About this Research Topic

Background

The adoption of digital solutions for construction has proved to increase workplace safety and support the Circular Economy, by reducing material waste and simplifying the resource recapture. Additive Manufacturing (AM, or 3D printing) processes have the great advantage of flexibility in the geometry of the outcome. This aspect appears to be most suitable for the realization of efficient forms which are difficult to realize with conventional manufacturing techniques, but result in a severe reduction in the material used. However, the use of AM technologies require advanced multidisciplinary knowledge in manufacturing, robotics, material science and computational design.

The current research effort is devoted to addressing issues and possibilities related to the application of AM in construction. As such, advanced manufacturing technologies for large-scale applications and computational design methods are developed for a new generation of buildings. To efficiently adopt these new digital fabrication techniques in construction ad-hoc material characterization, design guidelines, and large-scale tests are needed to provide pieces of evidence and build new design provisions for construction.

The topic addresses all possible applications of Additive Manufacturing technologies in the construction sector. Possible article themes include, but are not limited to:

- Concrete 3D printing

- Metal 3D printing

- 3D printed composite materials

- Advanced manufacturing technologies for large-scale applications

- Case studies for Additive Construction

- Design to fabrication strategies

- Computational design

- Experimental and numerical studies

Keywords: Additive Manufacturing, Concrete 3D printing, Metal 3D printing, Additive construction, Digital fabrication

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