Posted on 01/08/2014 9:51:31 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The University of Southern California is testing a giant 3D printer that could be used to build a whole house in under 24 hours.
Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis has designed the giant robot that replaces construction workers with a nozzle on a gantry, this squirts out concrete and can quickly build a home according to a computer pattern. It is “basically scaling up 3D printing to the scale of building,” says Khoshnevis. The technology, known as Contour Crafting, could revolutionise the construction industry.
The affordable home?
Contour Crafting could slash the cost of home-owning, making it possible for millions of displaced people to get on the property ladder. It could even be used in disaster relief areas to build emergency and replacement housing. For example, after an event such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, which has displaced almost 600,000 people, Contour Crafting could be used to build replacement homes quickly.
It could be used to create high-quality shelter for people currently living in desperate conditions. “At the dawn of the 21st century [slums] are the condition of shelter for nearly one billion people in our world,” says Khoshnevis, “These buildings are breeding grounds for disease a problem of conventional construction which is slow, labour intensive and inefficient.”
As Khoshnevis points out, if you look around you pretty much everything is made automatically these days – “your shoes, your clothes, home appliances, your car. The only thing that is still built by hand are these buildings.”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at innovation.uk.msn.com ...
3D Printing Forum Launches a Community Dedicated Exclusively to 3D Printing
http://www.prweb.com/releases/3dprintingforum/com/prweb11467473.htm
Why stop there? With China’s population growth, they might need to print up a few cities.
The thing prints the outer walls out of concrete, standing up in place, and then fills them in. I think humans would have to step in and put the rebar in before it is filled, unless they make a robot to do that job too.
The ultimate prepper could gather a lifetime of supplies and then print their bunker around themselves, with no entrance :)
Regular doors and windows. Humans come along and install them later. They’re just talking about printing the “shell” of the house, not all the fittings.
The conditions will dictate whether or not this machine or whether more conventional methods will be needed. I don’t know why this thing couldn’t come up with some molds for segments of houses, and only the molds and the materials to be poured into the molds need be taken to the building site. If level ground or conventional foundations are feasible, then that might be all we need. Maybe the machine could come up with custom molds for foundations to be set in uneven ground.
There’s no reason all the architecture has to be done from scratch at the site; it could draw upon design libraries. Kind of the Ikea of houses.
The machine could, however, do all the engineering calculations required to confirm that yes, the building will remain sound in the conditions it is expected to meet.
Yeah right, a giant concrete squirting robot is going build a house in less than 24 hours. Maybe it is possible with some other kind of magical material, perhaps the same stuff that keeps Pelosi’s face from slumping off.
Yea, but the criminals will use them to build giant cannons to cause huge school massacres, blow up bank vaults, etc....time to legislate 3-D printer control laws and background checks.
Someone needs to modify this to make a border wall.
On the cusp of the Star Trek replicator.....
So who puts in the electrical, plumbing, heat/AC, doors, windows, etc? I am imagining electric wires strung on hooks across all the walls. And concrete floors.... ouch! What will anchor it to the ground? Will it begin to slide when the ground around it turns to mud in a storm? Will the roof be concrete too?
That 24-hour-house will still need months of work to be livable.
Ping!
Yep, won’t be long and the construction trades will be a thing of the past thanks to technology. More people unemployed. But then, it will take one or two people to operate the new equipment.
Does it install plumbing and wiring
Someone needs to modify this to make a border wall.
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Best idea yet!
Someone needs to modify this to make a border wall.
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Best idea yet!
I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic. China already has entire cities that they built over the last couple of decades which are empty and rotting.
I see no forms.
I see no provision for maintaining the structural integrity during the 28 days required for the portland cement concrete to cure to full strength.
In short, the material selected is not suitable for the purpose intended
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