On the heels of a collaboration with the Texas Military Department, construction 3D printing company ICON built a 3,800 square feet training barracks at the Camp Swift Training Center in Bastrop, Texas. The building was then described as the largest one in North America.
A new collaboration between the construction 3D printing company and the US army will beat this record as the national organization ambitions to build three 3D-printed barracks using ICON’s Vulcan construction system at Ft. Bliss, TX – at more than 5,700 square feet each (529m2).
These barracks will also be the first 3D-printed structures that comply with the DoD’s newly-released Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC) for additive concrete construction, which provides guidance for DoD construction. This change to UFC by the Structural Discipline Working Group furthers to enhance technology transition led by ERDC and DIU to leverage commercial innovation and incorporate novel, time-saving manufacturing methods within the DoD. The construction of these innovative barracks is an effort to demonstrate how 3D printing can be utilized to quickly build more energy-efficient and resilient buildings at greater speed and lower cost than traditional methods, a press release reports.
“This project supports all three Army priorities: people, readiness and modernization,” said Lt. Gen. Doug Gabram, Commanding General of United States Army Installation Management Command. “Constructing facilities using this cutting edge technology saves labor costs, reduces planning time and increases the speed of construction of future facilities. We are looking at other ways to use this innovative technique for rapid construction of other types of facilities beyond barracks.”
As part of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)’s Construction Scale Additive Manufacturing (CSAM) project DIU partnered with the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) Systems Command to prototype ICON’s construction process for expeditionary use. Initial efforts focused on the technology’s suitability as an expeditionary solution to enable additively manufactured facilities in forward-deployed locations to reduce the time, cost, and risk of construction in support of overseas contingency operations. During the initial demonstration, ICON and USMC soldiers 3D-printed a vehicle hide structure at Camp Pendleton in 2020. Following this demonstration, DIU partnered with ICON to build a larger, more mobile, and more robust printer.
Whether these projects ambition to meet certain priorities in terms of people, readiness and modernization, it is worth noting that the U.S. military positions itself as an entity which is creating the nation’s next set of building codes.
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