World’s largest 3D printer unveiled
University shows how homes can be constructed with a lower carbon footprint
ORONO (Maine): The world’s largest 3D printer has created a house that can cut construction time and labour. An even larger printer unveiled recently may one day create entire neighbourhoods.
The machine revealed Tuesday at the University of Maine is four times larger than the first one – commissioned less than five years ago – and capable of printing ever mightier objects. That includes scaling up its 3D-printed home technology using bio-based materials to eventually demonstrate how printed neighbourhoods can offer an avenue to affordable housing to address homelessness in the region.
Thermoplastic polymers are extruded from a printer dubbed the “Factory of the Future 1.0,” said Habib Dagher, director of Umaine’s Advanced Structures & Composite Centre, where both of the current printers are located. It combines robotics operations with new sensors, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence, Dagher said.
And there could be even larger printers in the future after the University of Maine breaks ground this summer on a new building.
“We’re learning from this to design the next one,” he said.
Shrouded by a black curtain, the printer was on and whirring behind the speakers during the event. At the end, the curtain opened revealing the printer was working on a test project for a future boat.
The printer’s frame fills up the large building in which it’s housed on the Umaine campus, and can print objects 29m long by 10m wide by 5.5m high.
It has a voracious appetite, consuming as much as 227kg of material per hour.
The original printer, christened in 2019, was certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest polymer 3D printer, the university said. It was used to create a 600-sq-foot, single-family home made of wood fibre and bio-resin materials that are recyclable. Dubbed “Biohome3d,” it showed an ability to quickly produce homes.
Dagher said there’s a shortage of both affordable housing and workers to build homes. The university wants to show how homes can be constructed nearly entirely by a printer with a lower carbon footprint.
The buildings and construction sector accounts for roughly 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions, largely due to the production and use of materials such as cement, steel and aluminium that have a significant carbon footprint, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
Such printed buildings can be recycled, which is unique compared to current construction. “You can basically deconstruct it, you can grind it up if you wish, the 3D printed parts, and reprint with them, do it again,” Dagher said before the event.
“It’s not about building a cheap house or a biohome,” he added, referring to the first 3D-printed house made entirely with biobased materials. “We wanted to build a house that people would say, ‘Wow, I really want to live there.’”
Looking ahead, researchers plan to tinker with the material consumed by the machine, including more bio-based feedstocks from wood residuals that are abundant in Maine, the nation’s most heavily forested state.