VoxelPrint: A Grasshopper plug-in for voxel-based numerical simulation of concrete printing

摘要

In this paper, we present a Grasshopper plug-in that can be used to construct simulation files, designed specifically for 3D concrete printing applications. A custom Grasshopper component library was developed in C# using the RhinoCommon SDK. The component allows for the voxelization of any three-dimensional shape into a set of identical finite elements and produces ready-to-use Input files for simulation in Abaqus. The main contribution of this work is providing an extensive, yet easy-to-use plugin to be used by both non-experts (e.g. architects and designers that are familiar with the parametric toolbox that is provided by Grasshopper) and more advanced users (that can experiment with the broad range of input parameters in an attempt to optimize their 3D prints). The core component generates input (.INP) files based on state-of-the art numerical methods for simulation of concrete printing. The plug-in is made freely available for educational and academic use and can be downloaded from www.food4rhino.com/app/Concre3DLab.