Robotic construction and architected materials
A robot that prints a wall can lay down shapes no formwork could hold. That raises two questions: which shapes are worth printing, and what material will stand up straight while it sets. The papers here answer both, from crush tests on printed cells to mortar mixes tuned for the nozzle.
Cells that grow like bone
A Voronoi pattern splits a plane so every point belongs to its nearest seed. Bone and foam look like this, and a printer can make it as easily as a regular honeycomb. Panels printed in PLA at 10% infill were crushed and compared. Change the seeds and the cell count to see the family of shapes.
Source: Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering, 2023. The pattern is generated here in your browser and is not one of the tested panels; the energy and efficiency ranges are the published results.
Soft enough to pump, stiff enough to stack
Printable mortar has to flow through a 14 bar pump and then hold the weight of every layer above it within minutes. Fast-setting cement mixes were tuned for 1.5, 2 and 3 cm nozzles and tracked from 4 hours to a day with ultrasound as well as load tests.
Both mixes use fast-setting cement and flowed 142 to 150% on the flow table. The drier mix was stronger sooner; by 24 hours both reached about 4.3 MPa. Ultrasonic indices peaked at 6 hours and then fell by more than half, tracking changes in the microstructure.
Source: Emergent Materials, 2026. The printer is a drawing and the layer count follows the nozzle size only. The 24 hour point is shown as one value because the paper reports both mixes at about 4.3 MPa.
Winding angle and a crash
Wrapping glass fibre around a plastic tube makes a light crash absorber. The angle of the winding decides how it folds. Tubes wound at 45°, 55°, 65° and 90° were crushed end to end.
From 45° to 90°, load capacity, crush force efficiency and energy absorption generally rose with the angle.
Adding the glass fibre raised every crash measure well above bare PVC.
Source: Materials, 2021. The paper describes trends across the four angles; the tube is drawn for illustration.
Guides, waste and failures
Plastic before metal
Stiffened hexagonal cells printed in plastic and in metal improved in the same ways as their shape changed. The plastic route was 80% faster and 53.6% cheaper for trying out designs.
An elbow that failed early
Composite cooling-water elbows built for 25 years failed after 7, 9 and 10. The cause was a poorly made joint; walls under 15 mm should be reinforced.
Choosing a printing robot
A database of printed buildings and a decision workflow for picking a method. Printing method and motion type mattered most.
Printing with waste
A review of silica fume, fly ash, recycled sand, waste glass, slag and incineration ash in printed concrete, and what each does to buildability and strength.
Papers and grants
8 papers
- 2026Sustainable 3D mortar printing: material optimization and ultrasonic characterization for enhanced construction performance
QUEmergent Materials, 2 citations - 2024Waste materials utilization in 3D printable concrete for sustainable construction applications: a review
QUEmergent Materials, 21 citations - 2023Mechanical and energy absorption properties of 3D-printed honeycomb structures with Voronoi tessellations
QUFrontiers in Mechanical Engineering, 33 citations - 2023A guided approach for utilizing concrete robotic 3D printing for the architecture, engineering, and construction industry
QUConstruction Robotics, 16 citations - 20213D Printing Polymeric Materials for Robots with Embedded Systems
QUTechnologies, 33 citations - 2021Effect of Fibre Orientation on the Quasi-Static Axial Crushing Behaviour of Glass Fibre Reinforced Polyvinyl Chloride Composite Tubes
QUMaterials, 25 citations - 2021A Comparative Study between Polymer and Metal Additive Manufacturing Approaches in Investigating Stiffened Hexagonal Cells
QUMaterials, 13 citations - 2021Rupture of an Industrial GFRP Composite Mitered Elbow Pipe
QUPolymers, 5 citations
Grants
- 2024Robotic 3D-Printing of thermally isolated structures made of sustainable and recycled construction materials
US$164,383 · Qatar University · Principal Investigator - 2019Qatar Robotic Printing
US$579,120 · Qatar National Research Fund · Lead Principal Investigator