining such unknown and bold precedent and assessing the house’s proper climatic performance, we contribute to revitalizing the early and daring pioneers of solar architecture in peripheral Spain and Europe during the birth of critic regionalism, a fact often disregarded in the conventional history of Modern Architecture. Full article

Carbon-neutral and carbon-negative construction is gaining significant interest in the home building industry. Accordingly, the development of new materials and innovative redesign of the existing materials are on the rise. This paper presents the results of a review study on hempcrete as a new, emerging construction material, which is crop-based and is accordingly expected to provide a highly sustainable construction system. The paper reviews the mixture design, properties and attributes, different methods for its application in construction, building code requirements for construction of hempcrete homes, mechanical and structural properties for home building, and evaluation of the current state of hempcrete application as a non-load-bearing construction material. The paper also reviews the status of developments toward using hempcrete as a load-bearing system. The study shows a snapshot of the methods used for the construction of hempcrete buildings and touches on efforts that are ongoing to increase the compressive strength of hempcrete toward load-bearing applications. Such an increase would depend on different factors such as curing temperature and humidity, binder type and percentage, hemp-to-binder ratio, water-to-binder ratio, and additives. Full article