Drone-compatible additive manufacturing of building-scale structures by Sébastien GOESSENS
Pour l’obtention du grade de Docteur en sciences de l’ingénieur et technologie
Compared to other sectors, the profitability of construction projects is relatively low. In addition, working conditions in this sector are often difficult and painful. As drones are increasingly present, it seemed worthwhile to study what they can bring to the automation of construction processes on building sites. The additive manufacturing of real-scale structures using UAVs (drones) is a new discipline with challenges as numerous as the possibilities it opens up for the future. In this thesis, the focus was set on UAVs and their potential applications in the field of construction, in the hope that they can reduce the influence of factors that usually badly affect the quality and profitability of construction projects, such as human factors, execution slowness, insecurity, insufficient communication between the stakeholders, weather conditions, strikes, lack of skilled labor, etc..
The aim of this research, which was carried out at UCLouvain since 2014, was to lay the necessary groundwork, still not explored elsewhere, in order to prove the feasibility of building real-scale structures with a big custom-built drone. Several construction processes have been studied, such as the laying of masonry, the assembly of wooden elements and the spraying of material onto formworks. In particular, the objective was to investigate the drones’ precision, their behavior while transporting, handling, and laying loads, but also to draw the first guidelines for the design of “drone-compatible” construction elements, i.e. their shape, the way they should be assembled together, how to minimize their weight, how to connect them together, and how to ensure their stability.
This thesis summarizes the work carried out so far in this field, provides the results of the laboratory tests and suggests development and improvement paths for the future. In particular, lab tests with a big drone assembling different kinds of increasingly complex construction elements are commented. Several conclusions can be drawn from this study, the first one being that it is worth pushing the research further and going beyond the step of proving the feasibility. Indeed, it shows that using UAVs for the construction of future real-scale structures is certainly not a utopia and is highly promising. However, it requires further developments, not only on the drones themselves (guiding systems, handling systems, robustness, power supply), but also regarding the way to go from the laboratory stage to the construction of real structures with a complex geometry, composed of slabs, walls, connections, and finishing.
Jury members :
- Prof. Pierre Latteur (UCLouvain), supervisor
- Prof. Thomas Pardoen (UCLouvain), chairperson
- Prof. Joao Almeida (UCLouvain), secretary
- Prof. Caitlin Mueller (MIT, USA)
- Dr. Thomas Vandenbergh (Besix, Belgium)
- Prof. Holger Voos (Unilu, Luxembourg)