Posted on 05/30/2014 12:00:19 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
While houses of varying quality have been 3D-printed before, one contractor in Minnesota wants to build one such home by using a specially designed 3D printer that uses cement as a filament, without compromising on build quality or design, 3DPrint reports. Furthermore, the contractor’s aim isn’t to finish the house as fast as possible, but rather to 3D print it efficiently and securely.
“A cheap house built in 24 hours is not my goal,” Andrey Rudenko said. “My current focus is building well-insulated small or medium-sized homes of a contemporary design, definitely onsite. As an experienced builder, I know that to avoid problems in the future, it is more important to produce homes of a good quality, which may take longer to build than cheaper homes made quickly. It would be more beneficial to print a complete home, including the foundation for the staircase, fireplace, certain furniture (kitchen island etc), columns, interior walls, and any wiring or plumbing that would fit inside the printed walls.”
Rudenko faces many challenges including legal ones, such as obtaining a permit for constructing a building using 3D printing technology, but also related to the actual 3D printing process.
Since the 3D printer uses a cement/sand mix filament, he has to find a way to deal with the high viscosity of cement when it comes to pushing it out efficiently through the pump. In actual outdoor conditions, he also has to make sure each 20mm layer of cement “printed” by the machine becomes hard enough so the machine can move to the next layer.
As the project evolves, Rudenko wants to 3D print a 2-story home and then a “contemporarily-designed energy-saving house.” Before that, however, the contractor will build a smaller children’s castle to test it out.
A video showing this special cement-printing machine follows below.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Great article. This world is changing.
Half the jobs in America are involved in building houses. If they can perfect this technology, that’s a lot of nonexistent jobs.
First of all the material is concrete, not cement.
And concrete requires many hours to solidify and harden.
If the machine pushes out viscous material, it will change in
shape by gravity. All concrete pouring requires molds for this
very reason.
3-D printers are a joke. Good for making chocolate figurines and some small solid plastic shapes. For anything industrial strength components, the cost of building such machines will far outweigh conventional manufacturing.
Hit the keyword “3Dprinting” or “3Dprinter” here and prepare to be amazed.
The world is changing on you—even though all applications are not yet mature.
If a project the size of Hoover Dam can be built in stages using concrete, there’s no reason why a house cannot be built using the same method and have a machine build it. It may take them 20 years to perfect the method, but there really isn’t anything special about concrete that, once everything is set up, why a machine cannot go about laying concrete in a systematic method, to ensure optimal results, cannot build it.
How is he going to put rebar in it so that a tornado or earthquake doesn’t turn it into broken pottery?
FDM 3D printing is as in this case is not in any way structurally sound. I use it frequently as the least expensive way to make test fit prototypes before investing in either injection molds or CNC machining. The best means of “3D printing” not local to my office is a laser sintered (SLS) fiberglass filled nylon and/or metal powders. The nylon parts are strong enough to be used in low volume production runs.
I use a company that also makes complete car body parts and even engine parts like intakes and valve covers for the prototype future models of cars to be tested for fit and even initial aerodynamics testing.
I have never found the FDM processes to be nothing more than making look-alike that cannot be used for anything other than fit.
Entropy is correct about the “cure time” issue. It’s not that you can’t do it, it’s just that there are trade offs in strength and durability of the final product. All solvable problems perhaps, maybe. The Hoover Adam is an interesting case. The placement of the concrete (which a 3d printer could do) was not the most difficult technical issue. The real problem was cooling the interior of the pour so it wouldn’t crack while curing.
Would you move into it? That is the most important question to the entire discussion. The three little pigs for some silly reasons come to mind.
Sure looks like there are some houses being put into use.
Though perhaps at this point they still appeal more to those who otherwise wouldn’t have a house, I have no doubt but that the technology will only get better and become a factor in more housing elements, when not the basis for the house overall.
And production rocket engines for the seven passenger man-rated Dragon V2.
Is there any outfits making 3-D printers which are making profit? I would consider buying their shares.
They can do anything by spending enough money. Heck they can even send a man to the moon by spending Billions. The question is not about possibility, it is about practicality. How much will a house built by these machines cost? Can it compete with conventional methods. Last two homes I bought brand new,built to my specs. They were both built incredibly fast and with zero structural problems. Best of all they were priced very reasonable.
Not every part in a rocket ship requires critical strength and exotic alloys which are very tough to machine. There are push buttons, pilot seat parts, handles to operate various contraptions, etc. Just like your jet propelled aircraft.
But if you are dreaming of a whole Boeing 777 made by 3-D printers, I am afraid you have not worked in a high tech manufacturing facility, as I have.
Ooooooo! Nice strawman!
(s)nully, who never said anything about manufacturing the whole rocket ship and has worked as a manufacturing engineer for over 35 years.
I tend to think that accounting for all the variables that can affect how concrete sets is within the ability of a computer to take into account to get the best results.
It may take time to understand how to program a computer to account for the various factors, but I can’t see why it can’t happen.
It would probably also end up cheaper to build such a house because cement is a very inexpensive substance to work with and, if you only have couple of workers to watch over the entire process.
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