Rule-based generative design of translational and rotational interlocking assemblies

Despite being a notoriously difficult task, efficient design of interlocking assemblies could greatly impact the construction sector and reduce its environmental footprint by helping in the design of demountable buildings and the reuse of structural members. While a growing research effort in this direction is being undertaken by the computer graphics and structural engineering communities, most of the algorithms proposed so far imply restrictions on assembly directions or prior knowledge on the joint's geometry.While relevant, such tools do not fully explore the space of possible assemblies and often fail to produce surprising results. Moreover, these designs are always assembled through translational motions, and, to the best of our knowledge, very little research has been conducted to address the challenges of designing an assembly for rotation motions. Building on recent advances in assembly design, this study investigates the automatic generation, using a Markov process and turtle graphics, of 2D interlocking sequential assemblies that can be assembled for any prescribed combination of translations and rotations. This generative approach shall be an aid to the engineer to explore the space of geometrical form-fitting connections and represents a first step towards an end-to-end workflow to design interlocking assemblies.