The 2017 Spring Perkins+Will Innovation Incubator project proposed to develop the next generation of net carbon negative, low embodied energy wood composite structural elements. The team created composite fibers composed of a bio-based thermosetting plastic and fiber additives (carbon, aramid, and two types of wood fiber), and evaluated their sustainability and began the process of tensile strength testing at the University of Southern California’s Material Testing Lab. We designed the fabrication method for assembly of laminated wood beams which involves using a robot arm with a plastic extrusion gun end effector to deposit fiber-reinforced plastics into continuous grooves cut in the laminated wood elements to create a FRP wrap around the elements and thereby bind them to each other.
PROJECT TEAM: Jorge Mutis, Lorraine Polanski, Andrew Tsay Jacobs
PROJECT DATES: Summer 2017
