This paper dives into the current state of 3D printing in the concrete industry. Currently, there are a number of companies that specialize in the construction of buildings using 3D-printed concrete. This paper looks at each of these companies and the processes they use to accomplish the creation of their concrete walls using 3D-printing technology. The literature review portion of the paper looks at several companies currently in the field and describes their methods based on several distinguishing factors such as printer type, print speed, wall design, reinforcement used, insulation used, wall dimensions, nozzle shape, and several other distinguishing factors. These factors allow for similarities and differences to be drawn between companies. The reader is able to see each company’s approach to the printing of walls. Additionally, this paper estimates and analyzes the structural and thermal performance of drawings mimicking each company’s wall design based on section configuration. This estimation allows the reader to see which wall design they can expect to perform the best in terms of stress generation and thermal bridging.

This article explores several aspects of the three-dimensional concrete printing (3DCP) industry. More specifically, it begins with a literature review discussing the background of this technology. This literature review also explores several of the challenges that the industry is currently facing. In this way, a knowledge gap is identified. More specifically, there are few studies that have explored the structural and thermal performance of typical walls printed in this industry. Therefore, we used the simulation tool in SolidWorks to examine the structural behavior of several different wall types when pressure was applied to the exterior face. In addition to this, the thermal performance of different wall types was also studied in SolidWorks by applying a temperature difference between the exterior and interior faces of each wall. For example, one wall shape in this study had minimum factor of safety of approximately 100 due when a load was applied, and the same wall lost approximately 212 W due to the temperature difference applied in this study. Finally, SolidWorks was used to calculate the moment of inertia of the cross sections of several of these walls, which helped to provide a better understanding of each wall’s structural rigidity.