A Smart Prefabrication System for the Industrialized Construction of Resilient and Energy-Saving buildings.

In most European Union, the construction of public and residential buildings is still based on the use of cast-in situ reinforced concrete for the structural elements and on masonry for the interior and exterior enclosures. This traditional way of building is a real brake to the execution of interventions aimed at improving the seismic and energy-saving behaviour of existing buildings due to its long production times and constructive modalities that inevitably cause inconvenience to the occupants. In addition, performance improvements achieved using traditional construction technologies are strongly dependent on the expertise of labour as well as on the quality of raw materials and materials used on worksite. Currently, despite the widespread adoption of operational protocols imposed by compulsory and voluntary certification of production process, building construction does not have the characteristics of an industrialized process that can guarantee the quality of finished products and the optimization of the use of resources. Moreover, even in the best condition, building will always have some vulnerability to seismic risk because the masonry enclosures are their weakest and extremely dangerous elements during an earthquake. In the current scenario, the stringent environmental, social and economic requirements of the sustainable development, which also includes buildings resilience that is the ability to withstand catastrophic events, can be met only breakthrough in the construction sector. This paper proposes the use of a new methodological approach to the industrialization of building construction based on the use of Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) techniques for the production of a smart prefabrication system able to improve the seismic and the energy behaviour of existing and new buildings. This prefabrication system consists of high-grade industrialized panels with a sturdy steel frame, thermal insulation component, windows with glazing and finishes performed in the controlled factory conditions.