5th International Conference on Structures and Architecture, in Aalborg, Denmark

On July 6-8, 2022, Chloe Kiernicki (master’s student in sustainable architecture at Tampere University) and Zoe Zhang (master’s student in structural engineering at Georgia Tech) presented their work at the 5th International Conference on Structures & Architecture (ICSA) in Aalborg, Denmark. ICSA is the world’s leading and largest global conference bridging the gap between structures and architecture, with a focus on the creative and scientific aspects in the conception and construction of structures, on advanced technologies, and on complex architectural and structural applications.

Chloe’s paper, entitled “A digital process for reconstructing wind turbine blade geometry from point cloud data”, focused on the team’s custom BladeMachine software. The BladeMachine is a grasshopper script which is able to convert a laser scan point cloud of a wind blade into a lofted digital model of the blade in Rhinoceros 3D. With a few more inputs including thickness values and elastic moduli, the software is also able to both recreate the interior of the wind blade and calculate its global stiffness properties.

Zoe’s paper, entitled “BladeBridge - design and construction of a pedestrian bridge using decommissioned wind turbine blades”, documented the full process of designing and fabricating Re-Wind’s first BladeBridge in Cork, Ireland. The project was a partnership between Re-Wind and the Cork County Council, and the bridge was installed for public use on the Midleton-Youghal greenway in early 2022. Members of the Re-Wind Network from Georgia Tech, University College Cork, and Munster Technological University collaborated over the course of several months to source local wind blades, conduct materials and full scale structural testing, produce structural designs, and contract local fabricators to complete the bridge.