Structural design in a circular economy: building from stocks of new or reused components (Project Code: CIV-02-Fairclough)

Details

This project will develop new optimization-based digital design tools to facilitate the transition to net zero in structural design, targeting both current construction techniques and future circular economy paradigms.

The built environment consumes around half of all extracted raw materials. These are often in the form of carbon-intensive materials such as steel or concrete, resulting in the built environment being responsible for approximately a third of all carbon emissions. In light of the climate emergency, it is essential that we immediately start to make more efficient use of the resources we currently manufacture, working within the constraints of current technologies and manufacturing processes. Meanwhile, we must also accelerate the transition to a circular economy where components are re-used. By reusing elements directly, energy-intensive recycling processes can be bypassed. In the context of structural design, this will require that structures are designed with reference to a catalogue of beams, columns and other components which are available, having been removed from another deconstructed building(s). This places new demands on the design process, which this project aims to address.

This project will develop novel digital tools for structural design, with a particular focus on incorporating the need to construct from a limited catalogue of possible elements. This will ensure immediate applicability to reduce embodied carbon in an economically viable way, allowing the use of existing manufacturing technologies and their well established supply chains. This will impose fewer barriers to uptake compared to typical optimization methods which produce complex and/or freeform structural designs, likely requiring advanced manufacturing methods (e.g. mass customisation or additive manufacturing) to realise. Therefore benefits could be realised in the very short term.

In the longer term, the tools developed will also facilitate the transition to designing within a circular economy, i.e. creating designs from a catalogue derived from reclaimed elements. Circular economy principles have the greatest benefit in terms of reducing carbon emissions, but will require time for the associated regulatory, logistical and societal changes to be completed.

A key priority of this project will be to produce methods which are computationally efficient, this will be achieved by exploiting engineering knowledge and understanding of the problem, and using this to inform efficient mathematical optimization approaches. This is important to ensure the tools developed can fit into the fast-paced real-word design process. There is the potential to integrate the tools developed here into previous packages released by the research group which are currently used by industry, for example the freely available web-apps at layopt.com or the Peregrine plugin to the Rhino/Grasshopper parametric design ecosystem.

The tools produced here will also promote understanding of why a certain structure has been identified as the optimal choice, in contrast to previous ‘black-box’ approaches in this area. To achieve this, engineering techniques such as graphic statics will be combined with mathematical optimization approaches to provide a richer understanding for engineers, clients and the design team, reducing the possibility of error and building the trust that is essential for real-world uptake of any method.

The project will include design, implementation and evaluation of novel optimization methods, including testing on a range of academic and real-world problems. This project may be suitable for students with various backgrounds including engineering (civil/structural/mechanical etc.), applied mathematics or architecture.

Project start date: 01 October 2024.

Interested candidates are encouraged to contact the project supervisors to discuss your interest in and suitability for the project prior to submitting your application. Please refer to the EPSRC DTP webpage for detailed information about the EPSRC DTP and how to apply. The award will fund the full (UK or Overseas) tuition fee and UKRI stipend (currently £18,622 per annum) for 3.5 years, as well as a research grant to support costs associated with the project.