Tasked with building a new data center in an urban area of Germany, the team behind the Wave House harnessed the benefits of 3D printing technology to inject a sense of style into the unglamorous world of cloud-computing infrastructure, creating Europe's largest 3D-printed building in the process.
From what I understand (based on smaller printed buildings anyway) it’s identical to FDM 3d printing pretty much, except that instead of filament, a massive onsite silo contains a liquefied cement-like mixture. The nozzle also has a valve of some sort to immediately stop flow.
Typically one operator has a computer running the printer host software, and others manually fix-up print errors (and things like blobs) while the mixture is still damp. A paperclip shaped rebar is also inserted into the walls every few layers for additional structural integrity
There are challenges with things like rainfall retention in walls during construction, but various companies have their own way of dealing with that from what I understand…
Due to the mixture it’s usually restricted to walls AFAICT. Overhangs like doorways need beam supports to be inserted into the structure beforehand
From what I understand (based on smaller printed buildings anyway) it’s identical to FDM 3d printing pretty much, except that instead of filament, a massive onsite silo contains a liquefied cement-like mixture. The nozzle also has a valve of some sort to immediately stop flow.
Typically one operator has a computer running the printer host software, and others manually fix-up print errors (and things like blobs) while the mixture is still damp. A paperclip shaped rebar is also inserted into the walls every few layers for additional structural integrity
There are challenges with things like rainfall retention in walls during construction, but various companies have their own way of dealing with that from what I understand…
Due to the mixture it’s usually restricted to walls AFAICT. Overhangs like doorways need beam supports to be inserted into the structure beforehand