skelETHon
2017
Every other year, a two-day-long concrete canoe race takes place in Germany, bringing together a fun sporting competition and the latest advancements in concrete technology. In 2017, we were part of the competition with skelETHon, one of 90 boats made entirely out of concrete. After a short race on the Rhine River in Cologne, our canoe won the Design Innovation Award.
Weighing 114 Kilogram, our 4-m-long concrete canoe was the result of a collaboration between DBT PCBM, two ETH research chairs that developed the special concrete mix and digital fabrication method.
The boat is designed using topology and shape optimization algorithms that reduce the material of a traditional canoe and redistribute it in a skeleton-like structure to maximize its stiffness. For the fabrication of this skeleton, a submillimetre-thin plastic formwork was 3D printed and cast in ultra-high-performance fibre-reinforced concrete. Our innovative construction process made possible a highly complex concrete geometry with “bones” as thin as 15 millimetres in diameter.
Credits:
Digital Building Technologies, ETH Zürich
Physical Chemistry of Building Materials
Nicolas Ruffray, Heinz Richner, Dr. Timothy Wangler
Bachelor’s thesis students
Moritz Studer, Oliver Wach, Kathrin Ziegler
Commercial partners
Sika AG, Holcim, Allplan, RooieJoris, Specht-Technik, German RepRap
Support
Matthias Leschok, Ioannis Fousekis, Lex Reiter, Andreas Reusser, The Concrete Canoe Club Zürich (Pirmin Scherer, Lukas Fuhrimann, Hannes Heller, Patrick Felder, Jonas Wydler, Jonas Henken, Andreas Näsbom, Anna Menasce, Caterina Rovati, Roman Wüst, Pascal Sutter, Thomas Rupper, Jonathan Hacker)
skelETHon
2017
Every other year, a two-day-long concrete canoe race takes place in Germany, bringing together a fun sporting competition and the latest advancements in concrete technology. In 2017, we were part of the competition with skelETHon, one of 90 boats made entirely out of concrete. After a short race on the Rhine River in Cologne, our canoe won the Design Innovation Award.
Weighing 114 Kilogram, our 4-m-long concrete canoe was the result of a collaboration between DBT PCBM, two ETH research chairs that developed the special concrete mix and digital fabrication method.
The boat is designed using topology and shape optimization algorithms that reduce the material of a traditional canoe and redistribute it in a skeleton-like structure to maximize its stiffness. For the fabrication of this skeleton, a submillimetre-thin plastic formwork was 3D printed and cast in ultra-high-performance fibre-reinforced concrete. Our innovative construction process made possible a highly complex concrete geometry with “bones” as thin as 15 millimetres in diameter.
Credits:
Digital Building Technologies, ETH Zürich
Physical Chemistry of Building Materials
Nicolas Ruffray, Heinz Richner, Dr. Timothy Wangler
Bachelor’s thesis students
Moritz Studer, Oliver Wach, Kathrin Ziegler
Commercial partners
Sika AG, Holcim, Allplan, RooieJoris, Specht-Technik, German RepRap
Support
Matthias Leschok, Ioannis Fousekis, Lex Reiter, Andreas Reusser, The Concrete Canoe Club Zürich (Pirmin Scherer, Lukas Fuhrimann, Hannes Heller, Patrick Felder, Jonas Wydler, Jonas Henken, Andreas Näsbom, Anna Menasce, Caterina Rovati, Roman Wüst, Pascal Sutter, Thomas Rupper, Jonathan Hacker)