The computer-aided design and manufacture of complexly shaped metal architectural frame structures

Established and emerging computer-aided design and manufacturing (cad/cam) technologies can both expedite the conventional methods by which materials are formed and enable the production of complexly-shaped products that were previously either impossible or very difficult and expensive to manufacture. The use of computer-numerically controlled machining and solid freeform fabrication to directly or indirectly manufacture complexly-shaped components is increasingly common outside the realm of building design and construction. If the potential of cad/cam technologies is harnessed by the architectural profession, building design can be released from the formal constraints of conventional production processes. Modern architecture is rooted in the concept that building designers must master the means of production in order to create an aesthetic appropriate for industrial civilization. New means of production have emerged and they can enable new aesthetics in post-industrial digital societies.; This research is premised on the hypothesis that cad/cam technologies can enable the production of complexly-shaped metal building frames composed of optimized freeform tubes. All extant methods of forming metal into structural components are reviewed and evaluated in terms of their potential capacity to produce hollow freeform metal parts of the size that would be required in primary structural frames. The processes with an apparent capacity to produce such components are then analyzed in greater detail and evaluated relative to each other in terms of the constraints their tooling requirements impose on freeform geometry. This analysis results in the identification of two classes of viable processes: cad/cam methods that could be implemented in the present context of professional practice, and optimal emerging technologies for manufacturing hollow freeform metal parts. The presently viable methods are all expendable mold casting processes, and, of these, the processes using expendable patterns and ceramic molds enable freeform design to the greatest extent. The optimal emerging processes utilize solid freeform fabrication to either indirectly or directly manufacture freeform metal tubes. Prototyping experiments were designed and completed to test especially promising processes from each of these categories and thereby verify the hypothesis.