Tag: EngD

Creating a relaxed grid on a mesh dome roof with Rhino/Grasshopper and SmartForm

Something I’ve found in my archives – one of the first projects I did when starting my EngD in 2013. We had received a domed roof from the architect, and we had been asked to optimise the form and experiment with different gridding options.

The problem was that the model we received was nothing more than a collection of lines arranged into one grid pattern and lots of little mesh faces between these lines – no NURBS surfaces or anything else nice to work with! The challenge was therefore threefold: recreate the NURBS surface, manipulate the surface into a structurally more efficient form (think lots of non-zero Gaussian curvature) and then apply a range of grids to it.

In hindsight, the methodology presented below certainly isn’t the most efficient or effective, but the important thing (as is usually the case in engineering) is that it got the job done!

Continue reading Creating a relaxed grid on a mesh dome roof with Rhino/Grasshopper and SmartForm

Filming: Day 2 (22nd Aug)

This article continues on from filming day 1.

The second day of the film course was when we would take our storyboards from the 6th August, have some fun in front of a camera, and turn our ideas into professionally edited short films. The morning was scheduled for filming, and with barely time to eat, the plan was to get the film sent back to Uni and stitch the clips together into something we could be proud of. As if that didn’t sound tight enough, the weather was good and conditions were right for us to record two films. Continue reading Filming: Day 2 (22nd Aug)

Setting up Visual Studio Express 2012 and 2013 to write your own Grasshopper components in C#

A quick guide for setting up Visual Studio Express for developing Grasshopper components for Rhino 5. Continue reading Setting up Visual Studio Express 2012 and 2013 to write your own Grasshopper components in C#

A simple deflection analysis in ANSYS 13

ANSYS is a highly advanced program for performing a wide range of analyses based around a finite element analysis engine. Thanks to its well-developed feature set in static, non-static and CFD problems, it is well-used by mechanical engineers and the like, but less so in structural engineering, where programs such as Robot and GSA are preferred. However, a recent task called for a quick deflection analysis of a prototype building form, which turned into an opportunity to try out this program. Continue reading A simple deflection analysis in ANSYS 13

My first post

Hello! It looks like I’ve decided to start a blog. I’ll hopefully be writing about what I’m getting up to in my EngD and all the wonderful and interesting things I’ll be learning about, and if I have anything else to babble about, who knows, it may end up on here too.

As for my first post, I should probably give some actual content. Here is a picture of a duck:

Image

(Made in Rhino, a program for modelling with curved surfaces. This was my greatest and proudest achievement in my first week!)