Marines 3D-print concrete barracks in just 40 hours
Video at link.
Posted on 09/17/2018 6:23:13 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
We’ve seen 3D-printed houses, ceilings, and bridges. But one of the most sensible uses for the technology may be by the U.S. Marine Corps, which recently finished printing the world’s first 3D-printed concrete barracks. The new technique is safer and less wasteful compared to conventional construction methods–and the research, a collaboration with the architectural firm SOM, could change how emergency housing and infrastructure are built, too.
“The clearest advantage is flexibility,” Captain Matt Friedell, the Additive Manufacturing Lead at the Marine Corps Systems Command, headquartered in Quantico, Virginia, says over email. “We can make walls, obstacles, buildings, and other structures while reducing waste and building safer structures for disaster response both in the U.S. and abroad.”
As Friedell puts it, if the Marines bring tents, they’ll just have those tents. If they bring wood, they’ll be sleeping in wooden barracks. Large-scale 3D printing changes everything, since it allows so much flexibility: As long as they have access to the field printer, sacks of concrete, and a computer, they can print any structure at any scale necessary.
Last month, the group worked with the I Marine Expeditionary Force to test their design using the world’s largest 3D printer at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Champaign, Illinois. They also also used an expeditionary printer–read, less cumbersome–to build a 500-square foot barracks in just 40 hours, working alongside Army and Navy Seabees.
The architects at SOM developed the design of the structures–which feature an unusual zigzag wall shape that holds special importance for the speed and stability of each hut. They describe it as a “chevron design,” creating self-supporting walls that need no horizontal beams to stand securely.
Part of the research included what Friedell calls “the destructive testing phase,” which is exactly as brutally fun as it sounds: The building team tries to obliterate the building they just finished printing, simulating some of the wear and tear a barracks or emergency hut might endure in the field. The architects’ chevron shape is about “2.5 times stronger than a traditionally straight reinforced concrete wall,” so strong, he says, that it’s the first 3D-printed building approved for human use in the United States per International Building Code standards.
It’s a smart use for architectural printing, since the design is simple and it handles the heavy lifting of construction. While the Engineering News Record reports that there are still problems to be worked out before the printers see real use, the Marine Corps anticipates deploying the first printer prototypes by 2021.
Future homeless shelters.
A company is planning these in Englewood, FL for lower income homes.
Water/concrete/mixer/vehicle to haul said concrete and material/40 hours of uninterrupted work time and then cure time/what type of roof?/doors.....sounds impractical to me . When I served I bedded down with my poncho and sleeping bag in mother natures landscape and was usually never seen (was with the scouts) I liked that as opposed to barracks or grouping close.
Video at link.
you’re also talking fully tactical. They’re looking at fixed bases to begin with - which also have their purpose.
They also aren’t talking about civy 5*8 hour days to get 40 hours, but rather a start one morning, and ready to move in the night after that.
Double walls with fill in between would be really tough.
This is primitive technology at the moment. After practice and refining, it could be viable.
A Marine's barracks is his castle!
Quonset hut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_hut
Water/concrete/mixer/vehicle to haul said concrete and material/40 hours of uninterrupted work time and then cure time/what type of roof?/doors.....sounds impractical to me . When I served I bedded down with my poncho and sleeping bag in mother natures landscape and was usually never seen (was with the scouts) I liked that as opposed to barracks or grouping close.
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I did the same when a USMC infantryman. But now the infantry’s gonna have wimmin in it. Everything changes.
It’s a good thing we’ve already gotten out of the habit of expecting to win wars.
I like it. Tough and durable. And one can set the fill percentage to vary the toughness. They must be using a fast setting concrete, so it won't collapse between layers. I have printed various things on my 3D printer, and have found that it doesn't take much of a fill percentage (cross-hatching in between outer walls) to strengthen an object, usually between 5 to 10 percent, and make it very sturdy.
It is all fun and games until a passed out Lance Corporal wakes up to find his feet on one side of the wall and his body on the other!
Semper Fi!
KYPD
Woooohooooo! Had to go looking for that one! The Eldridge.... Nice pull!
Like Mulder, I want to believe.....
Reminds of ‘transcription errors’ in Timeline...
Cheers!!
KYPD
*blush* Thank yew...
Imagine walking into a barracks with curvy walls after a long night in town?
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