FIBRAS: Fibre-wound Bio-composites for Resourceful Architectural Structures

Fibre-wound bio-composites, made from natural fibres and bio-based polymers using robotic filament winding, offer a promising sustainable solution in the building sector by minimizing material waste, optimizing structural efficiency, and enabling design flexibility. Compared to conventional construction materials, these composites provide the opportunity to combine sustainability with architectural innovation. However, their application remains limited to project-specific designs due to variability and uncertainty across composite scales. These challenges lead to extensive prototyping, high safety factors, overdesign, increased costs, and reduced scalability, diminishing potential sustainability benefits.

This project aims to advance the scientific understanding of fibre-wound bio-composites and improve their scalability by addressing variability and uncertainty in material properties and fabrication processes. The research focuses on two key objectives: (1) characterizing uncertainty in ply-level parameters (e.g., fibre volume ratio, cross-section variation, and fibre distribution) and their dependencies with fabrication parameters, and (2) correlating ply-level variability with lattice-level performance to enable reliable and predictable designs under uncertainty.

To achieve this, the project integrates and adapts multi-scale experimental techniques and stochastic analysis for the structural design of fibre-wound bio-composites. These methods will provide a systematic design framework to predict and mitigate the impact of variability on structural performance. Ultimately, this research will deliver robust, scalable design strategies for fibre-wound bio-composites, paving the way for their adoption as sustainable alternatives to conventional construction materials. It will support the global transition to resource-efficient and low-carbon construction, addressing urgent environmental challenges while fostering innovation in structural design.