paper tube machine

What is the paper tube machine and paper core machine ?

There has always been a need for recyclable materials in the construction industry. Taking this fact into consideration an exploration using paper tubes and medium density fiber-board (M.D.F) as construction materials was ventured. In order to understand these materials, a temporary space frame was made. The paper describes in detail the entire process of making the space paper core machine frame. Issues related to shape and size of the structure, connection detail and its material, wind forces etc., which occur frequently during the making of such structures are discussed in depth. At last the strengths, weaknesses, and scope of paper tubes as a building construction material in coming future have been discussed. 

The 21st century has contributed hugely to the evolution of construction materials, which should be credited mainly to arise of sustainable construction due to rising environmental concerns. "Paper is
evolved wood," writes Shigeru ban, the Pritzker-winning Japanese architect in his book [1]. It is astonishing to see how he uses sustainable paper-tubes made out of recycled paper as construction material. Ban beautifully incorporates lightweight designs using these sustainable paper-tubes into relief construction and temporary architecture as discussed in [2]. Paper tube machine arouses inquisitiveness to know how construction can be made possible with such a material which is extremely light weight, delicate and vulnerable to damages so easily. In order to understand a material, getting hands on experience on it is as important as reading literature related to it. Therefore, to understand its physical characteristics, workability and feasibility as a material, a space frame (as shown in Fig. 1) was designed. It was an exploration of sustainable architecture which resulted into an engineered three-dimensional frame sculpture. 

A cuboid acted as the fundamental module for space frame. As working with a material like paper-tube was an experiment, a very basic design in which cuboid incorporated as a very simple and stable element was used. Further paper tube machine articulation and resolving joints resulted in a simplified space frame.
Paper-tubes of 81 mm in diameter and 20 mm thick were used as frame members. The design of the Space frame was somewhat inspired from Shigeru ban’s early works of “Odawara east gate” (1990, Japan) and “Library of Poet” (1991, Japan), where he uses paper-tube as frame members for truss columns as mentioned at [3]. “The Odawara east gate” project uses 15 mind 12.5 mm thick post -tensioned paper-tubes as frame members where post-tensioning is done using steel rods and paper-tubes are connected via steel angle joints. Each frame is diagonally braced using steel rods [1]. While in case of “Library of Poet”, 12.7 mm thick paper-tubes having 100 mm in diameter were used as mentioned in [4] and [1]. All the tubes are post tensioned, every frame is diagonally braced, but here timber pieces of 1.5 in2 are used as connecting members instead of steel angles as done in “Odawara east gate” project. Post-tensioned rods were not used for the space frame because the structure did not require them and they would thus unnecessarily add to its dead weight. MDF jigsaw plugs were used as connecting members, indifferent to “Odawara eastgate” and “Library of poet” were steel angles and timber joints were used as connecting members respectively. The main reason machine for it was high cost of timber and high dead weight for steel joints. http://www.ubrtade.com/