J Group Robotics 3d Printer

[Madox Valdivia]

Withthe continued rise of 3D printing, it is interesting to consider how it can be used as a tool to break away from current architectural constraints. It can allow construction to refocus its activities on imagination and creativity, while reducing the human, energy, ecological and financial cost of construction.

Construction Digital therefore considers some of the cutting edge 3D printing companies in the construction industry that pave the way for home and building innovation. These companies are aiming to further transform the construction industry with newer building methods, further revolutionising the way that people think about the home.

Constructions 3D is a French company that has been designing machines that produce 3D concrete printing structures since 2017. The company has developed several machines, including The MaxiPrinter, the MiniPrinter PRO, the MiniPrinter EDU and the Constructimtre. The company can also provide adapted materials according to the objective of its customers.

The concrete 3D printing process is based on an automation and repeatability system, which also ensures precision. Constructions 3D company projects aim to search for a new way of housing for the twenty-first century with 3D printing combined with the short-cycle use of materials and energy.

Mighty Buildings is a company that understands that construction needs to become more sustainable to better benefit the planet. By using innovative 3D printing, robotics, and automation, the company builds beautiful, customizable home kits with 99% less waste and aims to have a lower carbon footprint than traditionally constructed homes.

The company usually changes complex building processes to deliver affordable products faster and in a more sustainable way. It also uses fewer raw materials and minimal transportation. CyBe Construction also aims to offer 3D concrete printing as an innovative solution to affordable housing, with cheaper, faster and more sustainable construction.

XtreeE designs and manufactures large-scale 3D printers and has developed strong expertise in the field of large-scale manufacturing for construction, both on the technological and product design sides. Its research and development-oriented system is based on a medium-scale robot and control and supervision software developed by the company itself.

The company enables high quality custom robotic configurations, with real time process monitoring and post-printing analysis. This ensures that additional measurement features can be constantly developed by XtreeE and therefore adapted to specific user needs.

In 2018 Wasp introduced Crane WASP, a collaborative 3D printing system able to print houses. The WASP project studies, realises and sponsors eco-friendly systems that understand that a house is a primary need and a right. It suggests a process to actualise houses with a very low price.

COBOD is a world leader in 3D construction printing solutions. The company constantly aims to improve its printing speed, efficiency, labour need and material cost to challenge conventional construction. With over 50 3D printers sold, COBOD helps to lead the way in 3D construction printing.

Apis Cor is an award-winning construction technology company continuing to make huge progress in the housing construction industry, particularly concerning concrete 3D printing technology. The company uses robotic printers, named Frank, Gary and Mary, to ensure that building is consistent and easy.

The company designed and successfully tested 3D printed concrete walls as comparable to concrete block walls which are structurally reinforced. Its proprietary concrete material is 33% stronger than concrete block material, according to the company website.

As reported by Yahoo Finance, Apis Cor seeks to introduce automation to the construction industry, providing builders with the technology to increase productivity, speed up construction times, and work towards a goal of building low-rise buildings robotically to meet the high demand for housing.

Members of the Monroe County 4-H Robotics Team have been hard at work building face shields using 3D printers. The group delivered their first batch of the protective shields to health care workers in Monroe and Summers counties. (WVU Photo)

Using digital technology, a 3D printer and ingenuity, the robotics team spent hours printing and creating nearly 40 face shields in three days to provide to local health care facilities in Monroe and Summers counties. The team was able to use money raised to attend the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship, which has been canceled, to make the shields.

US robotics company Haddington Dynamics launched its affordable, open-source Dexter robot arm in 2015. With an impressive list of customers including NASA, Toshiba, and GoogleX, the company is using 3D printing to create a cost-effective robot arm.

The team at Haddington Dynamics initially used laminated wood, paper, and a laser cutter to create the Dexter, and then moved on to a PLA printer to create parts at a more cost-effective price point. Unfortunately, the PLA material was weak and required extra reinforcement, so it was not a good investment for them.

Haddington Dynamics was previously spending an enormous amount to create each Dexter, and it would take a week to assemble parts made from PLA. Now, it only takes a day to assemble each 3D printed robot, while costs are down significantly in both material and labor. With Markforged technology, Haddington has also been able to consolidate parts for their robot arm, from 800 parts down to 70. Seeing as the company makes about ten Dexters per month, the printers have more than paid themselves off.

A manufacturer specialising in plastic food wrapping chose to invest in a retrofitting of their nine-colour rotational printing line. The overall obsolescence of the robotics part led our client to re-think the machine system, replacing it with new equipment.

In order to reach these objectives, we proposed our client should replace all the robots on the line in the Siemens S5 range by the S7-1500 range. This replacement also included the transfer of API programmes and the machine network communication protocol, as well as the replacement of the IHM supervisor and the IHMs on the colour groups. Consequently, the experts in our design office were busy for several weeks in order to carry out this retrofitting project and comply with the programmed immobilisation time for this machine, in other words, two weeks.

Following observation of a communication problem, we decided with our client to retrofit the entire machine in one single 15-day stoppage in order to carry out the work (instead of dealing with one printing group per month over 2 stoppage days).

When additive manufacturing joins forces with industrial robotics and advanced materials, it unlocks a realm of possibilities for creating innovative large-scale products. By simply equipping a multi-axis robot with a print head, you gain access to a 3D printer capable of producing exceptionally large objects with remarkable flexibility.

3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) provides the potential to increase the productivity and reduce the environmental impact of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. The 3DCP research group adresses the scientific challenges to develop the technology towards safe and sustainable structural applications of 3D printed concrete.

The 3DCP research group runs various MSc, EngD and PhD projects, in collaboration with (inter)national academic and industry partners. On this page, you can find an overview of our research activities, staff, and recent publications. Interested to collaborate? Contact our researchers directly or via 3Dconcret...@remove-this.tue.nl.

The goal of the TU/e 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) research program is to establish concrete printing as a viable new method to manufacture concrete elements and buildings, and to fundamentally understand its processes. The research group operates and develops its own 3D Concrete Printing facility at the Department of the Built Environment. The research facilities consist of a large-scale gantry printer, as well as numerous large- and small-scale industrial robot arms. The research group has access to a wide range of (non-)destructive experimental facilities to characterize printable materials, as well as numerical tools to analyze the process and design printable structures.

The program is run by the chair of Concrete Structures of the Unit Structural Design, in close collaboration with the chairs of Innovative Structural Design, Applied Mechanics, as well as Architectural Design and Engineering. Within the 3DCP program, numerous PhD, EngD, MSc and other research projects is being conducted.

Officially opened in September 2021, the 3DCP research group contributed to a unique 3D printed bicycle bridge in the city of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The bridge, with a total length of 29 meters and characterized by its curved shapes, was designed by Michiel van der Kley. The role of the TU/e research group was the validation of the structural system and it's printability, through extensive testing. This project was a collaboration between Rijkswaterstaat, TU/e, Saint-Gobain Weber Beamix, BAM, Witteveen+Bos, and Summum Engineering.

David Fry, a Quadrangles dad, mentor and member of the Voron Design team, introduced the students to 3D printing to help build their fighting robots. He asked the Voron crew to donate spare parts, which the students then used to build a Voron Trident, a large format, high speed Core XY machine capable of cranking out ABS parts. Voron Design is the volunteer group behind DIY Voron 3D printers.

Fry said the Quadrangles were looking for an off season project, and thought about building a superfast printer. Instead of going for the obvious speed Benchy machine, the kids mounted their Trident to a robotic platform similar to what their combat robot, the Aegaeon, uses. The machine is completely battery powered and capable of printing ABS while driving down the sidewalk.

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