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REVIEW article

Front. Mater.
Sec. Structural Materials
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmats.2024.1458752
This article is part of the Research Topic Advanced and Low-Carbon Materials for 3D Printing in Construction View all articles

The Rise of Aerial Additive Manufacturing in Construction: A Review of Material Advancements

Provisionally accepted
Barrie Dams Barrie Dams 1Binling Chen Binling Chen 1*Yusuf Furkan Kaya Yusuf Furkan Kaya 2Paul Shepherd Paul Shepherd 1Mirko Kovac Mirko Kovac 3Richard J Ball Richard J Ball 1
  • 1 University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom
  • 2 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 3 Imperial College London, London, England, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The construction industry has recently increased the adoption of additive manufacturing (AM, also known as 3D-printing) technologies. This review paper presents the state of the art of groundbased AM systems in construction, focusing comprehensively on developments in the material aspect towards using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), commonly referred to as 'drones'. AM itself is introduced, and an overview of the history of AM is provided. Key projects developing both ground-based cementitious and polymeric AM applications for construction purposes are reviewed along with material constituents, AM deposition methods and reinforcement techniques to mitigate against crack propagation. The review details a cutting-edge Aerial Additive Manufacturing (AAM) system developed to utilise untethered, self-powered UAV platforms extruding material during autonomous flight, which is designed to bring multi-agent aerial mobility to AM in the construction industry. An overview of the history of UAV development is presented, as well as the current use of UAV platforms combined with material deposition devices for construction and considerations for developing suitable materials and future research.

    Keywords: Aerial Additive Manufacturing, Construction Industry, unmanned aerial vehicles, Material Properties, Cementitious material, Polymers, Rheology

    Received: 03 Jul 2024; Accepted: 18 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Dams, Chen, Kaya, Shepherd, Kovac and Ball. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Binling Chen, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.