The program TrussFab allows you to build anything from plastic bottles

Researchers from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany have created TrussFab, a new software product that turns a digital 3D model in structure, made of conventional plastic bottles.

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Plastic bottles are everywhere. You will find them in the supermarket, in your fridge, and probably in your hands at some point this week.

But bottles can also be found in places where they are really harmful wastes in landfills in street gutters and even in the ocean.

Fortunately, the recycling of plastic bottles becomes a regular practice. A bottle made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) or high density polyethylene (HDPE), both of them relatively well processed, and the material of these bottles can be turned into something new, for example, using 3D printing.

However, the grinding of the bottles and turning it into a shapeless plastic is not the only way to dispose of them.

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Researchers from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany have recently made progress in the quest to turn used plastic bottles into useful objects by creating a program that turns ordinary plastic bottles in large correlated structures.

TrussFab is an incredible new software researchers that can automatically generate, based on the bottles, the structure of simple 3D projects. TrussFab uses smart algorithms and its possibilities seem almost limitless. You need a new chair? Draw it in TrussFab and the app will show you how to build it out of plastic bottles. How about a bridge that can withstand the weight of a person? In this case TrussFab will not fail.

Created as a "comprehensive end-to-end system that allows users to produce large-scale structures that are strong enough to withstand human weight," TrussFab actually engaged in not only plastic bottles, and uses them in the process of 3D printing.

Bottles, of course, not intended to be used as building blocks, but researchers at Hasso Plattner Institute realized in 3D printing, you can use specific connectors that securely connect a few bottles. TrussFab can automatically create 3D files for printing.

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Smart algorithms in the editor can determine whether the modified design is structurally viable: "Integrated structural analysis TrussFab computes internal forces in the new structure and warns users if it can break", the researchers explain.

When the design is based on the bottles is completed, TrussFab can create 3D files to print the required structure, then these files can be sent to a 3D printer.

And this is only half the fun... having Gathered the necessary bottles and having printed connectors, users TrussFab can begin Assembly.

Obviously this is a design program looks like a great use of plastic bottles, but the question is: does it work?

Researchers at Hasso Plattner Institute have already tried your wonderful program to create a number of designs of bottles, including tables and chairs, 2.5-meter bridge that can withstand the weight of a person, a dome 5 meters in diameter, consisting of 512 bottles and functional boat that seats two rowers.

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Well, if the two scientists rowing across the pond in a boat made of plastic bottles doesn't convince you of the value TrussFab, of course, do not worry.

"TrussFab embodies the necessary engineering knowledge, enabling ordinary users to design their own structures and test them using the integrated structural analysis," say the researchers.



The app itself is not yet available for public use, but many already can't wait for his appearance. published  

 

P. S. And remember, only by changing their consumption — together we change the world! ©

Source: //www.3ders.org/articles/20170425-new-trussfab-software-uses-3d-printing-to-make-boats-furniture-and-buildings-out-of-plastic-bottles.html

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