Geometric quality assurance for 3D concrete printing and hybrid construction manufacturing using a standardised test part for benchmarking capability

Abstract

The need for quality control and assurance in 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) is widely recognised. Achieving geometric accuracy to a specified tolerance is a cornerstone of component-based production and assembly. Although published work within the field recognises such issues, these fall short of proposing systematic methods to evaluate, diagnose, improve, monitor and compare system performance. This work takes inspiration from the test geometry approach readily deployed in Additive Manufacturing and develops a full-scale test part to establish a reproducible benchmark for evaluating and assuring part geometric quality of 3DCP systems. The approach is used to evaluate the benefits of a new fabrication approach that combines subtractive milling on green cement mortar in combination with 3DCP. It was demonstrated to yield useful information for direct comparison of different processes and diagnosing problems for performance improvement. The test part and measurement approach offer the 3DCP community a means of cross-platform benchmarking of 3DCP system performance.