News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
According to the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), architecture Professor Shadi Nazarian and an interdisciplinary team of researchers are exploring the viability of 3D printing homes in rural Alaska, using a mix of cork and concrete, to provide affordable, sustainable, and resilient housing.
According to Penn State University, a research proposal by Benay Gürsoy, assistant professor of architecture, was awarded nearly $50,000 as the 2023-24 recipient of the Stuckeman School’s Collaborative Design Research Fund, which supports collaboration in design innovation. Gürsoy seeks to overcome the challenges of 3D printing concrete structures on indefinite surfaces in an effort to reduce the environmental effects of housing construction.
The University of Johannesburg (UJ) has completed South Africa’s first-ever 3D printed building, thanks to a collaborative effort between UJ’s Department of Architecture and Design and the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI). Utilizing a CyBe Robot Crawler and a cement-based material, the one-room structure was printed on UJ’s Doornfontein, Johannesburg, campus, in under eight hours.
A team of researchers from Purdue University, Cornell University and Case Western Reserve University is drawing inspiration from bones to make stronger, more resilient 3D printed structures for buildings, aircraft and more. The researchers have recreated a specific beam structure found within natural bone that provides strength and lifelong wear resistance using 3D technologies.
In the realm of construction 3D printing, bigger always seems to be better, as companies scale up their concrete 3D printing systems to build houses on the spot. Andrey Rudenko, the inventor of the 3D Concrete House 3D printer, however, is showing that there is value in scaling the technology down.
Typically cracks or fissures in concrete are a sure sign that a structure is compromised or weakened. A team of researchers from Purdue University, however, are turning that idea on its head with the development of 3D printed cement structures that are actually made stronger by the material’s inherent weaknesses, especially during moments of extreme stress, like in a wildfire or earthquake.
Part of the Horizon 2020 framework, the €4.8 million EU’s HINDCON (Hybrid INDustrial CONstruction) project aims to adapt additive manufacturing technologies to the construction sector. One of the primary goals of the project is the development of an “all-in-one” system advancing towards industrialization and overcoming the limitations of actual approach for introducing Additive and Subtractive Manufacturing in construction activities. The project, which started in 2016, has a duration of 36 months and will see the participation of France’s construction 3D printing experts XtreeE, among others.