Application of Digital Fabrication Techniques to Reconstruct Ancient Machinery - A Case-study of Su Song's Water-powered Astronomical Clock Tower
Zi-Ru and Liang Chen, Kai-Hsiang Liang · Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia · 2017
The restoration of ancient machinery involves a number of aspects, including manufacturing procedure, materials, and scales. Portions that cannot be confirmed should be regarded as variable parameters of the reconstructed design, and therefore, there is no single result. The goal of reconstruction is to establish a prototype of ancient machinery with its mechanical engineering techniques and crafts. The problem of this study is how digital fabrication tools used in architectural design can be applied to the reconstruction of ancient machinery with the water-powered armillary and celestial tower as an example. The objective was to synthesize results that comply with historical records in a systematic, modularized, and parameterized manner and consider the feasibility of using modern digital fabrication and materials. With the procedure, we can reduce the difficulty of ancient machinery reconstruction and provide a reference for the reconstruction designs of ancient mechanical technology and crafts, and mass production made of different materials and scales in the future.