Posted on 01/11/2019 12:45:19 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Sunconomy, a U.S. construction company, has received permits to build its first 3D printed geopolymer additively manufactured house in Lago Vista, Texas.
Larry Haines, the founder of Sunconomy, stated, “We will be able to build the structure for a single family house in a day with virtually no waste, and built super strong and providing very low utility costs. Now that’s Sustainable!”
Sustainable, 3D printed homes
Sunconomy plans to manufacture 3D printed concrete homes under the name the “Genesis model” using its own additive manufacturing system. These homes will include three bedrooms, and two bathrooms with a detached garage, solar, wind, battery backup, and a rainwater catchment system, at an estimated cost of $289,000.
According to Sunconomy, the Genesis model homes will, “last for centuries, not decades, [and] include IoT and technology features integrated for practical application of devices and services.” In addition, the homes will be able to withstand up to 220 MPH winds from an EF 5 tornado, as well as 8.0+ earthquakes.
These homes will also offer renewable energy options for Net Zero reducing or eliminating energy bills. Such sustainability will also be integrated by ICON, a Texas-based construction technologies company, who recently raised $9 million to reinvent the construction of affordable homes with the use of “3D printers, robotics, and advanced materials.”
The Apis Cor construction 3D printer
In 2016, Sunconomy signed an agreement with Russian 3D printer manufacturer, Apis Cor, to bring the “first true 3D printer for affordable housing” to the USA. With an aim to create fully autonomous equipment capable of printing buildings “on Earth and beyond,” Apis Cor has developed its large-scale robotic 3D printer to construct large concrete structures.
The following year, the Apis Cor successfully 3D printed a full-scale house in just 24 hours in the Russian town of Stupino. To adapt to the country’s weather conditions, the team used loose dry insulating material on one part of the house, and polyurethane filler composition on the other,” as a result of their 3D printing technology.
Thomas Edison would be impressed. He had a cement factory in New Jersey, and thought that the future of cheap, sturdy homes was going to be concrete.
And a great way to build a concrete border wall?
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/thomas-edisons-concrete-houses
Excerpt:
During this period, Edison also came up with the idea for building homes out of cast-in-place concrete. The invention was patented in 1917, with the following introduction: “The object of my invention is to construct a building of a cement mixture by a single molding operation, all its parts, including the sides, roofs, partitions, bath tubs, floors, etc., being formed of an integral mass of a cement mixture.”
I lived in NJ for awhile in a country house about a mile from his cement factory. My old-timer neighbor had worked for “Tommy” Edison. He had dropped out of grade school to make money for his family, and worked at the factory doing odd jobs .
Oh - Edison did build a number of these homes. Many of which still stand today. They didn’t catch on though, and the factory went bust.
They build houses out of concrete here.
They are kind of ugly at times but generally sound and safe in a typhoon or earthquake
I’d buy one.
The model house looks small. No space for a living room or dining room.
do they wind up putting in vertical reinforcements like rebar or something? They need to have something to tie them to the foundation and also reinforce strength vertically.
L8r
https://christineadamsbeckett.com/2012/04/03/thomas-edisons-beautiful-failure/
One of Edison’s nicer concrete homes - it looks pretty good. Many of those still remaining were built smaller and to provide an affordable home.
Wow, that does look pretty good. Surprisingly good.
A bullet proof home? Sounds like a good idea.
http://sunconomy.com/3d-printed-concrete-house-design/
This is the model that the story’s actually talking about, rather than strangely picked photos which don’t match the story. Looks like a goodly amount of room for the living room/dining room.
Russian Collusion! Dealing with our mortal enemies! Investigate! Paging Mr. Mueller!
That’s gotta be one huge printer head and traversing mechanism.
4 later
Concrete is very heavy. Will need equally heavy foundation to hold it up.
I officed for several years in a plain concrete cinder block building located in a petrochemical facility that was a mile from the gulf coast. Prime hurricane target plus surrounded by things that go boom. My office and lab building looked like all the industrial buildings, painted cinder block with minimal windows. However, my building and a couple of other structures were built through a government R&D project 2 decades earlier and the government had specified some milspec standards for them. The significance of this bit me when I needed to bore a hole in an exterior wall to pass a 2 inch pipe through.
The maintenance crew showed up for a 1 hour job. The cinder block voids were filled with concrete and 5 minutes into the job shut down to go get a new boring bit. 15 more minutes and the new bit was worn out so they shut down and came back with a whole bunch of bits. Then they hit reinforcement wire and shut down to get cutting torch gear. Then they hit rebar rods that slowed things down more. All told, it took 4 or 5 hours to do what typically would be a 1 hour job. Best guess is that the cinder block voids were stuffed with reinforcement wire bent into a cylinder then several rebar rods tied to the wire cylinder. This was stuffed into the cinder block voids then the voids filled with probably 5000 psi concrete.
Rambling along, the geometry of the printed wall is inherently stronger than the square cross section of a cinder block. For a reinforcement of the printed wall for barrier duty, it could be modified similar to what I described above.
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