New giant 3D printer can build a house in 24 hours

[evilsatan]

Scientists claim to have developed a revolutionary new giant 3D concrete printer that can build a 2,500-square-foot house in just 24 hours.


The 3D printer, developed by Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis from the University of Southern California, could be used to build a whole house, layer by layer, in a single day.




The giant robot replaces construction workers with a nozzle on a gantry, which squirts out concrete and can quickly build a home based on a computer pattern, MSN News reported.




It is "basically scaling up 3D printing to the scale of building," said Khoshnevis.




'Contour Crafting' is a layered fabrication technology and has great potential for automating the construction of whole structures as well as sub-components, according to the project website.




Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run, embedded in each house all the conduits for electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning.




The potential applications of this technology are far reaching including in emergency, low-income, and commercial housing.




The technology may potentially reduce energy use and emissions by using a rapid-prototype or 3D printing process to fabricate large components, according to the project website.




Featuring robotic arms and extrusion nozzles, a computer-controlled gantry system moves the nozzle back and forth.




"Our research also addresses the application of Contour Crafting in building habitats on other planets. Contour Crafting will most probably be one of the very few feasible approaches for building structures on other planets, such as the Moon and Mars, which are being targeted for human colonisation before the end of the new century," researchers said on the project website.




With the process, large-scale parts can be fabricated quickly in a layer-by-layer fashion.




The chief advantages of the Contour Crafting process over existing technologies are the superior surface finish that is realised and the greatly enhanced speed of fabrication, according to the project website.

[evilsatan]

Apologies for the formatting, if I don't add spaces it usually puts the text too close together but if I do add spaces it gives a double space!

[silversmith]

This is amazing. It has the potential to radically change the way we think about housing/building.

My concerns would be:

a) The production of certain grades of concrete is not very good for the environment and this can only use concrete at the moment.
b) The potential for very ugly post war building could be made in urban areas which in turn led to isolation among neighbors and various communities.
c) The death of one of the last areas of manufacturing left in the British economy; with vast amounts of people needing to retrain.

My hopes would be:

a) addressing homelessness
b) poorer nations being able to build cheaply
c) helping war torn nations to rebuild after the fighting; perhaps even using the tech for semi-permanent structures in West Bank or Jordan refugee camps.

If I was rich I would invest in this tech. The first few years the buildings will be ugly and various things will be changed with user testing. After a while this will become the norm and they will be able to build in Roman or Tudor style using polymers, plastics and ceramics with clad kilns. Amazing!

[QfanatiQ]

This is amazing. It has the potential to radically change the way we think about housing/building.

My concerns would be:

a) The production of certain grades of concrete is not very good for the environment and this can only use concrete at the moment.
b) The potential for very ugly post war building could be made in urban areas which in turn led to isolation among neighbors and various communities.
c) The death of one of the last areas of manufacturing left in the British economy; with vast amounts of people needing to retrain.

My hopes would be:

a) addressing homelessness
b) poorer nations being able to build cheaply
c) helping war torn nations to rebuild after the fighting; perhaps even using the tech for semi-permanent structures in West Bank or Jordan refugee camps.

If I was rich I would invest in this tech. The first few years the buildings will be ugly and various things will be changed with user testing. After a while this will become the norm and they will be able to build in Roman or Tudor style using polymers, plastics and ceramics with clad kilns. Amazing!

Nice idea. With Sips panels and the like this is a way forward perhaps for such buildings like
Temporary buildings
Shelters
Port cabin style
Modula style buildings.

Silversmith, your comment on concrete. Its my experience, generally concrete is considered bad, but if doing a concrete frame and hanging façade systems on it and using a Metsec type wall, this greatly improves the longevity and future use and adaptation fo the building, then considerably outweighing/offsetting the negative to harvesting more carbon friendly suitable equalivlivants. Which’s certain grades are you thinking are bad?

I do agree with potential point b, but I sincerely hope it would not be used for housing.

I wonder, while this will be something that develops and likely that facades and other elements are built separately. Component assembly will still be required. If proves and moves forward as a success in design and flexibility, you have a point. But it is so far away in today’s terms I do not think a mass will need retraining and be out of work over night.

I like your hops. I fear these will not materialise.

Final thought

THE MACHINES ARE COMING

[GTI]

Is the term 3D printing not being overused to describe what would once have been called something else?
It just seems to be a very trendy, in thing at the moment.

[silversmith]

Yes, of course 3D printing is the new spandex/Gortex...

I just found a link that the bugger has gone and buggered off to NASA now: http://viterbi.usc.edu/news/news/201...khoshnevis.htm

Not sure if they will be doing much concrete building on the moon... Needs quite a few different gases for the chemical hardening process to work. Perhaps teraforming on Mars?