Developing robotic formwork: enhancing formwork mobility and variability through mechanization

Abstract

This paper reports on the design and development of a robotic formwork system for plastic construction materials. This development applies mechanization and computational control to the basic concept of formwork, enhancing the qualities of mobility and variability that are characteristic of contemporary sheet-based formwork systems. The resulting digi-mechanical “formwork machine” could potentially reduce placement, setup, and breakdown costs and address significant worker safety issues that are associated with traditional hand-set formwork systems. Robotic formwork could simultaneously enhance the technology’s unique capacity to respond to architectural form requirements with increased digitally driven customization and variability. Contemporary developments in creating sustainable concrete formwork systems are working to replace or eliminate sheet-based, hand-set formwork with factory situated alternatives. This project alternatively keeps formwork onsite, addressing the material and economic wastefulness associated with sheet-based formwork by evolving the current parts-based, disposable system (sheets/planking, connections, bracing, tie hardware, etc.) into a more robust robotic machine. This robotic formwork can be maintained and used repeatedly—with the extended durability inherent in construction machines—on pre-mapped construction sites, and/or in construction environments that inhibit or restrict human labor.