A two-storey terraced house is being printed in Westerlo, Belgium, using a 3D concrete printer. The building will be printed entirely in concrete and will measure 10 by 10 by 10 metres.
This reports De Tijd. The row house is being printed by Kamp C, an autonomous provincial company of the province of Antwerp. Several companies are involved in the project as partners, including construction companies Van Roey, Beneens, and ETIB nv/CONCRETE HOUSE. The parties have invested - including European funding - 1.5 million euros in the world's largest 3D concrete printer, which has now been completed. They are currently experimenting with the 3D printer, which will be used to print the shell of the house in a few months' time. This will include floors, walls and support columns. After construction, Camp C plans to use the building as a meeting and demo space.
Printing takes several weeks
The start of the project is scheduled for March. The printing of the houses is expected to take several weeks. This could be faster, by the way, but the project chose to work only during the day. "We are not going to print around the clock, only during the day. That also means an hour of preparation every day and an hour at the end of the day to hose down the pipes," Peter-Paul van den Berg, director of Kamp C, told De Tijd.
The 3D printer being deployed is on the Camp C site as part of the C3PO (Co-creation: 3D Printing with Enterprises) project. This project aims to introduce 3D printing in the Belgian province of Flanders. The 3D concrete printer was supplied by Danish company Printhuset and cost "several hundred thousand euros". It is a gantry-model printer, with a print head that can move freely within the three dimensions of a frame. The printer measures 11.4 by 10 by 10 metres and is modular, allowing it to be made larger or smaller as required using 2.5-metre extensions. Camp C claims that this modular technology is unique within the 3D printing world.
Printing head moves at one metre per second
Given the size of the objects that will be manufactured, the speed at which the print head can move is of great importance in such a 3D printer. The head of the 3D concrete printer supplied by Printhuset can move at a speed of up to one metre per second.
However, the speed at which printing can be done also depends on other factors. Henrik Lund-Nielsen, CEO of 3D Printhuset, explains: "Namely, that rate depends on the speed at which the building material is 'spit out' by the printer. And that is a lot slower today. So Camp C will have to look for methods to optimise material speed. Obviously, liquid materials are faster and more agile than stiff material types." Which printing material is most suitable is currently being researched.
Concrete bicycle bridge in Eindhoven
The use of 3D printers in construction has also been underway in the Netherlands for some time. For instance, TU Eindhoven managed to print a concrete bicycle bridge, which was a world first. This bridge was installed in the Brabant town of Gemert in October 2017. The university plans to 3D-print about five houses in the Eindhoven district of Meerhoven in 2019. The houses will be printed one by one, using the experience and knowledge gained to print the next house even better. The houses will become increasingly complex: the first house will be single-storey, after which they will gradually work towards printing the final three-storey house.
Also in the Netherlands, an environmental permit for Europe's first commercial 3D printed building was issued in Teuge on 3 October. The permit is for De Vergaderfabriek, a 100-square-metre building this year to be printed.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: Camp C
Source: De Tijd
Source: TU/e
Source photo: Pixabay / krzysztof-m
