News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
ACTLAB, the experimental architecture laboratory at the Politecnico di Milano University in Italy has announced the completion of its 3D printed Trabeculae Pavilion. The ethereal, lightweight shell, which spans 36 square meters, demonstrates how 3D printing and bio-inspired computational design can come together to create truly stunning architecture.
The DFAB construction project underway at ETH Zurich aims to use all the latest digital technologies to produce a real three-story house. After using the robotic additive deposition to produce walls and advance composite materials for internal complex structures, now the researchers at ETH Zurich have fabricated an 80 m2 lightweight concrete “Smart Slab” lab using large format binder jetting technology. This makes the DFAB house the world’s first full-scale architectural project to use 3D sand printing for its formwork.
Despite the fact that construction 3D printing is still just taking off here on Earth, some companies are already looking beyond the Stratosphere towards building 3D printed habitats and liveable structures in space. The ambitious and quite niche branch of AM research, spurred on by space exploration organizations such as NASA and ESA, is being pioneered by a handful of companies who believe their construction AM platforms have the potential to be adapted for the harsh environments of the Moon and Mars.
Branch Technology, the Chattanooga, Tennessee company behind the C-FAB construction 3D printing technique, recently presented what it is calling the world’s largest 3D printed structure. The structure, unveiled as part of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures last week, is located at Nashville’s OneC1TY business center.
Russian company AMT-SPECAVIA recently introduced a new line of construction 3D printers in Yekaterinburg for the INNOPROM international trade show. Among the new machines is the AMT S-500, marketed as being the largest construction printer in the world, and the AMT S-300.
Danish 3D printing firm 3D Printhuset has been granted the first EU patent for a construction 3D printer. The tender was given by Belgian organization Kamp C, which chose 3D Printhuset’s modular BOD2 construction printer.
A team of scientists from the University of Tartu and the Estonian University of Life Sciences have developed a new construction 3D printing material which has the potential to drastically decrease construction costs for private homes. The material, made from milled peat and oil shale ash, is not only low cost but could pose environmental benefits as well.
The Centre for Additive Manufacturing (AM.NUS) at the National University of Singapore today announced the launch of the AM.NUS Construction 3D Printing Programme to accelerate the adoption of 3D printing building technology in the construction industry. The programme, hosted under the School of Design and Environment (SDE) at NUS and supported by the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC), will develop sustainable materials and 3D printing designs to facilitate rapid mass production of building structures.
The National University of Singapore (NUS) has launched a new program focused on construction AM through its Centre for Additive Manufacturing (AM.NUS). The program, spearheaded by the School of Design and Environment at NUS and supported by the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC), will aim to advance and accelerate the adoption of 3D printing in the construction industry.
As construction 3D printing projects on land continue to grow, it has also become clearer that one of the first and most beneficial applications of digital and additive construction technologies is for reconstructing the Ocean’s floor in a way that favors repopulation by corals and fish. Based on years of coral restoration research, supported by designers and engineers, studio Emerging Objects worked with Boston Ceramics and the SECORE organization to develop a new generation of 3D printed settlement substrates that aim at meeting coral larvae’s needs while equally fulfilling requirements for effective reef restoration. Right now, the first prototypes are being tested in the field.