The Great Circular Wall

As students of the Circular Lab, we have been tasked to come up with a design for a product, in which plastic waste will play an active role, that inspires other students to use plastic waste in their projects or future career.

Why

For years there has been a major problem all around the world in terms of recycling plastics. According to the magazine National Geographic, of the 8.3 billion metric tons that has been produced, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste. Of this waste only 9% is recycled, 12% of all plastic waste gets burn with the rest of the non-recyclable waste and 79% of all plastic waste, ends up in landfills or as litter and eventually ending up in the worlds final sink, the ocean. This can’t go on much longer. A solution must be found for all this thrown-out plastic!

What

The product tasked to design has to fill the function of a temporary separation wall for the workshop and IPKW, but needs some special features. The wall needs to be easy to assemble and disassemble, modular, flexible in height and width, needs to be made up of mostly recycled plastic waste, and above all inspiring.

How

Our goal was to come up with two concepts and a proof of concept for each of them, within five months. How we came up with these concepts and links to a step by step plan how to make these concepts can be found here on this instructible page. With these concepts a big step will be made in making new products with plastic waste possible and spreading the awareness.

Sheetpress R30

Formtech FLB1000

JW-machines Abor Injection Pers 2020

JW-machines AM 2018-200 Twinspeed Shredder

At the start of the project, none of us knew a lot about the process of recycling plastic or the fabrication processes of plastic. So our first step, besides a little bit of desk research, was testing the new machines within the circular lab. We have tested various (combinations between) machines including:

1. Plastic Shredder
2. Sheet press
3. Bending machine
4. Vacuum machine
5. Injection mould
6. Extruder
7. Mould+ Hydraulic press

A lot of these machines are used for the final results, but for the rest of this page the results of the test are not important. However, if you are interested and like to read more about the research we did on these machines, a file explaining our research can downloaded below.

After the testing phase, we started designing a potential concept for our project.

Research for inspiration

We have been inspired by what is available on the market. In order to paint a general picture, we investigated which products have already been launched on the market and which could possibly influence our design process. From cabinets to toys. We mainly looked at the method of attachment and how the product is applied. A lot of beautiful products have been created from this. It was mainly the connections that were useful. That answers the question "in what ways is it possible to build a modular wall out of blocks?"

To go from a text to something visual, we made a mood board for both the products and the functions. To sketch a general picture of what the product should radiate. The mood boards should help you to be inspired by what can be seen in the images during the idea phase.

Sketching

After we have found the necessary information, we started sketching. Many different options have been considered. Including the attachment between the panels, how the extra functions are hung on the wall element.

With all the inspiration and ideas converted into sketches and concepts, it
was necessary to filter and choose some concepts. We had to test all concept ideas against six types of requirements, each requirements has a factor that indicates how important that requirement is. The requirements with factor are listed below:

Secondary functions (factor of 3) Flexible shape (factor of 3) (dis)assembly time (factor of 2) Easy to assemble (factor of 2) Components (factor of 1) Production technics (factor of 1)

In a table (see the figure above) each concept has been assessed on the requirements with a score from 1 to 5, 1 being bad and 5 meaning perfect. The score is multiplied by the corresponding factor. The final result were put into a spider web graf for the five best requirements (these can be seen in the figures above). From the five spider webs, we chose two concepts the following two concepts.

1. The Building Brick
2. The Clickwall

These two concepts have been selected due to their high score on the key requirements (secondary functions and flexible shape). The total score for these two concepts are also very high. The highest was The Building Brick but the second concept, the Clickwall, was not the second highest, this was U-square, but in order to develop the two concepts, it was desirable that they both had different production techniques. So therefore it was chosen instead of concept U-square.

After the idea phase we chose 2 concepts that we want to look into. The first concept is the building brick that looks like an oversized Lego brick. In this case, the building brick is made of HDPE. 

By using holes in the brick design secondary features can be added.

If you are interested in how we made Building Brick or if you want to make it yourself you can click on the link below for more information.

https://www.instructables.com/Building-Brick-the-Great-Circular-Wall/

The Clickwall

consists of multiple bricks and connection pieces. The brick is made out of three different parts.

· 2 Plates (made of PS)

· 4 axels (made of HDPE)

· 8 screws

The connection pieces are PS strips bend to fit around the axels of two bricks connecting them together

An advantage of this design is that, due to the plates on the side and the hollow space within, extra features can easily be added. Just switch out a plate with a feature, like holes for a pegboard or hook for a coatrack, and add it to the wall.

Another aspect looked at in this design was the reparability. The brick are easy do disassemble so that individual parts can be replaced.

If you are interested in how we made the components of the Clickwall or if you want to make it yourself you can click on the link below for more information.

https://www.instructables.com/The-Clickwall-The-Great-Circular-Wall/

During this journey we saw several things that got our attention.

The first thing that was noticed was the relation between cooling and shrinkage. When we cooled our filled moulds with water the final product was quite deformed. Without actively cooling the mould the final product came out much better. This however increases production time.

The first time we extruded in the aluminium brick wall mould we didn't heat up the mould. This resulted in the plastic cooling to quickly and the extruder jammed after a few minutes. We put the mould in the oven before extruding. This was enough to fill the mould properly.

With the heated moulds we started to see some colour difference on the surface on the bricks. We concluded this was because the vaseline spray was burning because of the heath. In the future a heath resistant release agent is an easy fix for this problem.

The last major tip for the future is stronger moulds. Both the aluminium and steel mould deformed. On the aluminium mould thicker walls and longer screws/taps would do the trick. The steel mould needs thicker sheets to cope with the pressure.

In conclusion, our ultimate goal at the end of this project is not to have a fully developed product, but above all to get an answer to the question “is it possible to market a high-quality product from recycled plastic that inspires others to start recycling?”. However, at a later stage, it is our intention to further develop our concepts. Because for now, base bricks of the wall are completed, so now the extra features can be added. Features such as inbuild storage, lights and even small games to inspire others.