Posted on 11/08/2013 7:25:24 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Could 3D printing help solve the world's shelter crises?
At a TED talk in Ojai, Calif., Behrokh Khoshnevis, director of the Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at the University of Southern California, said nearly 1 billion people in the world dont have access to adequate shelter, a situation that breeds poverty, disease, illiteracy, crime and overpopulation. To address this problem, Khoshnevis is developing a process called Contour Crafting to use 3D printing technology to build entire houses.
Khoshnevis said the giant 3D printers his team is developing can build a 2,500-square-foot house in as little as 20 hours. The Contour Crafting 3D printers could even do the electrical work, plumbing, tiling, finishing work and painting.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
That may sound too good to be true, but Khoshnevis showed a video demonstrating prototypes of massive 3D printers in action. With a nozzle that secreted a dense, high-performance concrete, the 3D printer erected a wall layer by layer. The walls are hollow to save on materials and make them lighter, but their strength clocks in at about 10,000 psi -- more than traditional housing walls, Khoshnevis said.
The buildings dont have to be linear, he pointed out. To make the buildings structurally sound as well as beautiful, the 3D printers can print curves....
(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.com ...
I wrote a science fiction short several years ago that had this technology. This was how they colonized Mars. In my story they used the soil and an imaginary type of glue for raw material.
You,could probably build such a house in an American city for about $50,000 or so.
i got a brand new pair of roller skates
I looked into something called grancrete, a similar spray on technology idea. Big fly in the ointment is the stuff would seize up the spray equipment and also had cracking problems.
Point is, healthy dose of skepticism should always be allocated to great new ideas.
“nearly 1 billion people in the world dont have access to adequate shelter, a situation that breeds poverty, disease, illiteracy, crime and overpopulation.”
Really? Criminals nowadays have free housing yet they still somehow kill people and could barely read (see rachel jenteal)
and I have a brand new key.
i got a brand new key
If the extra people go lacking for houses they react by HAVING KIDS..?
I don’t get it.
Just a step to when they can grow houses and things today that need assembling. I’m sure there is much in science fiction about it.
darn you.
Political power grows out of the nozzle of a 3-D Printer.
people been using printed house for a long time...they’re called “cardboard boxes”
LOL. Fun remembering.
I like the way they make the walls hollow. That leaves room for spray foam insulation.
This 3D printing is really gathering speed. What if this leads to the replicators in the Star Trek universe?
What if we “replicate” conservatives and TEA Party activists?
So how come my 2-D printer is still so lousy? It goes through my ink cartridges at lightening speed, jams my paper, drools ink blots on paper media, and works slower than the foursome ahead of me.
Anybody can throw up a lean-to in no time flat.
It’s the finish work that takes time.
we should get together and try them out you see
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