China has a way with construction.
Posted on 01/21/2015 6:45:39 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
A Chinese company has successfully 3D printed a five-storey apartment building and a 1,100 square metre villa from a special print material.
While architectural firms compete with their designs for 3D-printed dwellings, one company in China has quietly been setting about getting the job done. In March of last year, company WinSun claimed to have printed 10 houses in 24 hours, using a proprietary 3D printer that uses a mixture of ground construction and industrial waste, such as glass and tailings, around a base of quick-drying cement mixed with a special hardening agent.
Now, WinSun has further demonstrated the efficacy of its technology -- with a five-storey apartment building and a 1,100 square metre (11,840 square foot) villa, complete with decorative elements inside and out, on display at Suzhou Industrial Park.
The 3D printer array, developed by Ma Yihe, who has been inventing 3D printers for over a decade, stands 6.6 metres high, 10 metres wide and 40 metres long (20 by 33 by 132 feet). This fabricates the parts in large pieces at WinSun's facility. The structures are then assembled on-site, complete with steel reinforcements and insulation in order to comply with official building standards.
Although the company hasn't revealed how large it can print pieces, based on photographs on its website, they are quite sizeable. A CAD design is used as a template, and the computer uses this to control the extruder arm to lay down the material "much like how a baker might ice a cake," WinSun said. The walls are printed hollow, with a zig-zagging pattern inside to provide reinforcement. This also leaves space for insulation.
This process saves between 30 and 60 percent of construction waste, and can decrease production times by between 50 and 70 percent, and labour costs by between 50 and 80 percent. In all, the villa costs around $161,000 to build.
And, using recycled materials in this way, the buildings decrease the need for quarried stone and other materials -- resulting in a construction method that is both environmentally forward and cost effective.
In time, the company hopes to use its technology on much larger scale constructions, such as bridges and even skyscrapers.
China has a way with construction.
When do I move in? LOL!
Remember how we laughed at the tiny Toyotas, Hyundais, KIAs and Datsuns way back when? See anyone laughing now?
Fixed it.
Layering looks crude and odd.
That could be fixed.
The Sum Ting Wong appartment complex. http://youtu.be/pktM__i-8IQ
Oh well, There's 6 Billion Chinese, they won't miss a few hundred killed...
You missed that, I take it?
Since the pieces are already cast on a factory floor, then transported to the site for assembly, I assumed the “steel reinforcements” were on the outside.
Must've found a cheap substitute for Viagra.
Made with clean, reliable, non-toxic Chinese materials. What could go wrong?
Remember how we laughed at the tiny Toyotas, Hyundais, KIAs and Datsuns way back when? See anyone laughing now?
None of the above was made in China.
They printed parts and then constructed buildings on-site with those parts. That is prefabrication which is done regularly in many different ways.
When a building is completely printed on-site they will have done something new.
It was bad enough when a lot of homes had to rip out all their contaminated Chinese drywall. Now you too can have a whole house made of material of unknown origin that may have embedded toxins. There is no way to certify such a house unless someone can certify the material it is printed from.
The Chinese are going to clean our clock in 10 years. They are more capitalistic than we are.
If there are toxins, they aren’t likely to be harmful embedded in concrete.
Say what you want! Their building fell on its side and it held together!
I’ve seen illustrations from the sixties of spacebase buildings being printed.
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