Digital Concrete: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Digital fabrication has been termed the “third industrial revolution” in recent years, and promises to revolutionize the construction industry with the potential of freeform architecture, less material waste, reduced construction costs, and increased worker safety. Digital fabrication techniques and cementitious materials have only intersected in a significant way within recent years. In this letter, we review the methods of digital fabrication with concrete, including 3D printing, under the encompassing term “digital concrete”, identifying major challenges for concrete technology within this field. We additionally provide an analysis of layered extrusion, the most popular digital fabrication technique in concrete technology, identifying the importance of hydration control in its implementation.

Evaluation of suitability for 3D printing of high performance concretes

“…The beginning of this novel technology can be dated to mid '90s. The first technique known as Contour Crafting was invented at the University of Southern California [1][2][3][4]. The idea of additive manufacturing have also been studied at University of Loughborough [5][6][7].…”

“…The major issue with the 3D concrete printing is designing a mix with proper rheological properties for a specific time window [3,4,6,[10][11][12]. There are no standardized methods for determining required properties of the concrete mixes for 3D printing.…”

“…There are no standardized methods for determining required properties of the concrete mixes for 3D printing. Many research facilities have proposed their own frameworks for laboratory testing of printing concrete mixes [3][4][5][6].…”

“…Mix deformation determines the usability of the mix. Different rheological models are used to determine the buildability of fresh concrete mixes in time [4,15,16]. The buildability of the mix allows to determine the speed of layerwise construction.…”

Automation of Robotic Concrete Printing Using Feedback Control System

“…Recent years have seen several automated construction technologies such as slip forming, mesh molding while simultaneously combining the benefits of both robotic system and digital modelling [2][3][4][5]. Concrete printing is one of such advanced technology that apply fused deposition modeling (FDM) principle of rapid prototyping for large scale construction.…”