Volume 4 2017
INNOVATIVE MATERIALS
Soft, growing robots How natural chemistry strengthened ancient concrete Transparent ceramics make super-hard windows DFAB Bouse Materials science in a nutshell
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CONTENT About Innovatieve Materialen (Innovative Materials) is a digital, independent magazine about material innovation in the fields of engineering, construction (buildings, infrastructure and industrial) and industrial design. Innovatieve Materialen is published in a digital format, although there is a printed edition with a small circulation. Digital, because interactive information is attached in the form of articles, papers, videos and links to expand the information available.
Scope The digital edition is sent to engineers, scientists, students, designers, decision makers, innovators, suppliers and appliers working in civil engineering, construction, building, architecture, design, government and industry (both manufacturing industry and end users). Innovatieve Materialen has entered partnerships with several intermediate organisations and universities, all active in the field of material innovation. More information (in Dutch): www.innovatievematerialen.nl>
Publisher SJP Uitgevers Postbus 861 4200 AW Gorinchem tel. +31 183 66 08 08 info@innovatievematerialen.nl
Editor
Gerard van Nifterik
Advertizing & sponsoring
Drs. Petra Schoonebeek
1 News 6 Soft, growing robots Inspired by natural organisms that cover distance by growing – such as vines, fungi and nerve cells – researchers of Stanford have made a proof of concept of a soft, growing robot and have run it through some challenging tests. The basic idea behind this robot is straightforward. It’s a tube of soft material folded inside itself, like an inside-out sock, that grows in one direction when the material at the front of the tube everts, as the tube becomes right-side-out. In the prototypes, the material was a thin, cheap plastic and the robot body everted when the scientists pumped pressurized air into the stationary end. In other versions, fluid could replace the pressurized air.
8 How natural chemistry strengthened ancient concrete A team of researchers working at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) used X-rays to study samples of Roman concrete – from an ancient pier and breakwater sites – at microscopic scales to learn more about the makeup of their mineral cements.
10 Transparent ceramics make super-hard windows
Scientists have synthesised the first transparent sample of a popular industrial ceramic at DESY. The result is a super-hard window made of cubic silicon nitride that can potentially be used under extreme conditions like in engines, as the Japanese-German team writes in the journal Scientific Reports.
14 DFAB House
At the Empa and Eawag NEST building in Dübendorf, Switzerland, eight ETH Zurich professors are collaborating with business partners to build the threestorey DFAB HOUSE. It is the first building in the world to be designed, planned and built using predominantly digital processes.
18 Materials science in a nutshell
Materials are the building bricks of everything that we see around us. Where would smartphones, cars, buildings or solar cells be without the right materials? Materials are so self-evident that we almost forget how special they are. Materials science provides an answer to the questions ‘Why is that peculiar material suitable for that application?’ and ‘Which knobs do we have to turn to get better materials - if the current ones do not satisfy?’
NEWS
NewBrick
Earlier this year, during the A’17 (AIA Conference on Architecture 2017, Orlando, USA) building company Dryvit (West Warwick, Rhode Island) launched NewBrick, a lightweight insulated brick product that is coated with a specially formulated finish. According to Dryvit it has the look and feel of traditional brick but offers NewBrick a different way to build more cost and energy efficient traditional looking buildings from the ground up in a faster and simpler way. It creates aesthetic value of a brick wall with the benefits of flexibility in color, texture and design. NewBrick consists of an insulated core encapsulated by rein-
CO2negative carpet tile
forced, factory applied Dryvit coatings. A polymer modified joint mortar is field applied. NewBrick is available in 16 standard colours and four standard blends. According to Dryvit lower weight and increased simplicity equals lower total cost. NewBrick eliminates the need for pans, ties, shelf angles, thermal bridging solutions, and significantly reduces the size of load bearing footings increasing simplicity and reducing project costs. www.dryvit.com>
This spring Interface Inc. (Atalanta, USA) unveiled a first-of-its-kind prototype carbon negative carpet tile. Interface’s so called ‘Proof Positive’ tile proves that with new approaches to materials sourcing and manufacturing, it is possible to make a product with ‘the potential to reverse global warming.’ After the tile is made, there is less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than if it had not been manufactured in the first place. Interface has taken specifically selected plant-derived carbon and converted it into a durable material that stores that carbon for at least a generation. The carbon is stored in the materials that make up the Proof Positive tile. The tile’s materials can be recycled to create new carpet tiles at the end of the product’s useful life. Keeping this carbon in Interface’s recycling system through ReEntry ensures that this carbon stays in a closed technical loop where it belongs. Though only a prototype at this stage, at less than -2 kilograms of carbon per square meter, Interface’s says it proves that it is possible to store carbon in products rather than emit more carbon into the atmosphere in the process of making those products. Should this approach to manufacturing products become mainstream over time, at volume and full scale, it could become a critical solution to reversing global warming over the long term, the company says. Interface inc.>
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NEWS BERICHTEN
Green House Last summer Albron, Strukton, Ballast Nedam and Facilicom signed for the joint development, construction and operation of the circular catering and meeting pavilion ‘The Green House’ in Utrecht Station. According to the companies involved, the pavilion will be a source of inspiration for a new circular economy for the next fifteen years and offers a special experience through catering, meeting facilities and sustainable innovations. Thus, the pavilion is a direct added value for the environment. The pavilion aims to reach and inspire a wide audience, thus contributing to broad social involvement in circular thinking and acting. ‘Maximum results on circularity,’ the companies say. At this moment there is nothing to see, but from September, a reusable pavilion is emerged in three months. In the Spring of 2018 the Green House will open her doors. This rapid construction is possible because, on the one hand, it is built remountable with the use of prefabricated elements and, on the other hand, as much as possible is recycled (for example, the facade plates come from the old Knoopkazerne, next to ‘the Green House’). After fifteen years, the pavilion can be placed somewhere else and the ground can be used in a diffe-
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rent way. This makes the soil and the building future-proof. The cooperation between Strukton, Ballast Nedam, Facilicom and Albron aims for sustainable building and exploitati-
on. This is done through a far-reaching cooperation agreement, which differs from the usual lease agreement. Starting point is a maximum result in the field of circularity, both during development and realization and during fifteen years of operation. The results will not remain for the parties involved but will be shared. In this way others can learn from the findings. The circular pavilion is centrally located within the highly developed railway station of Utrecht and borders on important traffic routes such as the Croeselaan and the Moreelsebrug that connects the station area to the historic city center. Within this context, Strukton, Ballast Nedam, Facilicom and Albron have formulated the ambition to realize a circular pavilion, including circular business case and operation. The pavilion offers solutions to the growing sense of urgency in terms of sustainability and climate goals. Ballast Nedam>
Video
NEWS
New ceramic coating could revolutionise hypersonic travel
Credts: University of Manchester/NASA
Researchers at The University of Manchester in collaboration with Central South University (CSU), China, have created a new kind of ceramic coating that could revolutionise hypersonic travel for air, space and defense purposes.
Impact
Hypersonic travel means moving at Mach five or above, which is at least five times faster than the speed of sound. When moving at such velocity the heat generated by air and gas in the atmosphere is extremely hot and can have a serious impact on an aircraft or projectile’s structural integrity. That is because he temperatures hitting the aircraft can reach anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 °C. The structural problems are are primarily caused by processes called oxidation and ablation. This is when extremely hot air and gas remove surface layers from the metallic materials of the aircraft or object travelling at such high speeds. To combat the problem materials called ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) are needed in aero-engines and hypersonic vehicles such as rockets, reentry spacecraft and defence projectiles. But, at present, even conventional
UHTCs can’t currently satisfy the requirements of travelling at such extreme speeds and temperatures. However, the researchers at The University of Manchester’s and the Royce Institute, in collaboration with the Central South University of China, have designed and fabricated a new carbide coating that is vastly superior in resisting temperatures up to 3,000 °C, when compared to existing UHTCs. So far, the carbide coating developed by teams in both University of Manchester and Central South University is proving to be 12 times better than the conventional UHTC, Zirconium carbide (ZrC). ZrC is an extremely hard refractory ceramic material commercially used in tool bits for cutting tools. The much improved performance of the coating is due to its unique structural make-up and features manufactured at the Powder Metallurgy Institute, Central South University and studied in University of Manchester, School of Materials. This includes extremely good heat resistance and massively improved oxidation resistance.
dramatically reduces the time needed to make such materials, and has been in reinforced with carbon–carbon composite (C/C composite). This makes it not only strong but extremely resistant to the usual surface degradation. This work was published in Nature Communications, june 2017: ‘Ablationresistant carbide Zr0.8Ti0.2C0.74B0.26 for oxidizing environments up to 3,000 °C’, Yi Zeng, Dini Wang, Xiang Xiong, Xun Zhang, Philip J. Withers, Wei Sun, Matthew Smith, Mingwen Bai & Ping Xiao Article number: 15836 (2017) doi:10.1038/ncomms15836 The full text article online> University of Manchester>
Unique
What makes this coating unique is it has been made using a process called reactive melt infiltration (RMI), which
Video>
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NEWS
People’s Pavilion
During the Dutch Design Week (DDW), the so called People’s Pavilion at Ketelhuisplein is a temporary pavilion by and for people. Designed as a test case for shared future design, by two offices, Overtreders W and bureau SLA, the People’s Pavilion will be 100% circular, made entirely of borrowed material. During DDW, the People’s Pavilion will be the
venue for gatherings, lectures, openings, performan-ces and concerts. Together with designers from Overtreders W and Bureau SLA, more than 400 volunteers will work from mid-September to build a temporary pavilion on Ketelhuisplein. One of the eye catchers is the plastic facade made of recycled plastic. For the structure, they will use
2017 volume 3
INNOVATIVE MATERIALS
3D-printing cellulose World’s first 3D-printed reinforced concrete bridge Materials 2017 Composites improve earthquake resistance in buildings
materials supplied by the inhabitants themselves, including collected plastic waste that will be converted into shingles (tiles) by means of a method developed by Overtreders W and Bureau SLA. Dutch Design Week: 21 - 29 oktober 2017, Eindhoven>
Innovatieve Materialen: International edition Innovative Materials provides information on material innovations, or innovative use of materials. The idea is that the ever increasing demands lead to a constant search for better and safer products as well as material and energy savings. Enabling these innovations is crucial, not only to be competitive but also to meet the challenges of enhancing and protecting the environment, like durability, C2C and carbon footprint.
Glass bridge
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Lina: world’s first bio-based car
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NEWS
Hét expertisecentrum voor materiaalkarakterisering. Integer, onafhankelijk, objectief onderzoek en advies. ISO 17025 geaccrediteerd. Wij helpen u graag verder met onderzoek en analyse van uw innovatieve materialen. Bel ons op 026 3845600 of mail info@tcki.nl www.tcki.nl
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NEWS
Soft, growing robots
Inspired by natural organisms that cover distance by growing – such as vines, fungi and nerve cells – researchers of Stanford have made a proof of concept of a soft, growing robot and have run it through some challenging tests. The basic idea behind this robot is straightforward. It’s a tube of soft material folded inside itself, like an inside-out sock, that grows in one direction when the material at the front of the tube everts, as the tube becomes right-sideout. In the prototypes, the material was a thin, cheap plastic and the robot body everted when the scientists pumped pressurized air into the stationary end. In other versions, fluid could replace the pressurized air. To investigate what their robot can do, the group created prototypes that move through various obstacles, travel toward a designated goal, and grow into a free-standing structure. This robot could serve a wide range of purposes, particularly in the realms of search and rescue and medical devices, the researchers said. What makes this robot design extremely useful is that the design results in
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movement of the tip without movement of the body. The group tested the benefits of this method for getting the robot from one
place to another in several ways. In other demonstrations, the robot lifted a 100-kilogram crate, grew under a door gap that was 10 percent of its
Graduate students Joseph Greer, left, and Laura Blumenschein, right, work with Elliot Hawkes, a visiting assistant professor from the University of California, Santa Barbara, on a prototype of the socalled vinebot. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)
BERICHTEN NEWS diameter and spiraled on itself to form a free-standing structure that then sent out a radio signal. Some of these robots included a control system that differentially inflated the body, which made the robot turn right or left. The researchers developed a software system that based direction decisions on images coming in from a camera at the tip of the robot. According to Stanford a primary advantage of soft robots is that they can be safer than hard, rigid robots not only because they are soft but also because they are often lightweight. Another benefit, in the case of this robot, is that it is flexible and can follow complicated paths.
researchers would like to create a version that would be manufactured automatically. Future versions may also grow using liquid, which could help deliver water to people trapped in tight spaces or to put out fires in closed rooms. They are also exploring new, tougher materials, like rip-stop nylon and Kevlar. The researchers hope to scale the robot much larger and much smaller to see how it performs. They’ve already created a 1.8 mm version and believe small growing robots could advance medical procedures. Stanford>
The scientists built the prototype by hand and it is powered through pneumatic air pressure. In the future, the
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NEWS
How natural chemistry strengthened ancient concrete
A team of researchers working at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) used X-rays to study samples of Roman concrete – from an ancient pier and breakwater sites – at microscopic scales to learn more about the makeup of their mineral cements. Their findings give a new look inside 2,000 year-old concrete – made from
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volcanic ash, lime (the product of baked limestone), and seawater. It has provided new clues to the evolving chemistry and mineral cements that allow ancient harbor structures to withstand the test of time. The research has also inspired a hunt for the original recipe so that modern concrete manufacturers can do as the Romans did.
Tobermorite
The team’s earlier work at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS), an X-ray research center known as a synchro tron, found that crystals of aluminous tobermorite, a mineral, played a key role in strengthening the concrete. The new study, published in American Mineralogist, is helping researchers to piece together how and where this mineral
NEWS formed during the long history of the concrete structures. Apparently, the Romans knew. In fact, they relied on the reaction of a volcanic rock mixture with seawater to produce the new mineral cements. In rare instances, underwater volcanoes, such as the Surtsey Volcano in Iceland, produce the same minerals found in Roman concrete.
resilient and less susceptible to fracture over time. According to Berkeley they may explain an ancient observation by the Roman scientist Pliny the Elder, who opined that the concrete, ‘as soon as it comes into contact with the waves of the sea and is submerged, becomes a single stone mass, impregnable to the waves and every day stronger.’
buildup of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. Also, researchers suggest that a reformulated recipe for Roman concrete could be tested for applications such as seawalls and other ocean-facing structures, and may be useful for safeguarding hazardous wastes.
New period of growth
New processes
Berkeley Lab>
The new findings suggest that after the lime was consumed via these pozzolanic chemical reactions, a new period of mineral growth began. This new growth of aluminous tobermorite is often associated with crystals of phillipsite, another mineral. The minerals form fine fibers and plates that make the concrete more
The work ultimately could lead to a wider adoption of concrete manufacturing techniques with less environmental impact than modern Portland cement manufacturing processes, which require high-temperature kilns. These are a significant contributor to industrial carbon dioxide emissions, which add to the
The full text article online>
‘Lignin can replace phenol in adhesives’ A collaborative study by Mojgan Nejad, Assistant Professor, Green Bioproducts at Michigan State University, proves that lignin, a by-product of paper and bioethanol production, can completely replace phenol in phenolic adhesive formulation. This research directly impacts housing manufacturing by introducing biobased adhesives made of lignin, a renewable resource, instead of petroleum-based phenol. Researchers from Mississippi State University and University of Toronto also contributed to this study. Nejad’s research is the first instance showing the 100 percent successful substitution of phenol with lignin. For the last 30 years, researchers have been attempting to fully replace phenol in phenol-based glues. However, only partial replacement, up to 50 percent, was possible. The research team was successful in testing plywood samples made of developed resin. When compared to commercial petroleum-based adhesives, the plywood made of lignin-based ad-
hesives exhibited similar shear strength under both wet and dry conditions. Phenol-formaldehyde resins are commonly used to manufacture construction materials such as plywood and laminated veneered lumber. Downsides of phenol-based adhesives include that they are petroleum-based. This means that production costs can fluctuate with changes in the price of oil. Additionally, chronic exposure to phenol can have health risks for workers in manufacturing plants. Lignin is an ideal substitute because it’s considered a waste product. Isolated lignin is mostly discarded or burned to generate fuel for manufacturing. Lignin is the most abundant aromatic polymer, which makes up about 30 percent of the dry mass of plants. Michigan State University> Full text article in the Journal of Applied Polymer Science>
Mojgan Nejad, assistent professor Green Bioproducts, Michigan State University (MSU)
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NEWS
Transparent ceramics make super-hard windows Scientists have synthesised the first transparent sample of a popular industrial ceramic at DESY. The result is a super-hard window made of cubic silicon nitride that can potentially be used under extreme conditions like in engines, as the Japanese-German team writes in the journal Scientific Reports. Cubic silicon nitride (c-Si3N4) forms under high pressure and is the second hardest transparent nanoceramic after diamond but can withstand substantially higher temperatures.
Bond
Silicon nitride is a very popular ceramic in industry. It is mainly used for ball bearings, cutting tools and engine parts in automotive and aircraft industry. The material is extremely stable, because the silicon nitrogen bond is very strong. At ambient pressures, silicon nitride has a hexagonal crystal structure and sintered ceramic of this phase is opaque. (Sintering is the process of forming macroscopic structures from grain material using heat and pressure. The technique is widely used in industry for a broad range
A sample of transparent polycrystalline cubic silicon nitride, synthesised at DESY (Credit: Norimasa Nishiyama, DESY/Tokyo Tech)
of products from ceramic bearings to artificial teeth.) At pressures above 130 thousand times the atmospheric pressure, silicon nitride transforms into a crystal structure with cubic symmetry that experts call spinel-type in reference to the structure of a popular gemstone. Artificial spinel (MgAl2O4) looks like glass but has notably higher strength against pressure. It is widely used as transparent ceramic in industry.
First sample
A bright-field transmission electron microscope image of cubic silicon nitride. The average grain size is about 150 nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) (Credit: Norimasa Nishiyama, DESY/Tokyo Tech)
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The cubic phase of silicon nitride was first synthesised by a research group at Technical University of Darmstadt in 1999, but knowledge of this material is very limited. The team of dr. Norimasa Nishiyama from DESY (who now is an
NEWS associate professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology), used a large volume press (LVP) at DESY to expose hexagonal silicon nitride to high pressures and temperatures. At approximately 156 thousand times the atmospheric pressure (15.6 gigapascals) and a temperature of 1800 degrees Celsius a transparent piece of cubic silicon nitride formed with a diameter of about two millimetres. According to Nishiyama it is the first transparent sample of this material. Analysis of the crystal structure at DESY’s X-ray light source PETRA III showed that the silicon nitride had completely transformed into the cubic phase.
The scientists foresee diverse industrial applications for their super-hard windows. According to Nishiyama cubic silicon nitride is the third hardest ceramic known, after diamond and cubic boron nitride. But boron compounds are not transparent, and diamond is only stable up to approximately 750 degrees Celsius in air. Cubic silicon nitride is transparent and stable up to 1400 degrees Celsius. However, because of the large pressure needed to synthesise transparent cubic silicon nitride, the possible window size is limited for practical reasons.
This research was done by DESY (DESY stands for Deutsches Elektronen Synchroton) in cooperation with Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ehime University, the University of Bayreuth, Japanese National Institute for Materials Science, and Hirosaki University. It was published in Scientific Reports, 2017 titled Transparent polycrystalline cubic silicon nitride; Norimasa Nishiyama et al.; DOI: 10.1038/srep44755 The fulltext article online>
DESY>
Espresso by a concrete sculpture The coffee world has undergone rapid change over the past few decades. But in spite of industry innovations, little change has occurred around the aesthetics of espresso machines. San Francisco Bay Area design studio Montaag decided to develop something new, resulting in the brand-new AnZa espresso machine, surprisingly produced in brutalist concrete. The idea is to use materials seldom found in kitchen appliances, not to mention espresso machines. According to Montaag the result is a espresso machine that will bring life to any kitchen, and an unparalleled conversation piece. Espresso delivered by a decorative sculpture. Besides concrete there’s also an elegant white Corian coffee machine. http://montaag.com>
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NEWS
N401 gets solar panels as a pavement
Wattway solar panel pavement
Road N410 near Kockengen, province of Utrecht, The Netherlands, will be provided with solar panels on a twenty meter stretch. It will be the first pieceof road surface in the Netherlands that will have solar panels. The parties involved - construction company BAM Infra and the Provincie Utrecht - want to find
out how efficient the solar panels - the French product Wattway - are, and how the materials hold up under traffic. It’s also being investigated whether the solar cells mean less maintenance on the asphalt. If this pilot results in a positive outcome, this product could make a significant
contribution to reducing the use of fossil fuels and the preservation of the provincial infrastructure, BAM says. Last July the preparatory work has started and the solar panels are expected to be installed by autumn. BAMInfra>
Wattway Wattway is a patented French innovation that is the result of five years of research undertaken by Colas, expert in transport infrastructure, and the INES (French National Institute for Solar Energy). By combining road construction and photovoltaic techniques, Wattway pavement says to provide clean, renewable energy in the form of electricity, while allowing for all types of traffic. On Thursday 22nd December 2016, the first major project on the Wattway solar road was inaugurated by Ségolène Royal, Minister of Environment, Energy and Sea. This Wattway trial site, made of 2.880 photovoltaic panels, is installed on the RD5, between Tourouvre south exit and the crossing with the N12, in le Guéà-Pont locality. The expected annual production is 280 MWh. According to Wattway the daily production will fluctuate according to weather and seasons. On average, the
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December 22th 2016. The first major project on the Wattway solar road was inaugurated by Ségolène Royal, Minister of Environment, Energy and Sea in Normandy. Credits: COLAS-Yves Soulabaille.
estimated electrical output will reach 767 kWh per day, with peaks up to 1,500 kWh per day in summer. The Wattway solar panels are currently manufactured on a pre-industrial scale in different sizes and are suitable for any
road type, if only asphalted. The French company estimates the life of the panels in ten to twenty years, depending on the traffic intensity. www.wattwaybycolas.com
Vakbeurs & congres
Kunststoffen 2017 27 en 28 september 2017 NH Conference Centre Koningshof, Veldhoven Ervaar alles op het gebied van: • Slimme materialen • Duurzaamheid en recycling • Kostprijs-besparing • Innovatieve productiemethodes • Productontwikkeling • ‘Smart Industry’ in de kunststoffenbranche
www.kunststoffenbeurs.nl
INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 4 2017
DFAB HOUSE At the Empa and Eawag NEST building in Dübendorf, Switzerland, eight ETH Zurich professors are collaborating with business partners to build the three-storey DFAB HOUSE. It is the first building in the world to be designed, planned and built using predominantly digital processes.
Digital fabrication in architecture has developed rapidly in recent years. As part of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication, architects, robotics specialists, material scientists, structural engineers and sustainability experts from ETH Zurich have teamed up with business partners to put several new digital building technologies from the laboratory into practice. This will be done by building the three-storey DFAB HOUSE at NEST, the modular research and demonstration platform for advanced and innovative building
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technologies in the heart of the EmpaEawag campus in Dübendorf (Empa is the leading Swiss institute on material science and technology). NEST was created in 2016 to accelerate the process of innovation in the building sector. NEST offers a central support structure with three open platforms, where individual construction projects – known as innovation units – can be installed.
DFAB HOUSE
The DFAB HOUSE is distinctive in that it was not only digitally designed and planned, but is also built using
predominantly digital processes. With this pilot project, ETH wants to examine how digital technology can make construction more sustainable and efficient, and increase the design potential. The individual components were digitally coordinated based on the design and are manufactured directly from this data. The conventional planning phase is no longer needed. As of summer 2018, the three-storey building, with a floor space of 200 m2, will serve as a residential and working space for Empa and Eawag guest researchers and partners of NEST.
INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 4 2017 Four new methods
At the DFAB HOUSE, four construction methods are for the first time being transferred from research to architectural applications. Construction work began with the Mesh Mould technology, which received the Swiss Technology Award at the end of 2016; it was developed by an interdisciplinary team and could fundamentally alter future construction with concrete. The two-metre high construction robot In situ Fabricator plays a central role; it moves autonomously on caterpillar tracks even in a constantly changing environment. A steel wire mesh fabricated by it serves as formwork and as reinforcement for the concrete. Thanks to the close-knit structure of the steel wire mesh and the special composition of the concrete mix, the concrete stays inside the grid and does not seep out. The result is a double curved loadbearing wall that will shape the architecture of the open-plan living and working area on the ground floor. Smart Dynamic Casting technology is being used for the façade on the ground floor: the automated robotic slip-
forming process can produce tailor-made concrete façade posts. The two upper floors, with individual rooms, are being prefabricated at ETH Zurich’s Robotic Fabrication Laboratory using spatial timber assemblies; cooperating robots will assemble the timber construction elements. All the construction methods used in the
DFAB HOUSE have been developed in recent years by the researchers of the ETH professorships involved, as part of the NCCR Digital Fabrication. The fact that the technologies have so quickly found their way to the construction site is the result of both intensive collaboration between the different scientific disciplines and successful
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INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 2017 partnerships between research and industry. Digital technologies will also be used when the DFAB HOUSE is inhabited from summer 2018. Under the leadership of digitalSTROM AG and in collaboration with several other Swiss companies, new smart home solutions and Internet of Things technologies will be tested.
This includes devices and systems that communicate intelligently with one another and are capable of learning, and which control the building in a way that improves both energy efficiency and comfort. Video
EMPA>
Mesh Mould Each concrete building is being built twice: once as formwork that gives the fluid concrete its final shape and once in concrete itself. Especially in the case of individual buildings, the formwork can only be used once, before it ends up on the trash heap. This causes enormous material waste and immense costs. Norman Hack, project leader of ‘Mesh Mould’, and his five-person team of ETH Zurich worked within the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication intensively to resolve this problem. In close interdisciplinary collaboration the research team developed the worldwide first technology which combines the two functions of formwork and reinforcement within a digital fabrication process. Firstly, a mechatronic end-effector mounted on a mobile robot fabricates a dense steel-mesh on the basis of a computational design model. In a second step, concrete is poured inside the mesh. Thanks to the dense mesh-structure and the particular concrete mixture, the concrete does not run out laterally. Whilst other digital building technologies, such as the 3D printing of concrete, are still struggling to find a solution for the integration of reinforcement, the steel-meshes fabricated with Mesh Mould are able to assume the functions of both formwork and reinforcement. According to ETH Zurich this technology has big advantages for both bespoke and standardised concrete architecture: like a remarkable contribution to greater freedom of design, sustainability and efficiency on building sites. Whilst in the case of individual architecture, the great benefit of the new technology lies in the fact that no material- and cost-intense one-way formworks are needed, the advantage for standardised concrete structures is that the constructions can be structurally optimised. Because of the standardised formworks, walls for example today need to be built with a continuous thickness over their whole length. In contrast, the thickness of a wall built with ‘Mesh Mould’ can vary over its whole length depending on the required load-bearing capacity of the specific sections. As a result, besides the formwork, also concrete can be saved. The Mesh Mould technology received the Swiss Technology Award at the end of 2016. Gramazio Kohler Research ETHZ>
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Video This project was conducted by the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication Project leader: Norman Hack Collaborators: Kathrin Dörfler, Dr. Jaime Mata Falcón, Dr. Nitish Kumar, Alexander Nikolas Walzer, Dr. Tim Wangler Contributing professorships: Gramazio Kohler Research, Institute for Technology in Architecture, ETH Zurich; Agile & Dexterous Robotics Lab, Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems, ETH Zurich; Physical Chemistry of Building Materials Group, Institute for Building Materials, ETH Zurich; Concrete Structures and Bridge Design, Institute of Structural Engineering, ETH Zurich Industry partners: Sika Technology AG, Noe Schaltechnik GmbH
INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 4 2017
Smart Dynamic Casting Smart Dynamic Casting (SDC) is a novel robotic slip-forming process, developed by ETH Zurich. It was created for efficient prefabrication of standard and non-standard structural elements of concrete without the need for full-size custom formwork. It aims to remove the need of individual made formwork for the construction of complex concrete structures. Architectural construction has gone through intense innovations regarding material, engineering and design throughout the 20th century, and radically transformed the way buildings are conceived. These innovations opened up possibilities which challenged architects, engineers and constructors to build complex architectural concrete
structures. Computer-Aided-Design and Computer-Aided-Manufacturing (CAD/ CAM) techniques have rejuvenated and radically increased the possibilities to of designing complex geometries. However, the generated designs have limited relation to the efficient modes of production used in concrete construction of today. The production of complex concrete structures often implies custom made formworks for each element produced, hence an unstainable and expensive process. Smart Dynamic Casting specifically aims at removing the need of individual made formwork for the construction of complex concrete structures. EHT>
Video Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich, In cooperation with: Prof Dr. Robert J. Flatt (PI), Amir R. Shahab (PhD), Prof. Hans J Hermann; Linus Mettler (PhD), Dep. of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (D-BAUG), Institute for Building Materials (IfB) ETH Zurich; Prof. Peter Fischer, Dep. of Health Sciences and Technology (D-HEST) Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health (IFNH), ETH Zurich. Collaborators: Ena Lloret Kristensen (project lead), Andreas Thoma, Ralph Bärtschi, Thomas Cadalbert, Beat Lßdi, Orkun Kasap, Maryam Tayebani
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INNOVATIVE MATERIALS INNOVATIEVE MATERIALEN 2017 4 2017
On Wednesday May 31th, 2017 Eddy Brinkman gave a presentation in Dutch on ‘Materials science in a nutshell’ during the Materials 2017 trade fair - in fact a summary of his book ‘Kennismaken met materialen’
Materials science in a nutshell Materials are the building bricks of everything that we see around us. Where would smartphones, cars, buildings or solar cells be without the right materials? Materials are so self-evident that we almost forget how special they are. Materials science provides an answer to the questions ‘Why is that peculiar material suitable for that application?’ and ‘Which knobs do we have to turn to get better materials - if the current ones do not satisfy?’ Materials science and materials technology are closely related. In Dutch, these terms are often used interchangeably, but in the English language there is a clear distinction between the two. In the English case, ‘science’ answers the ‘why’ question, whereas ‘technology’ answers the ‘how’ question. On the one hand you would like to know ‘Why is that peculiar material suitable for that application?’ So to get an answer to questions like ‘why are bricks suitable to build houses with’ or ‘why is glass transparent so you can make windows and glass fibres for data transport out of it’. On the other hand, sometimes it happens that a certain material has already been used for a certain application, but that it no longer fulfills
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- either or not based on progressive insight. Suppose you could reduce the amount of metal in a car or an aircraft, then you would consume less fuel due to the lower weight of the vehicle that has to be carried along. Consider a different design that uses less material - for example hollow tubes instead of dense bars. But, as an alternative, you can make the metal itself stronger, so you will need less material to obtain the same strength - resulting in a lower weight. In brief: you would like to know which knobs to turn in order to get better materials - which is the field of materials technology.
Essentials of materials science
Here we enter the essentials of materials science: the manufacturing - structure
- properties - application chain, and the relations between them (see figure 1). Materials science as a discipline area tells us which influence microstructure - so the structure on the smallest scale - has on the ultimate properties of a material, and therefore on its applications. By turning the knobs on a small scale during manufacturing, it will be possible to establish or improve the properties of a material - and of the product.
Requirements
If you want to choose the most suitable material for a particular application, then go through the chain from right to left. Start with the requirements that are set by the application: should the material be light, or strong, or flexible,
INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 4 2017
Figure 1. The essentials of materials science
or corrosion-resistant, should it conduct electrical current or not, what is the maximum service temperature, just to mention a few. Preferably with the most important requirement first. After that, make sure that these requirements match material properties, with the desired material as a result. If the result
where the particles are frozen in place. Glass is a good example, as well as some polymers. Classifying these ‘micro’structures into groups results in three main groups: polymers, metals and ceramics. Polymers are especially popular because
Figure 2. Microstructure of materials: crystalline, polycrystalline and amorphous (from left to right)
you can shape products in one step - that’s why they are also known as ‘plastics’, as an expression of their plastic processing. Rubber is also considered a member of the polymer family - usually a very elastic polymer - be it that natural rubber is originally a natural and not an artificial material. Also metals owe their popularity to the relative simplicity with which you can shape them into products. From a mechanical point of view, metals are ideal materials: stiff and tough. Ceramics are very stable materials usually strong up to high temperatures, and popular due to the abundant occurrence in nature of their raw materials, with clay as the most important raw material for traditional ceramics such as bricks, tiles, sanitary ceramics and tableware. Glass is the transparent ‘brother’ of ceramics: hard as well, electrically isolating and well resistant to chemical degradation. In addition to these three main groups, composites do exist: combinations of two or more materials, the ‘best of both worlds’, hoping that the properties of the constituents strengthen each other. Reinforced concrete is a composite material where concrete relieves pressure loads and the metal
is not completely satisfactory, then you have to adapt the manufacturing process.
Structures of materials
Let’s have a closer look at a few parts of the manufacturing - structure properties - application chain. Literally, by zooming in to an atomic or molecular scale (see figure 2). Crystalline material: virtually perfect, regular, repeating arrangement of atoms in three directions. As a matter of fact, it is one large crystal. Diamond is a good example, as well as sapphire that is used in lenses for cameras in smartphones, or silicon as the basis for computer chips. Polycrystalline material: a large number of grains, each of them are crystalline. Besides ‘real’ material, grain boundaries are present here. Usually, ceramics and metals are polycrystalline. Amorphous material: no regular arrangement of atoms; the atoms are intermingled. This microstructure is very well comparable to that of a liquid
Glazen gevel Crystal house, Amsterdam
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INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 4 2017 you subject it to a sufficiently large mechanical load. A material can conduct an electrical current, or refrain electrons from flowing through it. A material can absorb, transmit, reflect or even emit light, or scatter light internally. A material can conduct or retain heat to a high or low extent, or may be able to resist high temperatures. This overview (see figure 3) compares the three main groups when looking at several properties. Let’s take a few concrete examples to clarify parts of the structure - properties - application chain. How does the microstucture determine the properties of a material, and the applications? How do several materials behave when they get into contact with heat, light, electricity and mechanical loads? Ceramic membranes (Credits: Fraunhofer IKTS)
reinforcement (steel bars) handles tensile loads. In glass fibre reinforced polymers, low weight and high strength are combined in one material. Inspiration for composites originates from nature, with wood and bone as examples. The manufacturing process consists of various steps, and depends on the material. When manufacturing a product ‘from scratch’ out of raw materials, you will have to include a number of manufacturing steps. At first, you have to mine the raw materials and convert them into a material that has to be processed in one or more steps into the right shape. A post-processing
Light or heavy? step - such as applying a protective coating at the outer surfdace - may be part of the manufacturing processing. And for products that consist of several materials, joining steps are included.
Properties
A next part of the manufacturing structure - properties - application chain is the whole of material properties. Different materials have different properties, which characterise them and make these materials distinctive. A property indicates how a material responds to external factors. For example, a material can bend or break - or apparently ‘do nothing’ - when
Why are some materials light, and others heavy? When you want to compare the weight of materials with each other, it is best to compare their density, which is the mass per volume unit. The light/ heavy distinction is mainly due to the mass of atoms of which the materials are composed, and much less due to their volume. Polymers consist mainly of light carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Metals consist of relatively heavy metal atoms. Ceramics are usually compounds consisting of a heavy metal atom and a light non-metal atom, and their density is in between those of polymers and metals. If you think that a brick is heavy: a gold bar of the same size weighs almost ten times as much! (brick density ~ 2 kg/liter, gold ~ 20 kg/liter). This light/heavy distinction between the main groups polymers, metals and ceramics is not absolute: after all, aluminium and magnesium are called ‘light metals’. Lightweight materials are especially important in dynamic applications - aluminium for bicycles, cars or aircraft - while heavy materials are mostly found in stationary applications. You can modify the density by mixing different materials (such as in composites), or by mixing with ‘empty space’, so by introducing porosity.
Free electrons in metals
Figure 3. Properties of metals, ceramics and polymers in a nutshell
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The important role of free electrons in metals is another example of how microstructure affects materials
INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 4 2017
Figure 4. Diffusion via point defects of an oxygen ion conductor
properties. Metals are known to be good electrical conductors - copper live wires are well known - because some electrons are so weakly attached to the atoms that they can easily be released, and can flow through the metal as a ‘sea of electrons’. They can easily flow from one place to another, and all these mobile carriers together form the electrical current. However ... these free electrons do even more: they conduct heat. Metals are good electrical conductors, and good heat conductors as well due to these free electrons. When the temperature increases, the electrical and heat conductivity decreases. What is happening here? At higher temperatures, the metal atoms will vibrate more strongly around their lattice position, and then hinder the free electrons in their pathway, causing them to move slower. Metals reflect light; just think of a mirror - a thin layer of aluminium at the backside of a glass pane. If light hits the metal surface, the many free electrons absorb the energy of the light in a fraction of a second. But such an electron does not feel comfortable at this high energy level, and would like to return to its original state - releasing the energy of the captured light. The incident light is reflected, and this explains the mirroring surface of metals. The other way around: in general, you can say that a material allows light to pass if the material and the incident light do not interfere. Optical permeability and electrical conductivity usually do not go along together. The role of free electrons in metals is even bigger. Because these electrons are no longer bound to one position, the remaining rows of metal ions can easily slide along each other. And this is the basis for the plastic deformation of metals when a large force is applied.
They do not break immediately, but deform first, and absorb a lot of energy during this process.
Material defects
Material imperfections on an atomic scale, better known as defects, form the basis for many material properties. Sometimes these defects have been introduced deliberately, as is the case in oxygen sensors or high temperature solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). In both devices, the ceramic material zirconia is key. Its lattice structure contains oxygen vacancies, i.e. oxygen sites that are
empty on purpose. If the temperature is high enough, adjacent oxygen atoms (in fact: ions) can jump to these empty sites, leaving other empty sites behind - where another oxygen ion can jump to. In figure 4 you see a computer simulation where oxygen (indicated in red) moves to other ‘T positions’ of the lattice. Each red dot is an oxygen position recorded in time. In this way, transport of oxygen (ions) through the lattice occurs. In an oxygen sensor - such as the lambda sensor in your car that measures the oxygen content in the exhaust gases and returns this information to the engine to optimise combustion - the transport rate of oxygen through the zirconia is a measure for the oxygen content in the exhaust gases. Something similar holds for computer chips, which consist essentially of silicon. Silicon in its pure form is an electrical insulator. All blue electrons that you see in figure 5 are stuck in the bond between a silicon atom and its neighbours, and can not move freely through the lattice. But if you add a little phosphorus (P) as
Figure 5. Intentionally induced defects - silicon as a semiconductor
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INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 4 2017 you would - in your thoughts - push against the half lattice plane, it slides in the direction of the pushing action, although the atoms remain in position. Deformation that costs relatively little energy.
Transparency depends on microstructure Figure 6. (Un)intentionally induced defects - dislocations in metals
can be seen in this figure, the material is transformed into a semiconductor between insulator and ‘real’ conductor. This phosphorus has an extra electron - shown here in red - that is not part of the bonds, and that can jump through the material, resulting in electrical conductivity to some extent. Previously, we already mentioned the rows of metal ions that slide easily alongside each other, thus forming the basis for the mechanical behaviour of metals by means of plastic deformation. If metals were perfect materials, they would be 10 to 100 times stronger than they really are. But metals are not perfect - not even pure metals. They contain defects that are called dislocations, and they make those metals much weaker than their theoretical strength. These defects are the edges of the half lattice planes in figure 6. These half lattice planes have entered into the lattice by ‘accidents’ during the crystal lattice growth, or by mechanical stresses in the lattice. Motion of dislocations causes plastic deformation of metals and results in low strengths. When
Figure 7. Several kinds of transparency for alumina
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Figure 7 shows an example of optical properties of a material, and how it relates to its microstructure. The ceramic material alumina is completely transparent, translucent or opaque - depending on the structure, and therefore on the manufacturing process. Light scattering is the keyword here. We go from the right to the left in this figure. Alumina, as an example of advanced ceramics, is manufactured by pressing powder particles and baking them together (‘sintering’) in order to provide a strong body. Most alumina products do not reach a 100% density after sintering. Boundaries between the original powder grains and remaining pores between the grains - both in the same order of magnitude as the wavelength of visible light - are sources for light scattering inside these products, making them opaque. If you sinter the alumina even further - and use magnesia as a sintering aid then almost all pores between the grains disappear. There are still some grain boundaries between the alumina grains - see the figure in the middle - which allow for some scattering, which means that the material is not ‘transparent’ but ‘translucent’. This material is used in the well-known orange high-pressure sodium lamps along the highway. Alumina is translucent and resistant
enough to withstand the corrosive properties of sodium and the high pressure involved. The left-hand figure shows single-crystal alumina - also known as sapphire - which is one pure crystal without sources of scattering as grain boundaries or pores. Such a crystal is manufactured by taking a very small seed crystal and immersing it into molten alumina. Carefully pull up this seed crystal, and the attached molten alumina cools down and crystallises into the same structure as the seed crystal. Sapphire is used as camera lens in smartphones.
How does polystyrene foam insulate?
From light we move on to heat. Polystyrene foam is a material that is used as a heat insulator - and thus conducts heat very poorly. How does this occur? Heat can be transported by means of convection (think of warm air above a radiator), radiation (such as solar radiation) or conduction (as in heat exchangers in industry). For domestic applications such as home insulation, the ambient temperature is too low for heat radiation to play a role. Furthermore, the structure of polystyrene foam is such that convection and conduction hardly occur: due to the isolated cavities in the foam, gas flow can not occur, and heat conducts poorly through the low conducting gas/air that is present inside the cavities.
INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 4 2017 Mechanical loads
Figure 8. Mechanical properties: stress-strain curve for a metal
Figure 9. Strengthening of metals by hindering of dislocation motion
Now we have seen a few examples of how materials behave in the presence of electrical stimuli, light and heat. But what about mechanical stress, if you pull or bend a material? Within materials science, a ‘stress-strain curve’ is widely used, and in figure 8 you can see a representation for a typical metal. A test piece of material is mechanically loaded by pulling it (‘stressed’, shown on the vertical axis), and on the horizontal axis you see the elongation (‘strain’) that results from it. Such a stress-strain curve consists for most materials of an elastic regime (where ‘stress’ is proportional to ‘strain’) and a plastic regime. In the elastic regime, if you remove the load, the material returns to its original state, hence the name ‘elastic’. The end of this elastic regime is called the ‘yield strength’. If you load the test piece even further, you will enter the plastic regime where the material is subject to permanent deformation, and if the load is large enough, the material may eventually break. As a user of a material you are especially interested in the elastic regime; the yield strength determines the maximum allowable load, and you’d rather like it to be as high as possible. However, as a manufacturer of a material, the area above the yield strength is quite interesting, because there you can use plastic deformation phenomena to make the material even stronger. By playing around in the area between the ‘practical strength’ (the yield strength) and the ‘ultimate strength’ (the tensile strength) you can further strengthen a material. Here we take again metal as an example. As mentioned before, the motion of dislocations determines the strength of a metal. How can you make a metal stronger? Quite simple: make it harder for the dislocations to move by hindering them, as shown in figure 9. - For example by manufacturing a metal alloy by incorporating foreign atoms into the metal. Bronze and brass are alloys of copper, with tin and zinc as foreign atoms. - Or by incorporating large foreign particles in the metal, for example aluminium with ceramic silicon carbide particles, or super alloys in gas turbine applications.
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INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 4 2017 Smart piezoelectric materials
Finally a type of material that is in fact a system in its own: piezoelectric materials, where electrical and mechanical properties are interconnected. The material has the capability to change shape - for example become shorter or wider - by applying an electric voltage over it. Or the other way around: compressing or otherwise deforming the material generates an electric voltage. A gas igniter is often based on piezoelectric materials, as well as the parking sensor of your car. You will find the material also in ultrasound imaging. Figure 10. Unit cell of the piezoelectric material PZT
- Or by manufacturing materials with small grains, which means that there are many grain boundaries that hinder the motion of dislocations. Small grains therefore provide stronger materials. - Or by loading the material deliberately above its yield strength, which generates additional dislocations due to plastic deformation that interfere with each other (work hardening). Think of a blacksmith that hits a red-hot piece of metal with a sledgehammer.
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When looking at the microstructure of a piezoelectric material - in this case the ceramic material lead zirconate titanate or PZT in brief - you will understand the way it works. Figure 10 shows a piece of its crystal structure. Although the entire unit cell itself is electrically neutral equal amounts of positive and negative charges - there is a charge distribution within this cell, because the positively charged ‘yellow’ ion isn’t located exactly in the cell centre but slightly above this centre. If you apply an electric voltage over such a cell (upwards, for example) then you push the positive ions in the
direction of that field, and you pull the negative ions in the opposite direction. This way the distance between the oppositely charged ions changes, which changes the shape of the unit cell. So if you have a lot of these cells next to or above each other, the entire material will be deformed on a macroscopic scale. Eddy Brinkman (Betase)
About the author: Eddy Brinkman writes technical background stories in the fields of chemistry, materials science and information technology. On Wednesday May 31, 2017 he gave a presentation in Dutch on ‘Materials science in a nutshell’ during the Materials 2017 trade fair - in fact a summary of his book ‘Kennismaken met materialen’ (ISBN 978-9079926-00-8) that has been published in 2016.
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INNOVATIVE MATERIALS Innovative Materials Innovative Materials provides information on material innovations, or innovative use of materials. The idea is that the ever increasing demands lead to a constant search for better and safer products as well as material and energy savings. Enabling these innovations is crucial, not only to be competitive but also to meet the challenges of enhancing and protecting the environment, like durability, C2C and carbon footprint. By opting for smart, sustainable and innovative materials constructors, engineers and designers obtain more opportunities to distinguish themselves. As a platform Innovative Materials wants to help to achieve this by connecting supply and demand. info@innovatievematerialen.nl
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