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.
Highlights
Concrete is the most widely used material in the world, after water, with usage of about 2 billion tonnes per year
Digital fabrication can be defined as the application of digital modeling and technologies to the production of custom material objects, and promises to revolutionize all manufacturing, having been proclaimed in recent years as the “third industrial revolution” [1]
While this process has the limitation of all 3D printing processes, in which the element size is limited by the size of the printer, the most complex details designed into the elements do not lead to an increase in production time or cost, making it a competitive candidate for creation of formwork
Summary
Concrete is the most widely used material in the world, after water, with usage of about 2 billion tonnes per year. Digital fabrication is expected to lead to more sustainable construction due to more efficient structural design by placing material only where it is needed, as well as reduced waste generation due to more efficient construction techniques, especially with respect to formwork With this in mind, major challenges have emerged in the use of reinforced concrete in the manufacture of digitally fabricated structures, and are listed here:. These technologies can be roughly divided into two general areas: form filling, and additive manufacturing. It is worth defining the different printing processes: binder jetting, in which binder is injected into a bed of aggregate, extrusion based printing, in which material is horizontally extruded layer by layer, and slipforming, in which material is slipped from a formwork vertically
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