Upcycled Catalan Timber

MASTER IN ROBOTICS AND ADVANCED CONSTRUCTION 2018/19

STILL ALIVE UPCYCLING WASTE MATERIAL

Faculty: Aldo Sollazzo - Alexandre Dubor Students: Ardeshir Talaei | Mohamed Owaze Ansari | Hazal Yilmaz

ABSTRACT ‘Still Alive’ is a data based process to produce new solutions from waste material.

Using computer vision, autonomous fabrication, robotics, and generative design process our aim to convert existing ‘waste’ materials to a resource based on the upcycling process.

‘Still Alive’ is the new way solution to transform un-standard material of waste into a new resource for the construction sector. Rather than to use extra energy, cost, and chemical process on natural material, we upcycle the material in energy-intensive processes. Our solution is adding value on the waste material through a process of ‘autonomous’ 3D scanning and robotic fabrication.

WHY IS THE WASTE A PROBLEM? Industrial waste is the waste produced by industrial activity which includes any material that is rendered useless during a manufacturing process such as that of factories, industries, mills, and mining operations. Types of industrial waste include dirt and gravel, masonry and concrete, scrap metal, oil, solvents, chemicals, scrap lumber, even vegetable matter from restaurants.

The wastes represent a major problem for the environment because the air pollution (the dust and very fine particles which spread in the atmosphere) and leaching toxic chemicals when are dumped in landfills, quarries, rivers or oceans. The capitalization of waste is difficult because of their variety, as well as their unknown properties over time.

Lately, environmental sustainability became an important problem from the point of view of natural resources and that of wastes. The construction and the building materials sectors are involved in both processes: building industry is the largest user of natural materials and in addition, a large amount of wastes results from the demolition of constructions.

CONSTRUCTION WASTE? Construction waste material refers to the materials from the construction location that cannot be used for construction purposes and must be removed for many reasons. In the implementation of a building construction project, it can be avoided the residual of construction material or commonly called construction waste.

Besides effects on the cost, construction waste also affects to the environmental.

Some of the notable research included that the EPA estimates demolished buildings contribute 1 Billion feet of usable lumber per year. It also states that 58% of that timber would end up in the landfill. It became clear very quickly to us that this was a big problem to tackle with huge potential and impact. ● 35 % ( or 136 million tons ) of waste generated each year from buildings, construction, and demolition. ● 1 billion feet of usable lumber per year from demolished buildings. ● 58% of timber ends up being thrown away and going to the landfill.

METAL - WOOD - PLASTIC

METAL - WOOD - PLASTIC

WOOD WASTE?

The waste resulted from a wood processing is influenced by the diameter of logs being processed, type of saw, specification of product required and skill of workers.

Generally, the waste from wood industries such as saw millings and plywood, veneer and others are sawdust, off-cuts, trims, and shavings.

METAL WASTE?

Metal plays a major part in everyday life— from food cans, household containers, automobiles, and office buildings. Steel makes up the largest category of metals in the municipal solid waste (MSW) and industrial waste streams. Solid wastes in steel plants are essential by-products generated during various processing steps involved in the production of iron and steel.

PLASTIC WASTE?

Plastic is versatile, lightweight, flexible, moisture resistant, strong, and relatively inexpensive. Those are the attractive qualities that lead us, around the world, to such a voracious appetite and overconsumption of plastic goods. However, durable and very slow to degrade, plastic materials that are used in the production of so many products all, ultimately, become waste with staying power.

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

Do you know how waste really affects the natural environment? Depending on the type of material, its thickness and weather conditions, the decomposition time of certain types of waste can be extremely long.

For example, a glass bottle can take 4000 years to decompose. At landfills, the jumbled mess of waste is compressed which results in the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter, a phenomenon that produces leachate and biogas. Directly flowing into the lakes and rivers, leachate can be severely harmful to wildlife and it can poison animals drinking such polluted water. Even though landfills should meet air-tight requirements to prevent soil and water pollution, leakages into the environment are an unfortunate inevitability. Plastic is versatile, lightweight, flexible, moisture resistant, strong, and relatively inexpensive.

Those are the attractive qualities that lead us, around the world, to such a voracious appetite and overconsumption of plastic goods. However, durable and very slow to degrade, plastic materials that are used in the production of so many products all, ultimately, become waste with staying power.

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION FOR WASTE MATERIAL?

LANDFILL

A landfill site is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial. Landfills provide “out-of-sight-out-ofmind” rationality to the problem of waste management. After it leaves your home, most people ignore what happens to it. Once it is buried in a landfill, we are inclined to forget about it. This is a problem because all landfills have inherent problems related to contaminants escaping and affecting our environment.

If recyclable materials are put into landfill sites you use more energy and resources trying to create new materials instead of re-using or recycling so landfill sites should not be the first port of call for re-usable or recyclable materials.

BURN!!

Over the years the process of waste management and recycling has gained increased attention around the world and in the country specifically. Accelerated growth and increase in population, as well as the increase in income per person, increase in industrial development and economic activities, have led to the emergence of new consumption and production habits and negative environmental behaviorism. One of the most harmful behaviors is waste burning Burning trash in an uncontrolled manner would release all sorts of pollutants into the environment, which would have significant negative impacts on air quality, water quality, health and so on. As well, not everything that is in the waste stream is easily burned.

HOW CAN WE SOLVE THE WASTE PROBLEM IN A PHYSICAL WAY?

IAAC Fab City Research Lab

RECYCLING WASTE MATERIAL

Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. It is an alternative to "conventional" waste disposal that can save material and help lower greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling can prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, thereby reducing: energy usage, air pollution (from incineration), and water pollution (from landfilling). recycling aims at environmental sustainability by substituting raw material inputs into and redirecting waste outputs out of the economic system.

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Reforms a product into a new material

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Requires another factory

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Mechanical-chemical process

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Requires other technological tools

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Transportation

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Cost

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Energy Consumption

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Limited available usage of raw material

UPCYCLING WASTE MATERIAL

Upcycling is the opposite of downcycling, which is the other face of the recycling process. Downcycling involves converting materials and products into new materials of lesser quality. Most recycling involves converting or extracting useful materials from a product and creating a different product or material. the goal of upcycling is to prevent wasting potentially useful materials by making use of existing ones. This reduces the consumption of new raw materials when creating new products. Reducing the use of new raw materials can result in a reduction of energy usage, air pollution, water pollution and even greenhouse gas emissions.

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Reforms a product into a new product

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Do not Requires another factory

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Physical Process

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Energy-intensive process

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Less Cost

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Less Energy Consumption

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Unlimited available usage of raw material

Current Upcycling Process - Standardization

Non-Standard Material

Standard Design

Largest Usable Standard Area Recut in a Standard Geometry

Product

New Waste Material

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Producing New Scrap

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Energy Consumption

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Low Efficiency in Use of Waste Material

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Not Fully Up-cyclable Process

New Solution of Upcycling Process / Non-Standardization

Still Alive is the data based process to produce new solutions from waste material. Using computer vision, autonomous fabrication, robotics, and generative design process our aim to convert existing ‘waste’ materials to a resource based on the upcycling process.

Still Alive is the new way solution to transform un-standard material of waste into a new resource. Rather than to use extra energy, cost, and chemical process on natural material, we upcycle the material in energyintensive processes. Our solution is adding value on the waste material through a process of ‘autonomous’ 3D scanning and robotic fabrication.

Non-Standard Material

Scrap Database

Recut in a Non-Standard Geometry

Product

AI

Generative Design

New Waste Material

Autonomous Scanning

In a non-standard process, each piece is unique. So first we need to know our material to extract data from it.

Therefore we need to scan every piece of material. But for the industry, we will be dealing with a huge amount of material. So we need this system to be autonomous and reliable. Beside of that, the manual process is out of the question due to the scale.

To demonstrate this process we set up a system to implement this idea over an example of scrap woods. In our case, we deal with different shape of waste material. We extract the information into a database by autonomous scanning. Using a robotic arm to find the scrap and extract the data through remote sensing saving into a database and sorting the physical material through pick and place process.

SCANNING SYSTEM-TOOL

SCG Gripper pneumatically operated special grippers with vacuum generation.

Remote Sensor - RealSense Depth Camera

Remote Sensor - Mobius Rgb Camera

SCANNING SYSTEM-PROCESS Seek CV Find the Scrap CV Scan FORCE SENSOR

Thickness / Shape

Database

Picking Strategy

Pick

DATABASE

Generative Design Algorithm Reference - Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall - ICD Stuttgart

The computational design tool developed in the context of this research project offers the possibility to include material characteristics and fabrication parameters in the design process. Rather than drawing each plate manually, the plate’s design space is incorporated into a simulation and optimisation process for automated form-finding, which includes parameters and constraints of robotic fabrication.

Normal Process

Panelization of The Shell Structure

Standard Pieces

Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall - ICD Stuttgart

Normal Process

Panelization of The Shell Structure

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Same Shape

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Standard Material

Standard Pieces

Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall - ICD Stuttgart

Design Method::Explanation, Comparison

Standard Pieces

Non-Standard Pieces

Design Method

Design Method::TPI

Design Method::FITTING

Design Method::SORTING

Design Method::FITTING

Design Method::FITTING

Design Method::RESULT

FABRICATION

Based on the database and design algorithm we use KUKA LBR iiwa for the autonomous fabrication process.

Our fabrication process develops faster and customized fabrication solution for the construction site.

After generating a database, KUKA LBR iiwa detects the boundaries of the material, calculates the dimensions and orients the tool to pick for assembly. When the picking process is done, the robotic arm transfers the piece for the milling process. Each piece of waste wood is cut according to our design algorithm to the robotic assembly strategies.

Fabrication::RoboticSystem, Tool

Kuka LBR iiwa

Spindle

SCG Gripper

Fabrication::RoboticSystem, Tool

ASSEMBLY

ASSEMBLY - Collaborative System

Kuka Lbr iiwa Impedance mode

Assembly Error

Moving Robot by Hand-Guiding

Human-Machine Collaborative Assembly

Human-robot collaboration in Amarok assembly line, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles

When in the continuously moving line a vehicle enters the screwing window, the robot safely moves into a transfer position and offers the angular head nutrunner to the assembly worker. The operator takes control of the robot by hand guiding mode and places the angle head nutrunner on the screw point. During the screwing, the robot absorbs the occurring torque and forces. Once the screw process has been completed, this is signaled by the operator and the robot returns safely to its waiting position. If a collision occurs during a safe robot movement, this is registered by the internal sensor system and the robot stops its movement.

Depending on the force of the collision, the continuation must either be acknowledged by the assembly worker or the robot starts the movement automatically after a short waiting time.

REFERENCE

Human-robot collaboration in Amarok assembly line, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles