The ability to automate the design process of integrated systems provides the opportunity to do several iterations of input variables and find random as well as optimal solutions for High Performance Criteria. Minimizing the used concrete for the tunnel construction in a generative design gives insight on the influence of building forces and tunnel depth.

With the help of the dynamo addon Refinery, the search for alternatives and their optimization was automated. The tunnel path mid point coordinates were set as input parameters. The complete concrete mass was set as the output parameter. Refinery does an automated variation of those input parameters and returns the perspective models as well as results in graph form. A vation of the mid point coordinates allowed 144 different design options.

As it can be seen in the exemplary results below, the alternatives vary from undergoing the airstrip to going completely around it. Of course this is due to the co-domain of the point coordinates of the tunnel mid point. On the one hand, there are results that indicate a concrete consumption of 0.0 [m³]. These results should be ignored because they are caused by a too sharp curve, which makes tunnel modeling in Dynamo impossible. The results also indicate that a most efficient construction would be right underneath the airstrip, as deep as possible. One should always consider that those explicit outcomes could be caused by wrong or imprecise influences when calculating the forces on the tunnel and the resulting tunnel thickness.

Figure 1: Random results of Refinery with different tunnel paths

Figure 2: Multi-Criteria evaluation plot of all design outcomes

Figure 3: Multi-Criteria evaluation plot of all designs bypassing the Airstrip

Figure 4: Dependency of lowest concrete amount needed and coordinates of tunnel mid point

There are almost endless possibilities to develop this dynamo model even further. Whether it is a more accurate model with more precise design parameters or more complex formulas to determine forces on the tunnel.  The location and different type of the hangar and the air stripe could also be included in the automated generative design.