Is 3D printing technique sign the end of SCC?

Author(s): Sofiane Amzianea
Paper category: Proceedings
Book title:4th International Symposium on Design, Performance and Use of Self-Consolidating Concrete
Editor(s): Caijun Shi & Zuhua Zhang, Hunan University, China
Kamal Henri Khayat, Hunan University, China
Missouri University of Science & Technology, USA
ISBN:978-2-35158-204-6
e-ISBN:978-2-35158-205-3
Publisher: RILEM Publications SARL
Publication year:2018
Pages:49-50
Total Pages: 2
Language : English

Abstract: The 3D printing technique in the building industry made an impressive entry in this early 21th century and represents certainly the more promising innovation since the very successful and popular avenue on the use of Self Compacting Concrete patented in the 1980th. In the
future 3D printing may change deeply the way many products are developed including all the element of reinforced concrete technology. In few years of development, 3D printing shows that this technique is able to make possible the emergence of new trends of architecture and making possible a very audacious design. The optimization of the structural forms leads to new challenging engineering. The FEM method will become absolutely necessar in all design steps. All these possibilities make the field of building 3D printing very attractive for the researchers coming from different field of engineering (civil engineer, robotician, rheologist, designer,....) and making them working together like no other subject has been so succesfull. At the same time, after years of innovation and improvement of the characteristics at early age and long term and of the robustness, SCC has became more and more the best solution when there is a need of high quality concrete to build durable constructions. However, a rapid analysis of the material used for 3D printing in concrete industry shows that their rheology and mix proportioning are exactly at the opposite of those exhibited by SCC material. Indeed, mortar with (1-10 Pa.s) plastic viscosity and more than 500 Pa for yield stress is used for 3D printing when SCC exhibit a plastic viscosity around (50-100 Pa.s) and a yield stress less than 100 Pa. The question of the competition between the two alternatives is then raised. Is 3D printing technique sign the end of SCC ? An analysis of the way of curent structural construction shows that up to 75% of the price of a cast concrete structure is linked to formwork (initial cost, installation, maintaining, ...). The concrete digital construction may offers solutions to delete this cost by providing the ability to build without any formwork. Among digital construction methods, one of the most common and promising applications of concrete 3D printing consists in building a integrated formwork that is filled with conventional reinforced concrete or reinforced SCC (especially in case of complex structures). Such solution enables to build freeform vertical elements and gives to architects an effective tool to open their possibilities. So, perhaps the beginning of the answer is therefore, that there is undoubtedly a complementarity to be found between the materials of 3D printing and SCC.

Online publication : 2018
Publication type : full_text
Public price (Euros) : 0.00