A critical review of the use of 3-D printing in the construction industry

Abstract

9 3-D printing, which is an automated production process with layer-by-layer control, has been gaining rapid development in recent years. The technology has been adopted in the manufacturing industry for decades and has recently been introduced in the construction industry to print houses and villas. The technology can bring significant benefits to the construction industry in terms of increased customization, reduced construction time, reduced manpower and construction cost. A few isolated products and projects have been preliminarily tested using the 3-D printing technology. However, it should be noted that such tests and developments on the use of 3-D printing in the construction industry are very fragmented at the time of the study. It is therefore necessary for the building and construction industry to understand the technology, its historical applications and challenges for better utilization in the future. A systematic review shows that 3-D printing technology, after years of evolution, can be used to print large-scale architectural models and buildings. However, the potential of the technology is limited by the lack of large-scale implementation, the development of building information modelling, the requirements of mass customization and the life cycle cost of the printed projects. It is therefore expected that future studies should be conducted on these areas to consolidate the stability and expand the applicability of 3-D printing in the construction industry.

Additive manufacturing of concrete in construction: potentials and challenges of 3D concrete printing

“…Currently, developments are going so fast that any overview of existing techniques and examples is out-of-date almost as soon as it is published. Nevertheless, Lim et al (2012), Wolfs (2015), and Wu et al (2016) give a sound impression of the development of the state of affairs.…”

“…For the 2014 housed 3D printed by Winsun, reportedly high-grade cement and glass fibre were used (Wu et al 2016). Pictures of the project, however, seem to suggest glass fibre is not used as additive to the mix, but rather as a separate mesh in between printed layers.…”

Comparison and analysis of different 3d printing techniques

“…SLS and SLM techniques which are based on the same working principle, but differ only in terms of material used are often used for the casting process. Good surface finish and size of fabricate parts are the major considerations for selecting any particular technique so SLM is a such technique which produce large size parts with high density and good surface finish in comparison to SLS where post processing is required for giving a good surface finish but distortion in parts during sintering and cooling is a major problem we often face during the SLM process [14]. Space and medical applications where we take the weight of fabricate parts into considerations, SLM is used oftenly because parts, fabricate by this process are light in weight in comparison to other techniques.…”

“…The basic principle of this technique is extrusion process. Parts are made by deposition of extruded thermoplastic materials like polymer and synthetic stone [14]. FDM machine has three basic components, i.e.…”

Effect of Viscosity Modifier Admixture on Portland Cement Hydration

“…This revolutionary technique is likely to open a new era on the construction industry, optimizing process and materials [1]. AM is a general classification for technologies which fabricates objects with the help of automated equipment, directly from a digital design technology [2], [3].…”