3D Print your house

[Monster]

Would you guys want to live in a house like this?

Ten houses in 24 hours, from Chinese company's 3D printer
Date May 5, 2014

Chinese company WinSun New Materials has built simple houses using a 3D printer. Photo: WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co

While construction continues on DUS Architects' much-publicised 3D-printed canal house in Amsterdam, a Chinese firm claims to have gone ahead and printed 10 rudimentary prototype houses in 24 hours.

Pictures of the 200-square-metre houses have emerged, depicting simple grey structures built using a 3D printing process developed over 12 years at a cost of 20 million yuan ($3.4 million).

WinSun New Materials' custom-made printers use a mix of cement and industrial waste to render load-bearing structures with minimal environmental impact, and are 6.6 metres tall, 10 metres wide and about 20 metres long.

Although 3D printers are routinely used to make plane parts, prototypes, models, jewellery and even gun parts, WinSun’s foray into 3D printing appears to have surpassed all previous 3D efforts.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that WinSun engineer Chen Jiajia said the homes were printed in Suzhou and assembled in Shanghai, and will be used as offices for local authorities.

But the process isn't without its hitches, with WinSun president Ma Yihe admitting that the printers are not yet able to print roofing materials.

The company has high hopes for its product: it plans to print skyscrapers.

Mr Yihe emphasised the houses were environmentally friendly and cost-effective to build.

“Industrial waste from demolished buildings is damaging our environment, but with 3D printing, we are able to recycle construction waste and turn it into new building materials," he said.

"This would create a much safer environment for construction workers and greatly reduce construction costs."

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/...inese-companys-3d-printer-20140504-zr4mm.html

 

[Cashmere]

I saw a video about this earlier. If this complies with building standards and is robust enough, this could be a breakthrough for affordable housing in the developing world.

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[Giannis]

Would you guys want to live in a house like this?

No.

 

[Monster]

No.

As a civil/structural engineer, what kind of potential hazards do you identify.

 

[Giannis]

As a civil/structural engineer, what kind of potential hazards do you identify.

I could argue about this for days

I'll start with the process of curing the concrete, that starts after casting. The best (in terms of strength, deformability, etc) practice is in-situ casting, which is followed with about a week of doing nothing more than watering the freshly poured concrete. That way, its strength increases over time, reaching a 90-95% of its maximum strength in 28 days. Prefabricating and most probably 3D printing, use speeding processes to shorten this curing time that has proven its value over centuries.

Also, I see the shape of the cross-sections with V like ribs inside. The angles are very big. I doubt that this is any good for a ground motion excitation of even such a small structure.

Reinforced Concrete technology may sound like a horse driven carriage compared to modern composite materials, but this is very wrong. RC technology and most important, knowledge is constantly evolving, identifying even more complex mechanism of this highly microscopically inhomogeneous material. These days, our lab is running a series of experiments on progressive collapse, as a means of protecting lives in case of sudden loss of primary structure members.

The potential is amazing. I need to go right now, but I can take some time to reply in detail if you are interested, later tonight.

 

[Monster]

I could argue about this for days

I'll start with the process of curing the concrete, that starts after casting. The best (in terms of strength, deformability, etc) practice is in-situ casting, which is followed with about a week of doing nothing more than watering the freshly poured concrete. That way, its strength increases over time, reaching a 90-95% of its maximum strength in 28 days. Prefabricating and most probably 3D printing, use speeding processes to shorten this curing time that has proven its value over centuries.

Also, I see the shape of the cross-sections with V like ribs inside. The angles are very big. I doubt that this is any good for a ground motion excitation of even such a small structure.

Reinforced Concrete technology may sound like a horse driven carriage compared to modern composite materials, but this is very wrong. RC technology and most important, knowledge is constantly evolving, identifying even more complex mechanism of this highly microscopically inhomogeneous material. These days, our lab is running a series of experiments on progressive collapse, as a means of protecting lives in case of sudden loss of primary structure members.

The potential is amazing. I need to go right now, but I can take some time to reply in detail if you are interested, later tonight.

Take your time my friend.

 

[Sayyaaf]

concrete watering is very important where I live. My house is at this phase actually and the contractor was given a warning few times not to skip the careful watering phase. Skip that and you will be in endless pain curing the cracked concrete. It may extend to un-even floors sometimes!

Thanks for the insight. I love the concept of 3D printing, its going to bring many costs down.