Digital Process Model for Concrete 3D Printing (2019-05)¶

In order to be able to produce buildings autonomously using concrete 3D printing, the demanding boundary conditions of the construction processes must be mastered in terms of content and machinery. The construction machine must be controlled via specially prepared data structures and have sophisticated data management. A BIM building model that contains both geometric and material-specific information will serve as the basis. The data required for the concrete 3D printing process will be extracted from the BIM model and then converted into machine control data via an end-to-end digital process chain. An interdisciplinary team at TU Dresden has been developing the extrusion-based concrete 3D printing process CONPrint3D since 2014. The data process chains already established for small-format 3D printing are only applicable to large-format 3D printing, in particular CONPrint3D, to a limited extent. Data exchange via the IFC interface and the development of customized slicing software are prerequisites for implementing 3D printing in the construction industry in a reliable and economical manner. In addition, the data obtained from the BIM model must be supplemented with print-specific data in a pre-process and merged into an overall data model. This article analyzes the applicability of the existing digital process chain for concrete 3D printing. The aim of the article is to identify existing deficits and possible modifications to the data process chain.