Following architectural practice’s widespread adoption of 3D modelling software, the digital design of free-form surfaces has enabled more heterogeneously organized architectural assemblies. However, fabricating envelope components with double-curved surface geometry have remained a challenge, involving significant machine time and material waste, and great expense to produce. This proof-of-concept project proposes a rapid, low-cost, and minimal-waste approach to forming double curved ceramic components through a novel approach to Ceramic Incremental Forming (CIF), using a 6-axis industrial robot, a passive flexible mold, and a custom ball-rolling tool. The approach is comparable to Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) that is used for forming complex shapes with metal sheets. This method promises to achieve high-quality, ceramic building envelope components, while eliminating the need to build proprietary molds for each shape and reducing the waste in the forming process. Compared with other architectural mold-less forming methods such as clay 3D printing, the approach is more time and material efficient, while being able to achieve similar levels of complexity. Thus, CIF may offer potential for further development and industrial applications.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.