Translucent Concrete via Cement-Wrapped Optical Fiber Arrays
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for manufacturing translucent concrete face challenges such as complex operations, high workload, and poor compatibility between optical fibers and cement slurry, leading to inconsistent fiber arrangement and potential material defects like cracking or gaps, which affect light conductivity and compactness.
Innovation Solution
A method involving wrapping optical fibers with cement slurry, cutting them into bars, aligning and bundling them in a mold, and pouring cement slurry between the bars to create a uniform array, allowing for adjustable distances and flexible shaping, thereby simplifying the array arrangement and improving the manufacturing process.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If optical fibers are placed into holes in the concrete one by one manually, then the optical fibers can be fixed in position, but the workload is huge and the operation is slow
Solution Approach 1:
The optical fibers are divided into bundles with specific arrangements (e.g., 6 fibers per bundle in hexagonal close packing), and each bundle is wrapped with cement slurry as a complete unit. This segmentation allows multiple fibers to be positioned simultaneously rather than individually, dramatically increasing productivity while maintaining precise relative positions through the bundled structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The cement slurry is wrapped around the optical fiber bundles in advance before the concrete pouring process. This preliminary wrapping establishes the fiber positions and protects them during subsequent concrete placement, eliminating the need for slow manual insertion into pre-drilled holes and significantly accelerating the manufacturing process.
2Productivity
If optical fibers are dispersed by electrostatic charge, then the workload of arrangement can be reduced, but the optical fibers are dispersed in a scattered manner and distances among them are hard to control
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of relying on electrostatic charge for uniform dispersion, the patent creates localized ordered structures by wrapping cement slurry around specific optical fiber bundles with controlled arrangements. Each bundle maintains a specific internal geometry (such as hexagonal close packing), ensuring uniform fiber spacing and consistent distances among fibers throughout the concrete structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the approach from using electrostatic parameters to using physical wrapping parameters. By controlling the thickness and application method of the cement slurry wrap, the fiber bundle dimensions and spacing can be precisely controlled, achieving uniform array distribution without the scattering problems associated with electrostatic dispersion methods.
3Ease of manufacture
If resin material is poured into holes in half hardened concrete, then the difficulty of optical fiber arrangement can be avoided, but it is difficult to perforate densely in concrete with large thickness and cracking or gaps may occur due to shrinkage rate differences
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of the conventional approach of first placing optical fibers in hardened or half-hardened concrete (post-placement method), the patent inverts the sequence by wrapping cement slurry around optical fiber bundles before the concrete is poured. This pre-placement method integrates the fibers into the concrete matrix from the beginning, eliminating the need for difficult perforation operations and avoiding the shrinkage-related cracking and gap problems that occur when resin is added later to already-set concrete.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This method enables efficient, flexible, and cost-effective production of translucent concrete with consistent optical fiber arrays, reducing workload and material defects, and allowing for various shapes and sizes, while ensuring light conductivity and compactness.
Implementation Method 1
a first cement slurry is used to wrap an optical fiber, so that the first cement slurry adheres to a surface of the optical fiber
Implementation Method 2
Light can be transmitted from one end of the concrete block to the other end thereof by the optical fibers
Data Source
Figure 1~3
Figure 4~5
AI summary
Disclosed is a method for manufacturing a translucent concrete based on optical fiber wrapped with cement slurry. The method includes steps of: passing a straight optical fiber through the cement slurry so that the cement slurry adheres to a surface of the optical fiber; passing the optical fiber wrapped with the cement slurry through a shape-forming funnel to remove extra cement slurry; cutting the optical fiber into a plurality of optical fiber bars with an equal length after the cement slurry wrapping the optical fiber hardens; aligning two ends of the optical fiber bars, and bundling the optical fiber bars up or putting the optical fiber bars regularly and closely in a mould; pouring a cement slurry into interspaces among the optical fiber bars; and polishing two ends of the concrete along a direction of the optical fiber bars after the cement slurry hardens, so that two ends of each optical fiber bar are exposed, and the translucent concrete is obtained. The optical fiber bars are arranged in a close manner as an ordered array, and the row distance as well as column distance of the optical fiber array can be adjusted through adjusting a thickness of the cement slurry wrapping the optical fiber. The optical fiber bars can be arranged in a flexible manner, and translucent concrete with different shapes can be produced using moulds with different cross-section shapes. Automated continuous production of the optical fiber bars can be realized, and thus a manufacturing cost of the translucent concrete can be greatly reduced.