Structural design and validation of a pykrete tower through form finding

Over the years, several pykrete structures have been realized. Most of these are dome or shell structures. For the 2019 Harbin Institute of Technology International Ice and Snow Innovation Design and Construction Competition a design of a pykrete tower consisting of linear elements is proposed. This paper discusses the elaboration of the proposed design. The design of the pykrete tower is further optimized using a form finding plugin for the visual programming software Grasshopper. The optimization and its performances are then validated using structural calculation software. Outcomes of both the form finding and the structural validation of the pykrete tower are presented. Numerical modelling of composite elements, such as pykrete, is not yet extensively done. Therefore, a differences occurs between the numerical results compared to experimental results. These should be taken into account when translating numerical results into practice.