Manufacturing

Context

The UK Construction sector deal targets a 33% reduction in cost, 50% reduction in time, 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 50% reduction in the trade gap. Digital technology, offsite construction and whole life performance have been identified as the strategic areas to achieve these goals.

Theme

The ability to automate tasks, 3-D robotic positional control and digital integration across design and construction phases unleashes new ways of manufacturing structures. Complex structural geometries and material combinations that would be impossible to achieve cost-effectively with conventional methods can now be realised. This removes long-standing constraints on the types and forms of structures we can build and enables more optimised, efficient and sustainable structural engineering.

We seek to exploit the latest technological developments to enhance sector-wide sustainability and productivity and promote a new culture in the construction industry that embraces the concept of using enough material - and no more. Automated 3-D concrete deposition, inducing curvature in glass panels, knitting of fibre reinforced polymer reinforcement cages, and timber structures constructed by robots are examples of our directions for research.