A bit of a milestone in 3DCP: the world’s largest 3D printed structure is about to be completed.
A LinkedIn post from Muamer Demir, Head of 3D Printing Construction at UCC Holding, details the project.
It’s located in Qatar, where the structure is part of that country’s massive 3D printed public school project. UCC Holding is the main construction partner in the project, and they make use of large-scale COBOD 3DCP equipment.
The project intends to produce 14 public schools, but two were marked for 3D printing. They are enormous: specifications of the built area are 20,000 square meters (215,000 sf), and there are two of them.
The buildings are two storeys tall, as you can see in the images, built on 100 x 100 m plots of land.
This is the interesting part: as large as COBOD’s BODXL system is, it still isn’t big enough to print the entire school in one go. Instead, a portion is printed and then the entire BODXL is torn down and reassembled in a different spot to print more of the building.
According to Demir, this is being done in no less than 15 times during the project (the final 15th move is still in progress). They built a structure of 19,500 sm (close to spec) and extruded 28,000 sm of concrete walls.
Demir said that the project will be ”The largest 3D printed building unit ever constructed” and also “the largest 3D concrete printing operation ever executed”.
I have no doubt he’s correct, but I also believe this is a record that won’t last long. If it’s done once and proven, then others may wish to build even larger structures with 3DCP.
One question I have is about cost: does the cost of repeatedly moving the enormous BODXL make the project cost more than a conventional building approach?
If this size of structure becomes a frequent project, then we may see new 3DCP approaches that don’t require repeated tear down / installation of the printer.
Maybe the printer will move on its own.
Via LinkedIn
