Continua

Posted by Gonglue Jiang

Erwin Hauer has developed several classic types of architectural installation based on the continua surfaces. But his design was designed and made by hand more than fifty years ago. Our goal is to make the new continua patterns by using CAD/CAM technology from design to manufacture.                                                                                                        .

Initial thoughts:

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Our team finalized four design proposals. Each person took in charge of their own proposals and cooperated with others for fabricating.

Design

My design proposal changes the Hauer’s pattern by rotating the surface by 45 degree and has two different back and forth faces. Also, I made the variation for the surface, from small size hole to big size hole, from circle to square.

Digital design(Matercam)

The fabrication is really challenging. Due to the variation, we cannot use the module casting. We had to manufacture it into a whole piece. So the milling would be the best choice for large scale fabrication. But the model needed to be milled in two sides which is very rare for milling. There was no TAs had flip milling experience. So I took tones of time on the exploration of flip milling process.

Tool path in the MasterCam

Simulation in the MasterCam

Fabrication

Failure 1: Due to the complexity of surface. The tool path had mistake and cannot be found in the simulation. We had to modify the G-code manually.

Failure 2: Since we had to have the flip milling, the accuracy was the most important thing to have a smooth surface to ensure it won’t be too fragile. After two more testing pieces, I got the key of flip milling accuracy.

Failure 3: The contour should be cut by the blade of drill bit, which I didn’t consider before. So I redesigned the tool path to ensure the blade cut right at the edge of surface by step over.

After 5 pieces failure, I got the satisfied piece, finally.

And then the matching part piece.

Final model