Reinforcement of Three-Dimensional-Printed Concrete Structures by Weaving and Knitting of Continuous Fibers and Wires (2021-11)¶

Digital fabrication and automated manufacturing technologies have been explored for civil engineering applications in the recent past and have rapidly gained momentum. Research and industrial development activities have been primarily focused on three-dimensional (3D) printing of concrete using the basic principle of extrusion along a predefined, automatically guided path. While the automated placement and shaping of concrete has advanced and has been refined significantly, the installation of reinforcement in the concrete is still largely done using traditional methods by manual placement of conventional steel reinforcing bar in a cavity between 3D-printed walls of formwork, which is subsequently filled by conventional cast-in-place concrete or grout. The concept for the construction of a structure in an entirely automated, digitally controlled process using alternative methods of structural reinforcement is currently still to be developed. Structural reinforcement is a key requirement in any efficient and economical concrete structure, and it is a challenge to invent a process for placing this reinforcement using an automated process in line with the printing process of concrete.