Do you have a link for the concrete domes? I gave a local TED Talk last year about "3D Printing Domes Homes", but am unfamiliar with the method you mentioned.
I use the inflatable "AirForm" from Monolithic Dome Institute. Right now the concrete is applied to the outside of the AirForm by hand, by a shotcrete gun or by the low-tech Mortar Sprayer. This version is the EcoShell. The insulated version, called the "Monolithic dome", first has foam insulation sprayed INSIDE" the airform, then the concrete sprayed on the foam insulation.
I'm working on a Polar Scaffold which will be the frame for the rotating "printer" which will spray the concrete automatically (CNC). Since the inflated AirForm acts like the paper in a conventional printer, this method is really 2D, but with dome shaped "paper".
http://www.monolithic.org/topics/domes
That was fun!
Looks like they have moved far beyond storage tanks!
IIRC the dome homes were put up by a west coast U and H.P.
They all had a lumpy appearance... too much slump?
My wife spent 5 weeks in the Philippines after that huge typhoon last winter. Most every building was destroyed or damaged. I said I think a concrete igloo would have held up, nowhere for the wind to get a grip. I read that the suction of the air on the backside of a vertical wall can help pull it down as much as the positive wind pressure on the front, and a dome might let the wind slide over smoother.
We were looking at pictures she took from a van window as they drove past a big resort hotel that was wiped out. The concrete wall around the place was laying in chunks. In one picture, between the road and the ocean I spied a little cinder block igloo standing proud and undamaged. I imagine it might have been a dressing room for the beach or something. The beach was eroded right behind it, everything flattened around it, and there it stood only missing a little paint.
BwanaNdege, is there a video of your “3D Printing Domes Homes” TEDx talk? I googled, but this page was the only hit.
I have been interested in monolithic.com for years, since back before 3d printers were popular, and when I saw the construction pictures of a guy waving a shotcrete hose around by hand I thought, “there *has* to be a way to remote-control that!”
I’d be very interested in hearing more about your “polar scaffold” idea. Obviously it would work equally well for both the insulation and the shotcrete, but would there be a way to also automate placing the rebar-hangers (probably easy, via some nailgun-like appendage) and cutting/bending/hanging the rebar itself? (probably very hard)