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 ...
Cool. I want one.
Ping
I just love this technology :-)
Yup
No reason it can’t work
Few details worked out, presto
New house
Have seen some amazing examples in my own industry
The more expensive the operations for building (and the wealthier the builders), the more expensive the products will be regardless of averaged, long-term costs. So the robot can build concrete structures. Where are the many other materials and technologies that go into a building?
Per square foot, a knowledgeable and practiced owner-builder can build a small house very quickly and for very little cost—very little as compared to an operation headed by a builder, who sits on his or her rear end giving orders. What will the cost be for buying, transporting and using the gigantic robot? Will it be transported and used in remote areas on the Rocky Mountains or more likely for building in the dangerous urban and suburban areas of the near future?
Monolithic skeleton?
That explains it.
Who wants a concrete toilet seat?
Holy crap... That’s cool. It would work. Totally revolutionary.
Behrokh the Builder vs. Barack the Destroyer
So do we really need mexican construction workers anymore?
No?
Thanks 2dvet,
Great post!
So who pays the people that invented the tools and technology?
It’ll be a bigger problem when we don’t need so many American construction workers... That is... Fewer workers overall.
People blame China for taking jobs when it’s really not the case. Automation has taken more jobs than China ever will. Today’s production line requires just few people to manage.
We replaced them a long time ago. Now the illegal aliens will be replaced.
If it 3D prints concrete, the resulting structure ain’t gonna be structurally sound without steel reinforcement to resist tension loads (concrete is great in compression, close to nonexistent in tension). How are you gonna 3D print steel bars into the pour? If you still have to do place those and tie/weld them together manually, then what did you gain with the 3D printing?
Concrete can also be fiber reenforced. It’s possible that formulations that can survive a major ‘quake can be made without rebar.
Concrete doors? Windows, too?
This could go well, depending.
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