A Preliminary Study of the Impact of Robotic Systems on Concrete 3D Printing in the Construction Industry (2022-12)¶

The implementation of extrusion-based additive concrete manufacturing processes ("concrete 3D printing") in the construction industry is accompanied by the use of automated and robotic systems. In this paper, the automated and robotic systems used in the concrete 3D printing process are first classified, described in detail, and then classified in terms of construction operations in the context of production planning. For this purpose, they are differentiated into four main categories (production systems, folding arm systems, articulated arm robots and special solutions). By describing the systems in detail, design-related characteristics of the automated and robotic systems can be identified and used for a construction management discussion. Using the example of cycle planning, it is shown that the size of the workspace as well as the positioning of the systems significantly influence the design of the production processes.