Scientists at ETH Zurich have developed a robotic 3D printing method to create buildings from scratch using earth materials without cement.
The custom mix design created afterward is based on 75 % of regular waste products from ETH Zurich’s industry partner – Eberhardt AG. Eberhardt AG converts the existing material to extremely lesser CO2 with a vision in the future to create additional mix designs for other buildings & load cases.
Continuous layering by impact printing
In contrast to usual concrete 3D printing, which requires pauses to allow the material to solidify, impact printing permits continuous layering of earth materials. It’s a process where a robot shoots material gradually from above to create a wall. During impact, the parts bond using a combined mixture of excavated materials, silt & clay.
With minimal additives, this construction 3D printing process is efficient, and eco-friendly compared to existing construction protocols which are slow-paced, and labor-intensive.
The building industry must quickly decrease CO2 emissions from new building techniques & shift the focus towards circular supply chains.
Dr. Lauren Vasey, a Postdoc at ETH Zurich says, “Impact printing is a novel robotic additive manufacturing method based on the high-velocity deposition of dense materials. So we’ve developed a custom tool that extrudes material, portions it into parts, and deposits material up to 10 meters per second. By depositing materials with this velocity, we can enable a bond between multiple parts. This helps us to build one or two-story walls and column structures. We are also working on robotic methods for integrating reinforcements to expand the type of structures that we can construct.”
https://youtu.be/M9kc0L1zIaA
Author: Nagarjun M
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