James O'donnell’s scientific contributions

The need to simplify the construction issues of complex structures leads to definition of SmartNodes project as a research which aims to confine the complexity of structure to a limited area (nodes) in order to decrease processing steps and labor intensity by application of additive manufacturing (AM) techniques. Bi-Directional Evolutionary Structural Optimization (BESO) is used to design efficient and elegant nodal connections of large scale spatial structures and minimise the volume of nodes to be printed and to ultimately replace welded, forged and cast connections by 3D printed connections. The prototypes discussed in this paper demonstrate BESO design process through two generic cases.

SmartNodes is a research project which addresses innovation in construction through the application of additive manufacturing (AM) techniques and topology optimisation algorithms used to design efficient and elegant nodal connections of large scale spatial structures. The prototypes discussed in this paper demonstrate a design process and the ambitions of the research group through a scale model of a single layer lattice, and an example full-scale metal node. The focus of this paper is the use of the BESO (Bi-Evolutionary Structural Optimisation) technique to optimise connections in building structures and to ultimately replace welded, forged and cast connections by 3D printed connections.