Graded Structures

Graded Structures: The design of a grid shell that uses gradual densification to enhance the performance of the overall structure

Jonker, Denise (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)

Turrin, Michela (mentor)
Smits, Joris (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences

2017-11-10

This graduation thesis aimed to find an answer to the following question: 'How to design a grid shell for the canopy of a stadium that uses performance based densification to enhance the performance of the structure?'. De Nieuwe Kuip in Rotterdam is used as a case study to put the findings into practice. In order to answer this question a literature study into the application of wood, steel and FRP has been performed. In addition to that, a literature research into types of graded structures has been performed. This research showed that Voronoi and Delaunay are the most promising for the generation of a graded grid structure. Voronoi was chosen as it most resembles the desired look of a bone structure. The densification of the graded structure is based on an imagemap that has been created by analysing several performances. This performance map is a greyscale image that follows the form of the overall shape of the canopy in which lighter colours represent large openings and darker colours represent smaller openings. Three methods to generate a graded Voronoi based on this imagemap were tested. The first method is based on Lloyd’s algorithm, the second method is based on Force Driven Circle Packing and the last method is a Smart Circle Packing based on mesh relaxation techniques and mathematical theorems. The last method proved to be most suitable for the task. Lastly, the created abstract grid of lines was translated to a real structure. It has been structurally optimized and analysed and technical details were created.

graded structure
voronoi
performance based
image map
performance map
grid structure
FRP
Multi-objective optimization
optimization algorithms
delaunay
bone structure
circle packing
lloyd's algorithm

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:0dbcc1ae-d5ae-4ea1-bd99-ff9b9157db92

Student theses

master thesis

© 2017 Denise Jonker