What is the compelling question or challenge?
At the intersection of automated construction and artificial intelligence, can innovative, recyclable and adaptable materials provide symbiotic infrastructure in regards to its local environment?
What do we know now about this Big Idea and what are the key research questions we need to address?
Population growth in urban settings coupled with inequitable housing costs and resource scarcity presents a major challenge for the continuity of cities. By 2050 it is predicted that 66% of the global population will habitate in urban areas with 1 billion people living in informal housing by 2020 due to unaffordable housing costs. Thus, there is a critical need to innovate automated construction systems and next-generation materials capable of building large-scale urban infrastructure to ensure the sustainable development of terrestrial (and extra-terrestrial) cities.
Critical investment in multiple science and technology fields is needed to develop innovative next-generation materials with full-scale recyclability, which are able to respond to localized environmental aggressors, meet globalized low-carbon demands, and interface with intelligent robotic construction.
Currently, automated construction systems (i.e. digital fabrication) have gained popularity within the broader industrial and scientific communities, and promise to revolutionize construction with freeform architecture, reduced material waste, and low construction costs. While automated construction systems are a burgeoning technology, these strategies currently employ traditional building materials, such as ordinary Portland cement. The material is extruded in layers resulting in the progressive construction of structural members (e.g. load-bearing walls). Recently, a layered extrusion variant, contour crafting, has been proposed for extra-terrestrial digital fabrication. As a consequence, researchers are currently exploring the scientific knowledge-base of ordinary Portland cement and, to a lesser extent, alternative cements, to enable complete concrete digital fabrication. Recent research has revealed extrusion velocity and yield stress relationships crucial to avoid “cold joints”, failure points between deposited layers. Moreover, current knowledge of robotics and chemical modifiers has developed novel digital fabrication methods (i.e. Smart Dynamic Casting) capable of incorporating reinforcement and avoiding cold joints. However, the current customary use of ordinary Portland cement coupled with its low-durability performance pose a global paradigm that must be broken if automated construction is to keep its promise of urban sustainable development.
The sustainable development of cities requires a new paradigm where the diversification of construction materials results in the selection of appropriate high-performance materials for different infrastructure. Such innovation and utilization of next-generation materials can offer unique opportunities to surpass localized infrastructure durability challenges, reduce global CO2 emissions, and revolutionize the construction assembly processes via intelligent mechatronics.
Fundamental research questions:
- Given that ordinary Portland cement accounts for ~6% of CO2 emissions, what next-generation materials are to be developed and commercialized to lower embodied and operational energy concerns?
- Given the need to fully automate construction systems, can self-sensing, self-localized, and self-powered robots operate hazardous construction sites?
- Given the need to prevent resource scarcity, can fundamental science on adaptable materials permit full recyclability of next-generation infrastructure materials via applied triggers?
- Given future advancements in mechatronics and infrastructure materials, can mechatronics and smart robotics transform material systems into digital fabrication processes?
- Given the need to develop fully recyclable, durable, and sustainable materials, can the next-frontier infrastructure materials lie at the intersectionality of soft organic and hard inorganic materials?
- Given the need to colonize next space frontiers, can innovative materials respond to changing and extreme environmental conditions to produce space human settlements? What role do chemical modifiers play to create needed material properties?
Why does it matter? What scientific discoveries, innovations, and desired societal outcomes might result from investment in this area?
The unexplored combination of intelligent automated construction systems and of innovative materials is critical for the development of next-generation infrastructure and the creation of a new paradigm on the diversification of construction materials. Because of this research theme, the automated production of next-generation infrastructure in symbiosis with various local (and extra-terrestrial) environments has the transformative potential to ensure the sustainable development of urban areas. Thus, meeting this challenge has a broader impact to enable construction at the space frontier, lower the cost of terrestrial infrastructure repair and construction, and solve socio-economic issues in urban areas.
National investment to unlock the future of infrastructure will yield a plethora of scientific discoveries across multiple disciplines. Firstly, the multi-disciplinary field of materials science will benefit from novel inorganic polymer chemistry associated with the production of alternative cementitious binders. The intersection of inorganic-organic polymer physical chemistry will elucidate new relationships into switchable, recyclable, and responsive hard-soft materials. New synthesis pathways will ensure that material processing-structure-property relations are sustainable in both their operational and embodied energy. Thus, enabling a wide suite of forthcoming materials for the automated construction of next-generation infrastructure. Secondly, scientific discoveries on robotic self-sensing, self-actuating, and self-localizing capabilities in relation to acutely dynamic conditions will permit the innovation in deductive robotic intelligence capable of advancing automated construction processes. The intersection between computer science, civil engineering, and materials science will yield new pathways for embedment of intelligent systems within infrastructure allowing the monitoring and repair of critical infrastructure. Moreover, scientific discoveries into building informatics systems, space-range monitoring technology, and computer vision are expected from investment in this challenge.
Aside from bolstering the advancement of the American construction industry, societal impacts of this investment will reduce housing costs via reductions in labor (~62% labor reductions as estimated by ERDC with current technology) and prevent resource scarcity via innovative fully recyclable materials. Moreover, automated construction with innovative materials will close the current investment gap by providing low-cost, durable, and sustainable infrastructure. Thus, providing much-needed revitalization and technological evolution to the currently aging infrastructure of the United States. Lastly, the displacement of construction labor should be met with effective social policy, use of human-computer technology (e.g. augmented reality), and continuing education for the creation of future jobs.
If we invest in this area, what would success look like?
Successful investment in this area will result in a future where infrastructure repair and construction are automated processes performed by intelligent robotic construction systems. These infrastructure projects are built with a wide variety of innovative materials, which are fully recyclable, low-carbon, and responsive to local environmental aggressors, hence, durable. Thus, shifting the construction industry to a new paradigm of utilizing different construction materials to meet localized durability challenges. Furthermore, the minimal costs of infrastructure repair and construction, whether terrestrial or extra-terrestrial, will accomplish a technological evolution from the currently aging infrastructure and allow the diversification of labor into new fields.
Fundamental research gaps in the fields of materials science, computer science, civil engineering, architectural engineering, and mechanical engineering will be bridged and new research frontiers will be opened. Key findings in the computer science fields will permit the deductive intelligent robots capable of serving multiple key functions in society. Scientific findings will impact the design and construction of buildings in both urban and rural areas, hence, affecting the energy-design nexus. The availability of innovative construction materials will bridge organic-inorganic material intersectionality and, for the first time ever, enable construction materials fully capable of re-utilization. As a result, the United States infrastructure will be revitalized and technologically advanced to meet the environmental challenges of the future.
Why is this the right time to invest in this area?
Current investment in this research theme is crucial since our current construction materials are unfit to repair the aging infrastructure and dwindling monetary resources require durable and sustainable solutions. The present momentum behind automated construction must be leveraged with a new paradigm that promotes new material diversification and appropriate selection. The impending housing and urbanization challenges of 2020 and 2050, respectively, as well as the United Nations call to action in their latest climate change report, must be met with innovative, recyclable, and adaptable materials able to provide symbiotic infrastructure in the context of automated intelligent construction systems. Development of these next-generation materials, in conjunction with intelligent automated systems, has the transformative potential to reduce global urban energy use, which currently consumes ~70% of energy produced worldwide, and permit the colonization of extra-terrestrial bodies.
References
Wangler, T. et al., 'Digital Concrete: Opportunities and Challenges.' (2016) RILEM Technical Letters 1:65-67.
McBride, M. et al., ' A readily programmable, fully reversible shape-switching material.' (2018) Science Advances, 4:8.
inyuan K. et al., 'Slag-Based Cements That Resist Damage Induced by Carbon Dioxide.' (2018) ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering. 6:4.
Show MoreShow Less