Re[Press]: upcycling aluminium sheets into structural elements through die-less hydroforming

Abstract

Hydroforming is a metal-forming process that uses hydraulic pressure to produce high-strength-to-weight structural members. Conventional hydroforming is limited in lightweight structural design due to costly dies and geometric constraints, while die-less variants remain underexplored, particularly regarding material reuse. This paper presents a tensegrity system using hydroformed V-shaped struts derived from Mathieson's V-expander module. The design repurposes waste aluminium lithography sheets, high-purity industrial offcuts with limited structural characterisation, as compression elements within a modular tensegrity tower. A parametric workflow combines geometric modelling with dynamic rel..