Design for early-age structural performance of 3D printed concrete structures: A parametric numerical modeling approach

Abstract

This paper presents a design framework based on structural performance of 3D concrete printing (3DCP) that considers three strength criteria for early-age failure modes: plastic collapse, elastic buckling, and flexural collapse. A simulator of structural behavior during printing was developed to take any shell or linear model, slice it into layers, perform incremental structural analysis layer by layer, and assign the respective material properties by adjusting the age of each layer when a new one is added. Then, finite element analysis for each printing stage indicates whether collapse might occur based on rheological and mechanical material properties over time. Printing experiments validated the criteria based on collapse layer estimation for a solid cylinder (plastic collapse), a thin-wall structure (elastic buckling), and an overhang structure (flexural collapse). Plastic collapse was most accurately predicted by a Drucker-Prager yield criterion for an unrestrained base and by a Modified Lade and Mohr-Coulomb criterion for a partially restrained base, while elastic buckling was predicted by linear elastic analysis. Additionally, this paper introduces flexural collapse as a distinct failure mode in early age 3DCP, proposing design criteria for overhang structures based on printing experiments. Experimental lessons learned were used to establish design constraints to aid the design of 3DCP structures, which were tested in the design of a hollow column and a cantilever structure. This study advances computational design for 3DPC structures with a new design methodology that combines constrained design and parametric numerical modeling.