Compressive load-dominated concrete structures for customized 3D-printing fabrication
Alexander Lin, Abhimanyu Goel, De Hui Alwin Wong, Charlene Yeo, Jacky K. H. Chung, Sze Dai Pang, Chi‐Hwa Wang, Hayden Taylor, Harn Wei Kua
Abstract
Existing approaches from design to concrete 3D-printing fabrication can customize the shapes of compression-dominated concrete arches and vaults but has limited applications due to high facility requirements such as a robotic arm and a reconfigurable print bed for fabricating overhanging geometries. Therefore, there is a need to develop an alternative design-to-fabrication approach for 3D printers without such facility requirements. In this paper, concrete blocks were designed as prismatic shapes which could be customized by a most basic, gantry-based 3D printer with a flat print bed and could be assembled to a larger 3D arch structure designed based on stability and strength analyses. The feasibility of such approach was demonstrated by lab prototyping. Reduced facility requirements in this approach allow 3D-printing to be more widely applied for customizing compression-dominated structures. With further design method innovation in the future, this design-to-fabrication approach can be extended for compression-dominated structures with more complex geometries.