Concrete Printing and Additive Construction

Since 2016

Additive manufacturing of structures is an automated way of making complex constructive elements using robots : from innovative material to optimized structures. Being already used as a rapid prototyping technique in other industries, it is now available for the fabrication of final products. We explore the potential of such approaches for large scale structures : focusing on concrete. Studies on material design and constructive processes are presented in this page.

Description of the research

Building systems with Concrete Printing

This work focuses on construction with large scale 3D printing of concrete – based on robotic mortar extrusion. Investigation of possible approaches has been conducted. Hybrid systems with increased robotic complexity and assembly steps have been pointed out. An innovative experimental process for concrete massonry is currently studied.

R. Duballet, O. Baverel, J. Dirrenberger, A proposed classification for building systems based on
concrete 3D printing, Automation in construction

Anisotropic Concrete Printing

The 3D printing process is also a way to formulate particular concrete, directly linked with the aimed application. The objective is to elaborate an unidirectional long fiber reinforced concrete composite allowing direct reinforcement of free form sctructure during the printing.

The development of the material will take the form of an iterative process in three stages. The first is the identification of sensible components, type of mortar, fibers, additives and implementation process. This choice will be directed by flow issues and flocculation of the concrete and by the desire to maximize adhesion between matrix and fiber. The second step is the experimental characterization of the mechanical behavior of materials at different scales: elastic parameters, failure modes and local defects, fiber / matrix interface law. For this, a first work should interest in the fabrication process of specimen. Finally, the last step is the fabrication of the material and develop a multi-scale modeling by defining a homogenized macroscopic elastic damage law that take into account the microscopic fracture mode.